The Potential of Seated and Standing Short Duration Casual Exergames to Increase Positive Affect

Decreasing sedentary behavior and taking active short duration breaks offers several positive benefits for office workers. One way to encourage active short duration breaks in an office environment is through the use of casual exergames. Previous research has shown that casual exergames offer benefits in terms of enjoyment, exertion, and increased positive affect. However, little is known about whether this holds true for short duration (e.g., 2 minutes) casual exergames and if seated compared to standing gameplay offers similar benefits. Through a quasi-experimental within-subjects design we investigated whether positive affect differs before and after short duration casual exergaming for seated and standing positions, and if seated compared to standing short duration casual exergaming differs in terms of positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, and performance. The main results showed that short duration casual exergaming increased positive affect significantly for both standing and seated gameplay and that there were no differences between seated and standing gameplay in terms of positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, and performance.


INTRODUCTION
Despite regular active breaks being widely recommended, office workers spend a considerable portion of their time in sedentary positions [1].A recent meta-analysis showed that workers spent an average of 60% of their waking time sedentary, with office workers being one of the most sedentary groups [2].Sedentary behavior, including periods without movements such as TV-watching or sitting in workplaces, is not always synonymous with getting too little exercise and has been studied as a separate research area of physical activity [3].A sedentary lifestyle leads to health problems [4][5][6], regardless of the time spent on physical activity surrounding the sedentary behavior [7].For example, adults sitting still for 10 hours per day compared to 1 hour per day display a 34% higher risk of increased mortality when accounting for physical activity [8].Including short active breaks has shown promise in reducing the negative effects associated with a sedentary lifestyle [9].Apart from positively impacting physical health, taking short, 2-minute microbreaks every 30 minutes can also increase the mental health of office workers without having negative effects on their productivity [10].Previous studies have, for example, found that taking regular short breaks at work can lead to an increase in positive affect [11,12] which in turn can predict job performance [12].
One approach that has been used to reduce sedentary behavior [13][14][15] and increase active breaks [16][17][18] is the use of exergames, videogames that require the use of movement or exertion to be played [19].Exergames can motivate people to be more active [20] and can be deployed as an easy-to-use and cost-efficient health promotion strategy in the workplace [21].In the context of promoting active breaks to decrease sedentary behavior, so-called casual exergames might be of particular relevance.Casual exergames are exergames with short playtimes that are easy to learn and lead to moderate levels of physical activity [22].Since casual exergames create engaging experiences with short time commitments and limited setup requirements, they allow for repeated active breaks throughout the day in a workplace setting [23,24].Furthermore, previous research has shown that casual exergames can produce sufficient levels of exertion while providing enjoyment [15,23,25], making them a suitable solution for encouraging physical activity.
Casual exergames have also shown promise in increasing positive affective states [15,23].In a work setting this is relevant since positive affect is associated with higher work performance [12], lower stress levels [26], and overall well-being [27].Previous studies have investigated the impact of positive affect on 10-minute durations of gameplay [15,23].However, less is known about whether shorter duration gameplay, e.g., 2 minutes, can also contribute to a positive affective experience.For office workers, this is important to consider since shorter duration gameplay would allow workers to take more regular active breaks while still leading to physical and mental health benefits [10].
Furthermore, most exergames are designed to be played while standing up [15,[22][23][24][25][28][29][30][31] or walking around [13,32,33].This can limit where or by whom they can be played.In small or cluttered spaces, including some office environments, players might move in ways that could lead to injuries by hitting furniture or other objects in their surroundings.Exergames that require the player to stand up are also inaccessible to people with certain physical disabilities that make it impossible or dangerous for them to play while standing up, such as people with lower body mobility impairments.People with disabilities already have fewer means to exercise [34,35] and exergames that can be played with disabilities can improve the lives of people with mobility issues [36,37].In an office environment, people with and without lower body mobility impairments should be allowed to reap the same benefits of casual exergames, making it important to understand how standing and seated casual gameplay differ from each other in experience and outcomes.While previous studies have shown potential in both seated [38,39] and standing [15,23] casual exergames, to the authors' knowledge, no previous research has investigated if there is a difference between seated and standing casual exergames in terms of positive affect, enjoyment, and perceived exertion and if the same casual exergames could effectively be played in both seated and standing positions.
The purpose of the present work is therefore to understand the potential of shorter format casual exergames that could be applied to an office work setting to encourage regular micro-breaks, and to understand the impact of playing such casual exergames in either seated or standing positions.A quasi-experimental design was employed to investigate two main aspects of casual exergaming.First, we wanted to understand if short durations of casual exergaming (2 minutes) could impact positive affect states of players in standing and seated positions.Secondly, we wanted to understand how short-duration casual exergaming differed from longer-duration exergaming in terms of positive affect, enjoyment, perceived exertion, and performance.Positive affect, enjoyment, and perceived exertion were included as measures of the effectiveness of the casual exergame in seated and standing positions.Performance was included to account for potential unfairness in scenarios in which some people play seated while other played standing.For example, if players in standing positions tend to have higher performance compared to players in seated positions, negative consequences could arise over time for players who are only able to play seated.The following main research questions were investigated: • Does positive affect differ after playing short duration (2 minutes) casual exergames in seated or standing positions compared to positive affect before playing?• Do positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, and performance differ between playing short duration (2 minutes) casual exergames in seated compared to standing positions?

