Virtual reality as a communication tool for fire safety – Experiences from the VirPa project

Abstract

<p>This paper presents a serious game on fire safety that utilises virtual reality (VR) technology. The game represents an office being engulfed in smoke while the player’s task is to escape the building, but the player is not aware of this goal before the fire alarm is triggered in the game environment. This radical shift in game dynamics is an authentic representation of the unexpected nature of an actual fire alarm. The game was mainly designed to collect information on players’ actions for analysing them as representations of human behaviour in a real fire situation. For our study, 169 people played the game in controlled environments. The recorded metrics demonstrate the potential of VR applications as tools for fire-related learning and behavioural analysis, while the results from a post-game user experience questionnaire show that the players were highly engaged in the fire evacuation task and found the VR application to be an appealing training environment. This paper analyses the pros and cons of the game design project and proposes actions to be implemented in future VR games on fire safety.</p>