Games About Health
How do commercial games represent health?
Process
Remember & Research 30 years of commercial gaming history Discuss with other game historians
Johnny Wilson, Ian Bogost, Noah Falstien Collect more examples
Present at 2004 Games for Health
Watch market as new games debut
Why?
Games for Health must draw upon insight and inspiration from commercial games Understanding how health is represented in games is an important audience issue Trying to figure out how health messaging can work in commercial game releases
Health, Media...Games?
Health is great content for other media
TV especially Doctors are common main characters People get ideas for the occupations in health from TV & Film Health shows on radio (Lovelines)
Games are in general... woeful at health subject matter and themes
Compared to TV we're pitiful
Types of Games/Findings
Games with distinct health themes Games with interesting health aspects Games with notable interface ideas “Others”
Other Notes
RPGS show poison, disease, potions, healers. Ultima IV allows the player to give blood to show sacrifice. Many sports games now have injuries. Grand Theft Auto has an ambulance, and also has a representation of endurance (run more, gain stamina). Team Fortress, BF1942, and America's Army have medic characters who have specific roles.
Ozzy & Drix
Based on movie Basic platformer Inside body battling enemies (disease) Temperature = health
Microcosm
(another Fantastic Voyage Game)
Theme Hospital
Health Sim with some tongue & cheek
Note: Score is $$$$$$
SimHealth
Markle Foundation Funded Maxis/John Hiles
Agent based modeling
“A Democracy and Society Computer Simulation”
1993 Healthcare debate Does not run on current systems :(
Epidemic
SSI, 1980's Guns, Germ & Steel sort of setup Epidemics are wargames
Life & Death II: The Brain
Robinson's Requiem
Offbeat Lots of healing issues for your character
in addition to the mundane tasks of hunting, you must deal with diseases that strike inexplicably and amputated limbs. The game claims to monitor over 100 variables from your temperature to malaria and poisoning, but thank god if you know *what* levels they are-
Alter Ego
“be someone else” Separate skus for male and female Dr. Peter Favaro
Mind Mirror
Electronic Arts Timothy Leary
AlphaWaves
Infogrames AKA Continuum
Mindwalker – Amiga by Bill Williams
You are a physics professor gone mad. Your course of action? Delve into your Mind, to inspire "Ideas" by tracing "Paths of Coherent Thought", with the help of your split ego. Then through opened-up Tubes, enter your Brain, to retrieve "Shards of Sanity". Finally, put them back together in Subconscious
Laser Surgeon: The Microscopic Mission
Activision In this difficult game that could make you go blind, you're shrunk to the size of a cell and injected into a patient's body (hrm... where have we heard that before?) to perform surgeries on different body parts. The not-so-intuitive controls takes some getting used to (using joystick is much better), and the graphics (low-res EGA) is really hard to see. Still, it turns a (cliche?) concept into hours of gameplay. Not as good as the classic Life & Death games, but isn't bad.
Click Health
SNES games Debra Lieberman Asthma Basic sort of side scroller
Packy & Marlon
Diabetes
Rex Ronan
Click Health Anti Smoking SNES
Combat Medic
Legacy Interactive
ER Game
Legacy Interactive The Sims meets ER
You’re the resident Keep yourself well while keeping others well Build Skill Level to heal more patients
Fable
Life spans young to old Food = Health Food has caloric value Fat foods = fatter character
Tales of Symphonia
RPG/Adventure for Nintendo GameCube Detailed Nutrition System
GTA San Andreas
Running = getting health back faster Choices of food affect weight Pizza vs. Salads
Nutrition
Vegan Blog debates role of meat in games…
“But I must say that in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, I got a little pleasure from feeding Carl primarily salad meals at the restuarants. Salad meals actually gave you a ton of health and zero fat which was necessary when I was concentrating on building muscle and stamina, hehe. “ “I agree with what everyone else stated above, but I can see how all this meat=health in games fits into existing stereotypes. It's programming kids that meat is better for you. Would be nice if video games would allow certain vegetables/tofu or something to equal the "health" of meat. “
http://community.livejournal.com/vegetarian/2792450. html
Lost in Blue
Konami Nintendo DS Health is categorized by hunger, thirst, stamina, and hit points. If any of the first three categories hits zero, the character's hit points will begin to drop. Passing out due to lack of stamina, to occur. Necessary for the player to monitor the health of both characters and make sure that they eat and drink plenty of food and water and also get plenty of rest.
Fight Night Round 3
EA Next Gen/PS2 Great human modeling NO Health Stats Player must discern health by evaluating the look of the boxer Cut man aspects…
The Sims
Hygiene is a key aspect of your sims life and social capability Lifespan issues in Sims 2 Children & Aging
Trauma Center: Under the Knife
Atlus Entertainment Nintendo DS Surgery Sim Background of cases provided with patient backstory Becomes sort of sci-fi’ish at the end – very arcade like Epidemic breaks out
Trauma Center: Second Opinion
Nintendo Wii Launch Title Uses Wii’s unique controller
BrainAge & Big Brain Academy
Cognitive Exercise Sales Pitch Aimed at much older demographic (successfully) Tie in initially with Japanese based SME Diary & Tips
Viruses in Games
World of Warcraft
Corrupted Blood Disease
In May 2000 many players of The Sims were outraged when their game characters died because of an infection contracted from a dirty virtual guinea pig.
Health in Games
Often Fairly Binary
Dead or Alive
When you deplete your health, your game is over.
Health 0-100 Pick up health pack = Healed Food = Health
Nutrition via Recipes
Caloric Values
Example of pushing decisions/actions a few more levels
Health in Games
Heath is omnipresent in games, but highly abstracted. It's often linked to failure: you can't get to 110% health typically (except in Doom). Healing is usually about finding objects or making a purchase only when you must... but rarely do you practice preventative treatment in games.
Health in Games
Healing is usually about finding objects or makeing a purchase only when you must... …but rarely do you practice preventative treatment in games. IRONICALLY…
doesn't this seem a lot like healthcare in the real world?
Health in Games
We often lack emotion for most game characters therefore we lack passion and empathy for their conditions.
The Next Opportunity
Make games offer more decisions about health
Even a couple other levels of decisions could offer lots of rich opportunity
Tighten the accuracy a bit to improve the representation and messaging but don’t make the game “educational”
Nutrition