RELATED WORK 2.1 Positive Affect in Seated and Standing Exergames
Positive affective states can be elicited when playing video games [40] and engaging in short durations of physical activity [41].Not surprisingly, casual exergames have shown promise in eliciting positive affective experiences related to gameplay.One study showed that playing a casual exergame in a standing position led to a more positive affective state, both when compared to playing a seated sedentary version of the same game and when compared to running on a treadmill [23].The study showed no difference between groups in affective state (measured through arousal) before playing the casual exergame, the sedentary version of the game, or running on the treadmill.After playing a ten-minute version of the casual exergame or of the sedentary game, or doing ten minutes of exercise, the groups differed, with the casual exergame displaying the highest affect.A follow-up study was conducted with new participants, again showing that the casual exergame produced higher affect compared to a sedentary version of the game after a 10-minute game session.The same casual exergame was utilized in another study conducted in a school setting [15].The study found that positive affect measured through arousal was higher for students playing the casual exergame in a standing position during breaks compared to students engaging in sedentary behavior without exergaming or exercise.At the same time, the study found that the casual exergame group had lower positive affect compared to the group of students who exercised during the break.The results from the studies [15,23] are consistent with the results from a previous meta-analysis which showed that exercise duration ranging between 7-60 minutes can increase positive affective states [42].
Based on the results from the previous studies [15,23] we hypothesize that positive affect will increase after playing a short-duration (2 minutes) casual exergame in a standing position (H1) and that positive affect will increase after playing a short-duration (2 minutes) casual exergame in a seated position (H2).
Engaging in different types of movements can also generate different affective states [43][44][45].Previous studies have shown that engaging in happy movements, i.e., jumping or raising both arms, can elicit positive affective states [44][45][46].When studying which movement elements were associated with different emotions, Shafir et al. [46] found that upwards motions and expanding the body in the horizontal and vertical planes was associated with feelings of happiness.To the authors' knowledge no previous research has investigated how standing compared to seated positions can impact positive affect when playing casual exergames.Based on the notion that expanding the body in the vertical plane can predict feelings of happiness [46] we hypothesize that positive affect will be higher after playing a short-duration (2 minutes) casual exergame in a standing compared to seated position (H3).

