Emorhythm

“Facial expressions” can also be a playful item for children. Emorythm is an app that combines facial expression recognition and rhythm game to nurture rich emotional expression and have fun at the same time. Along with the playful music, the game sends out four expression themes ‘Laughter’, ‘Cry’, ‘Anger’, and ‘Surprise’. The player follows the theme and switch the expression one after another to the camera. The app will give points depending on how well the expressions are made. AI technology is used to recognize the facial expressions. By feeding the AI a vast amount of human expression data, it enables to detect subtle changes in facial expressions in an instant. The key to get higher score is to use your facial muscles as much as you can to express joy, anger, sadness, and pleasure. Also, your sense of rhythm is important too, as the rhythm to switch the expression theme gradually speeds up.

Thank you very much for choosing my work as second prize out of many other great entries. Life with masks to prevent infections became the new norm and for the past several years, kid spent a life without seeing their friends’ and teachers’ expressions. This motivated me to create Emorhythm, a game where the players can realize and feel various expressions. Through this app, families and friends can share, laugh, and try out different expressions. I really hope that this app can become the key to unlock new expressions and emotions.

Reading a picture book has two elements; one is for fun and pleasure, and the other is learning experience. By playing with Emorhythm, it introduces the core of social emotional skills of “understanding the other’s emotions” and “expressing one’s own emotions” though playing the traditional children’s game, the staring game. This app can foster social emotional skill while playing. It is a truly well thought out game.
(Yoichi Sakakibara)

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“Playing with one’s own face” is a very interesting perspective. This digital experience makes you realize many things such as, “Making an angry face is difficult than I thought”, and “My crying face looks like this from the outside”. I can imagine that playing with this app with my family and friends might create another way to play with it. The idea is simple, but packed with various ways to enjoy it. It is a remarkable Digital Ehon.
(Keitaro Kamijo)