Exertion in Seated and Standing Exergames
Previous research has shown that working in a standing position leads to higher energy expenditure compared to working in a seated position [47,48].Utilizing standing positions in casual exergaming might therefore also result in higher energy expenditure in standing compared to seated positions.In the context of traditional exergames, designed for longer gameplay durations, previous studies have shown that standing positions might result in higher exertion levels compared to sitting positions [49,50].One study measured energy expenditure in the context of seated and standing boxing exergames lasting between 8-10 minutes, and found that the standing exergame resulted in higher energy expenditure compared to seated exergames, with no significant differences in ratings of perceived exertion [49].Another study, conducted with an adapted game mat used to allow players with physical disabilities to engage in seated gameplay, showed higher levels of perceived exertion, energy expenditure, and heart rate for standing compared to seated positions [50].In this study, standing participants without any physical disabilities played by stepping on buttons on the game mat with their feet, while seated participants with physical disabilities had the game mat placed in front of them on a table and played by pressing the buttons with their hands.Due to the discrepancy between types of players, types of movement, and the fact that no statistical analysis was performed to compare the groups, it is difficult to conclude if the findings are generalizable and if they are actually derived from the standing and seated positions.A similar study found that energy expenditure and perceived exertion was also slightly higher for standing compared to seated gameplay, using an adapted balance board for exergaming [36].However, again no statistical analysis was performed.
At the same time, other studies have shown that seated positions could also result in higher exertion levels compared to standing positions [51,52].One study [52] showed that a seated position in a full-body gesture virtual reality exergame produced significantly higher heart rates, increases in heart rates, calories burned, and perceived exertion compared to the same exergame played in a standing position.These results could, however, be explained by the two positions utilizing different movements, with the seated exergame involving more whole-body movements compared to the standing exergame [52].Another study showed higher levels of perceived exertion in seated compared to standing gameplay.However, all participants had disabilities which could have hindered their gameplay in the standing position, and no statistical analysis was performed [51].Since the most reliable previous study [49], in the context of comparing the effect of seated and standing gameplay on exertion, showed higher energy expenditure associated with standing gameplay, we hypothesize that energy expenditure will be higher after playing a short-duration (2 minutes) casual exergame in a standing position compared to a seated position (H4).

Enjoyment and Performance in Seated and Standing Exergames
Limited research has been conducted in terms of comparing the enjoyment between standing and seated exergames.In several studies it has been found that seated and standing gameplay resulted in similar levels of enjoyment [36,[50][51][52].These studies have several limitations in terms of comparing standing and seated gameplay, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the actual effect of standing compared to seated gameplay on enjoyment.No statistical analysis was conducted comparing seated and standing gameplay in some of the studies [36,50,51] and in two of the studies [50,52], different movements were utilized in the standing and seated positions.Since enjoyment is closely linked to positive affect [53] and higher exertion levels [54], we believe that standing gameplay might result in higher levels of enjoyment due to an increased positive affect and exertion and hypothesize that: enjoyment will be higher after playing a short-duration (2 minutes) casual exergame in a standing position compared to a seated position (H5).
Performance is positively related to game enjoyment [55,56] as players who perform better experience higher flow and more enjoyment [57].One of the most important factors in the motivation to play games is the feeling of competence [58], and a player's ability to master challenges plays an important role in the enjoyment experience of a game [59].In comparing standing and sitting gameplay for a full-body virtual reality exergame, players in seated positions had lower scores, measured via number of missed gestures, compared to players in standing positions [52].However, as mentioned above, the study included different movements and was conducted in virtual reality which could have affected the results [52].Based on these findings, there might be a risk of seated exergames resulting in lower performance.Therefore, we hypothesize that: performance will be higher after playing a short-duration (2 minutes) casual exergame in a standing compared to seated position (H6).

METHOD
To investigate if positive affect differed before and after playing a short duration casual exergame in seated and standing positions and if positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, and performance differed for seated and standing positions, a within-subject design was employed.Participants played the same casual exergame, which utilized the same movements in both the standing and seated positions, once in a standing position and once in a seated position, with half of the participants starting in a seated position and half in a standing position.The general procedure consisted of participants filling out an initial survey followed by playing two 2-minute game sessions, one in a seated and one in a standing position, with followup surveys after each game session.Answers were analyzed using SPSS to find change in positive affect before and after one session of gameplay, as well as finding differences in positive affect, enjoyment, perceived exertion, and performance between participant's experience of playing sitting down versus standing up.

The Casual Exergame
The casual exergame used in the study was an in-house developed exergame developed for a casual exergame application designed with the purpose of encouraging office workers to take short duration breaks (2 minutes) regularly during the workday, preferably every 30 minutes [24].The application consists of multiple different casual exergames, each of which is designed to be played for two minutes at a time.Each exergame utilizes different gaming mechanics and body movements targeting different body parts to give users a variety of short exergames to choose from.The 2-minute time limit was chosen for all exergames in the application [24] as active pauses of two to three minutes have been shown to be enough to provide physical and mental health benefits while not negatively affecting work [10].
The exergame used in the present study is grounded in a conventional arcade gaming theme and adhered to the fundamentals of casual exergames, employing straightforward game mechanics in order to make it easy for players to grasp the exergame and direct their attention towards the actions.The goal of the exergame is to move a sheep avatar through an endless path of both static and moving obstacles as far as possible within a time limit of two minutes.To perform actions in the game, the player raises and lowers one or both arms depending on the intended move.The exergame is played with the player standing or sitting in front of a computer screen that displays the game interface (Figure 1) and interacting with the game by moving their arms in the air.The player's movements are detected using a web camera feed and Mediapipe, an open-source machine learning cross-platform framework developed by Google [60] that detects the positions of different parts of the player's body to generate appropriate responses in the game.The camera feed is also displayed for the player in the upper left corner of the screen (Figure 1) so the player can see what the exergame is seeing and adjust their position if they notice they are not fully visible.
To detect motion, the positions of the body parts of interest (both arms up, both arms down, or one arm up and the other down) are tracked and detected as actions (moving forward, left, or right) performed in the exergame.The sheep avatar moves forwards when the player lifts both arms above their head.Figure 2a shows how both elbows (marked with a dotted line) must be above the nose (marked with a dashed line) to trigger a forward jump.To be able to start a new movement, both arms must be lowered again to get to a position where the player's elbows are below the player's shoulders (marked with a dashed and dotted line in Figure 2b).To move left, only the left arm is raised while the right hand remains down (Figure 2c), and vice versa to move to the right.Again, both arms must be lowered before a new jump can be triggered.
Each successful movement forward in the game is rewarded with one point towards the final score, which is visible in the top right corner of the screen together with the remaining time in the game session.Only forward movements are accounted for in the final score, but the player must sometimes move sideways to avoid obstacles on the path.The static obstacles consist of trees that block the path but do not harm the player, and the moving obstacles consist of cars and trains that kill the player if collided with.Rivers are another obstacle the player can cross by jumping on floating tree trunks floating in the river.The player dies if they miss the tree trunks and instead jump into the water.If the player dies, the game starts over at the first position in a new path after five seconds, but the player will keep their score from before dying and can keep increasing the score by moving forwards again.Apart from not being able to resume the game immediately, thus losing some time to score more points, no punishment is given for dying.

Procedure
Participants were recruited at a game event in Linköping in Sweden by asking people who passed by a stand showcasing various casual exergames if they were interested in participating in a study on exergames.In the recruitment of participants, the only exclusion  criteria was that the participants had to be above the age of 18. Thirty people participated in the entire study procedure, with ages ranging between 21 to 54 (M = 30, SD = 9.68).Twenty-one participants identified as men, seven identified as women, and two identified as non-binary.Sixty percent of participants (n = 18) were workers, 37% (n = 11) students, and 3% (n = 1) had some other primary occupation.The majority of participants reported having at least some previous experience with exergames (90%, N = 18).
Participants received information about the study and, if interested in participating in the study, signed a consent form.After signing the consent form participants filled out a survey which included demographic information and measures of positive and negative affect using the short version of PANAS [61], and were then shown an instructional video explaining the exergame and the movements used.The video was shot from the instructor's waist up so as not to show if the instructor in the video was playing sitting down or standing up.After the video, half of the participants were asked to sit down on a chair and the other half were asked to stand up in front of a laptop screen at a pre-set distance of approximately 1.5 meters.The order of standing and seated gameplay was counterbalanced across the participants to prevent carryover effects.After sitting down or standing up in front of the screen, the camera angle was adjusted so that the participant was visible in the video feed with some space left above their heads.The participant was asked to demonstrate the movements to confirm they had understood how to control the exergame.Incorrect movements were corrected until the participant performed them correctly.After the first gameplay session, the final score was written down, and the participant was asked to sit down and fill out a survey containing questions related to the enjoyment [62] they experienced while playing and their experience of exertion [63] and positive affects [61] after playing the exergame.Once the survey had been filled out, the participant was again instructed to stand up or sit down, this time in the position they had not yet played in, i.e., those who played the first session while standing up were now playing sitting down and vice versa.The participant then played a second round of the same exergame and filled out an identical survey as after the first round.All surveys were in English and filled out on paper.
A pilot study was conducted with two participants (one starting in a seated position and one starting in a standing position) to test the procedure before the official data collection.In the pilot study there was some confusion about how the river worked as it was not clear if the water or the logs were the dangerous element.The instruction video was thus edited to clarify how to cross the river without dying.

Measures
A shortened version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) scales [64] was used to measure positive and negative affects before and after playing each session of the exergame.The original scale consists of 20 mood descriptions and the participants rate the extent to which they feel that mood on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely) [64].Half of the descriptions measure positive affect and half of them measure negative affect as two independent and uncorrelated dimensions of affect [64,65].The PANAS scale was chosen due to it being a reliable and valid measure of affect [66], its previous use to measure changes in affect before and after shorter interventions [45], and its previous use in studies on exergames [67].For this study we used a shorter version of the PANAS scales containing ten items (five for positive affect and five for negative affect), which has also been validated [61].The items in the scales are summed up to give a total score for positive affect and negative affect between 5-25 for each scale [61].Due to low variation and consequent problems with internal consistency (with values close to zero) from the negative affect scale, only the positive affect scale of PANAS was included in the analysis.The positive and negative scales are independent and uncorrelated, meaning that results from the positive affect scale are not impacted by removing the negative affect scale.For transparency, descriptive statistics for negative affect are reported.
The perceived exertion of players was measured with the Borg rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scale [63], which has been shown to be a valid measurement of exercise intensity [68].The Borg RPE scale measures perceived exertion on a scale from 6 to 20, with 6 representing the lowest possible exertion and 20 representing the highest to correspond to approximate heart rates at the same intensity [63].The scale has commonly been used to measure perceived exertion in studies on casual exergames [15,22,23].
To measure the player's enjoyment during the game sessions, a shortened version of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) [69] was used.The shortened version uses five of the original eighteen questions and has shown high reliability for exergames across age groups [62].PACES consists of statements for which the player rates their agreement on a 7-point Likert scale [69].Both extreme ends of the scale have a statement, e.g., "1 -I dislike it" and "7 -I like it".Two of the five questions have the most negative statement at 7 and the remaining three have the most positive statement at 7. All questions are summed together (with negative questions reverse coded so 1 corresponds to 7 and so on) to create a final score between 5 and 35, where a higher score indicates higher enjoyment.Finally, performance was measured by the participants' final scores, showing how many times the participant had successfully jumped forwards on the path.

Statistical Analysis
The survey answers were entered by hand into Excel and then imported into SPSS for analysis.Two separate within-subject analyses were made: one to analyze how positive affect changed before and after playing the exergame in either a seated or standing position, and the other to analyze if there were any differences in reported positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, and performance for game sessions played while the participants were standing up compared to the game session they played when seated.
For the first analysis regarding change in positive affect when playing the 2-minute exergame, the positive affect before and after only the first game session were considered.One participant had not filled in one of the items for positive affect before playing the first game session, leading to only 29 of the 30 participants being included in the analysis.The data was first split between participants playing the exergame seated in the first round (n=14) and participants playing the exergame standing (n=15) in the first game round.The internal consistency of the positive affect scale [61] before the first game round and after the first game round, for both seated and standing conditions, was calculated through Cronbach's alpha.Before the first game round the internal consistency for the seated (.555) and standing (.564) groups deviated somewhat from acceptable Cronbach's alpha values (0.6) [70].However, due to there not being large deviations, and since no improvements in internal consistency were made if items were removed, we decided to proceed with the analysis.The internal consistency for the seated (.820) and standing (.819) groups showed acceptable values for the positive affect scale after the first game round.The positive affect scale items were therefore summed for the values before the first game round and the values after the first game round for the seated and standing groups.Two paired t-tests were run comparing how positive affect changed before and after playing the casual exergame, the first comparing positive affect before and after playing the casual exergame for those playing their first round in a seated position (n=14), and the second comparing positive affect before and after playing the casual exergame for those playing their first round in a standing position (n=15).Before the test was run assumptions were accounted for in terms of outliers and deviations from normality in the difference between pairs for the seated and standing groups.Outliers were accounted for in terms of values beyond three times the interquartile range from above the third quartile or below the first quartile.Normality was accounted for through the Shapiro Wilk statistic, which is relevant for small sample sizes [71].No outliers were found, and the Shapiro Wilk test-statistic showed no deviations of normality for either group (sitting = .542,standing = .144).Effect size was calculated using Cohen's d where d = 0.2 corresponds to a small effect, d = 0.5 a medium effect, and d = 0.8 a large effect [71,72].
For the second analysis regarding whether positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, and performance differed between playing a 2-minute casual exergame in a seated or standing position, the data from the seated position gameplay had to be compared to the standing position gameplay, regardless of whether the seated or standing session came first for that player.Since half the players played their first session seated and the second standing and vice versa for the other half to prevent carryover effects, this meant that the values for each respondent's survey answers had to be entered into a new Excel sheet by copying the survey results from the first and second rounds of gameplay and paste the values into new columns based on if they were from the session the participant had played seated or standing up.In other words, a participant who had played the first round in a seated position had the values of session 1 recorded into a seated variable, while a participant who played the first round in a standing position had the values of session 1 recorded into a standing variable.For example, those playing the exergame in a seated position first had their "Borg session 1" answers put into a "Borg seated" column and their "Borg session 2" column put into a "Borg standing" column and vice versa for those who started standing up.The Excel sheet was then imported into SPSS for the analysis.
All 30 participants had filled in the surveys needed for this comparison in full and could thus be used in the second analysis with an equal number of participants playing seated in the first round and standing in the second (n=15) as participants playing standing in the first round and seated in the second (n=15).Negative statements in the PACES scale [69] were reversed, and internal consistency was calculated through Cronbach's alpha for PACES and PANAS in the seated and standing game round.The values were deemed satisfactory for both positive affect (sitting = .804,standing = .849)and for enjoyment (sitting = .831,standing = .713).The positive affect scale items were then summed as were the PACES scale items, and the differences in positive affect, enjoyment, perceived exertion, and performance between the standing and seated game sessions were calculated.Initially, we planned to conduct a paired t-test.However, when accounting for assumptions of no outliers and normality, several deviations occurred.For the differences in positive affect scores, there were several outliers.After transforming the outliers, deviations from normality were still present with the Shapiro-Wilk test statistic producing a significant value (0.070).The enjoyment, performance and perceived exertion scale did not produce any outliers, but the Borg RPE scale [63] also showed deviations from normality (0.005).Therefore, the non-parametric version of the paired t-test, Wilcoxon signed rank, was run instead to compare the difference in positive affect, enjoyment, perceived exertion, and performance between standing and seated casual gameplay.Effect sizes were calculated with the following formula: where r is the effect size, z is the z-score, and N the number of participants and r = 0.2 corresponds to a small effect, r = 0.5 a medium effect, and r = 0.8 a large effect [71].

RESULTS
The negative affect scale showed low negative affect both before (sitting M = 5.79, SD = 0.80, standing M = 5.73, SD = 0.88) and after (sitting M = 5.07, SD = 0.27, standing M = 5.73, SD = 1.28) gameplay for both positions.These values are very close to the lowest possible value (5 out of a maximum of 25) on the scale, and the low variation made the results unsuitable for further analysis.
In the first analysis, the positive affect scores increased from before (M = 14.93,SD = 2.73) to after (M = 17.07,SD = 3.27) playing the 2-minute casual exergame for the participants playing in the seated position (Table 1.).The paired t-test showed that the increase had been statistically significant, t = 3.24, df = 13, p = 0.01.The effect size was d = 0.87, corresponding to a large effect [72].These results indicate that playing a short duration, 2-minute casual exergame in a seated position can positively influence positive affect.Similarly, the positive affect score also increased from before (M = 13.80,SD = 2.73) to after (M = 15.47,SD = 3.34) playing the 2minute casual exergame for the participants playing in the standing position.Again, the paired t-test showed that the increase had been statistically significant, t = 2.75, df = 14, p = 0.02.The effect size was d = 0.71, corresponding to between a medium and large effect [72].The results indicate that playing a short-duration, 2-minute casual exergame in a standing position could also positively influence positive affect.
In the second analysis, comparing the difference in positive affect, exertion, enjoyment, and performance for the standing and seated casual exergaming, no statistically significant differences were found from the Wilcoxon signed rank test (Table 2.).The positive affect scores were slightly higher for the standing (M = 16.50,SD = 3.52) gameplay compared to the seated (M=16.40,SD = 3.27) gameplay, but the difference was not statistically significant, z = -0.10,p = 0.92.The exertion scores were similar for both the standing (M = 13.10,SD = 2.47) and the seated positions (M = 13.10,SD = 2.22), producing no statistically significant differences, z = -0.04,p = 0.97.The standing gameplay produced slightly higher enjoyment (M = 24.70,SD = 4.69) compared to the seated gameplay (M = 24.40,SD = 5.57), but again the difference was not statistically significant, z = -0.44,p = 0.66.Finally, the performance was also slightly higher for the standing gameplay (M = 81.23,SD = 19.01)compared to the seated gameplay (M = 80.03, SD = 20.98),but no statistically significant differences were identified, z = -0.43,p = 0.67.The results indicate that seated compared to standing 2-minute casual exergaming does not differ in terms of positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, or performance.

DISCUSSION
In the present study we first investigated if short duration (2minute) casual exergames could produce increased positive affective states in seated and standing positions.The result showed that there was a statistically significant increase in positive affect before compared to after playing a 2-minute casual exergame in both seated and standing positions, providing support for the hypotheses that positive affect will increase when playing a short-duration casual exergame in a standing or a seated position (H1-H2).For the seated group, the effect size was large, and for the standing group, the effect size was between medium and large, indicating that even short-duration gameplay can result in medium to large effects in positive affect.We also investigated if differences existed between standing and seated short duration casual exergaming in terms of positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, and performance.For all four measures, any differences were insignificant with a small effect size, indicating that there is no difference in the experience of playing the studied exergame in a standing or seated position, rejecting the hypotheses that playing the short-duration casual exergame would lead to higher positive affect, enjoyment, perceived exertion, and performance when played in a standing position compared to when played in a seated position (H3-H6).

Theoretical Contributions
The increase in positive affect when playing the exergame is consistent with the notion of videogame play [40] and short durations of physical activity [41] eliciting positive affective states, and with previous casual exergame research, showing that casual exergaming can produce positive affect [15,23].While previous research has shown that affective states can be enhanced by 10-minute-long casual exergaming [15,23], the present study showed that this also holds true for shorter 2-minute gameplay.
To our knowledge no previous research exists on the differences between standing and seated exergaming positions when it comes to positive affect, but previous research into movements and emotions has associated movements performed in the vertical plane with feelings of happiness [46], which we believed could result in standing positions producing a more positive affective state due to a larger spread in the vertical plane compared to when sitting down.However, in the present study we did not find any significant difference between the standing and seated casual exergaming, indicating that seated gameplay was as beneficial in terms of generating positive affective states as standing gameplay for short duration casual exergaming.
Previous research about exertion in the context of exergames has produced varied results, with some studies indicating that standing gameplay can produce higher exertion [49,50] and other studies indicating that seated gameplay can produce higher exertion [51,52].However, all studies except [49] had limitations in the comparison between standing and seated gameplay in terms of no statistical analysis being conducted or discrepancies in type of participants or movements.The current study used an exergame with only upper body movements to ensure that the movements performed were the same regardless of playing position and showed that there was no difference in perceived exertion between seated and standing gameplay.This is similar to the results in [49] where, although the objectively measured energy expenditure was higher in standing gameplay, the perceived exertion was similar for both standing and seated gameplay in 8-10 minute game sessions.As this study has shown, the same holds for shorter game sessions of 2 minutes, although it is possible that just as in [49] there could be a difference in exertion not captured through players' reported perceptions.
Similar to previous research on exergames [36,[50][51][52] we did not find any difference in terms of the enjoyment of standing vs. seated short duration casual exergaming.The results indicate that seated gameplay is as beneficial in terms of generating enjoyment as standing gameplay for short duration casual exergaming.Finally, previous exergame research has shown that seated gameplay could result in lower scores compared to standing gameplay [52], which differs from the results from this study where there was no apparent difference in performance between seated and standing gameplay.Compared to the study by [52], which measured performance through number of missed gestures in a virtual reality environment, the present study measured performance through the number of forward movements conducted by the character in the exergame, making the results from the studies incomparable.For example, the differences in missed gestures [52] could have arisen from the responsiveness and precision being worse while playing seated or from the seated movements being more difficult to perform in time than standing movements.The results from the present study indicate that standing gameplay is as beneficial in terms of higher performance as standing gameplay for short duration casual exergaming if the movements for both positions are the same, meaning standing up does not have an inherent advantage over seated gameplay when only upper body movements are used to play.

Practical Contributions
From a practical perspective, the results offer promise for the use of short duration casual exergames in an office environment with the purpose of increasing positive affective states.As previous studies have found, taking regular short breaks can lead to increased positive affect [11,12] which in turn can positively impact job performance [12], stress levels [26], and overall well-being [27].Utilizing casual exergames during short breaks could contribute to positive affect and incorporate physical activity, which is associated with reducing the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle [9].Furthermore, we found that the positive affective experience associated with casual exergaming was not only present for standing casual exergaming but also for seated casual exergaming, and that there were no apparent differences in positive affect, enjoyment, perceived exertion, or performance between seated or standing gameplay.This could enable office workers to choose whether to engage in seated or standing gameplay, and could enable people who cannot play standing, e.g., due to constraints in the office environment or due to physical disabilities affecting mobility of the lower body, to reap similar affective benefits from short duration casual exergaming.

Limitations and Further Research
Since the study was conducted with one casual exergame, no implications can be made with regard to whether short duration casual exergaming results in positive affective experiences for all types of casual exergames.Different types of casual exergames could elicit different types of movements and experiences, which can impact the positive affective state differently.Further research using different casual exergames is therefore encouraged to validate the conditions under which changes in positive affect occur in the context of short duration casual exergames.It would also be interesting to study whether negative affect can be lowered using short duration exergames, as well as if exergames can risk increasing negative affect.The results in this study showed that most people already had very low negative affect before playing with scores very close to the lowest possible score, which made the data very skewed and hard to analyze.It is possible that the negative affect scores were so uniformly low due to participants being in a good mood due to the game event, and that a larger sample size from a more neutral environment or an environment in which negative affect is expected could capture a better spread of negative emotions, making change in negative affect easier to capture and analyze.
In a previous study, there was a difference where the standing group had higher energy expenditure than the seated group, but there was no difference in perceived exertion between the groups [49].The results from this study in terms of perceived exertion might therefore be different from the results gained from measuring more objective measures of energy expenditure.To explore whether there could be a difference between standing and seated short duration casual exergames, further studies should be conducted including objective measures of exertion such as heart rate.
The short duration casual exergame used in the present study was designed to incentivize office workers to take active breaks in their work over a longer period of time [24], but the present study was conducted at a game event at a single point in time.It is possible that short duration casual exergames could impact positive affect differently in a work context compared to a game event context, and that continuous gameplay could affect changes in positive affect over time.We also cannot conclude whether seated or standing gameplay could have an impact on positive affect, perceived exertion, enjoyment, or performance over time when players become more skilled at the game, or if the results are transferable to an office environment.Therefore, further studies are needed to validate whether similar changes in positive affect would occur when exergames are played during office work and how it could in turn impact the health and productivity of office workers, as well as if positive affect, exertion (through subjective and objective measures), enjoyment, and performance might differ for standing and seated short duration casual exergaming over time in an office environment.
Finally, more studies should be done with larger sample sizes to draw strong conclusions about the effect of short duration exergames as the sample size of this study was relatively small with 30 participants.

CONCLUSIONS
Overall, the present study found that short duration (2 minutes) casual exergames could provide an increased positive affective experience in both seated and standing gameplay, and that there was no inherent difference between standing and seated short duration casual exergaming in terms of positive affect, exertion, enjoyment, and performance.The results demonstrate that casual exergames could be a promising approach for short breaks in an office environment to increase positive affect, and that seated and standing short duration casual exergaming could offer similar advantages.More research is needed to see if the results are applicable for different types of short-duration casual exergames and in an office work context.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Movement controls.a) Forward jump.b) Reset.c) Left jump (player is raising their left arm).

Table 1 :
Positive affect before and after one session of gameplay.

Table 2 :
Seated compared to standing gameplay.