Health in Games

Summary: Start with a single-cell organism and guide it through its various evolutionary stages to become a space-faring civilization.

Health: Spore is a massively single-player online life simulation game that draws heavily from evolutionary theory. The game puts the player in the role of an omnipotent entity, guiding an organism through five evolutionary stages, making decisions about the species’ appearance and ability at each stage that affects future stages. As such, the game encourages the user to think heavily about genetic adaptability, social behavior, anatomy and biology.

The game consists of five phases, one for each stage of evolution, each of which exhibits its own style of play. In the Cell stage, the organism swims about in the primordial sea, eating food, fighting off predators and earning DNA points which the player can spend on genetic enhancements. In the Creature stage, the organism emerges onto land and starts forming either friendly or hostile associations with other species that inhabit the planet. In the Tribal stage, the focus shifts to division of labor, supplying the creature’s tribe and making friends or enemies with neighboring tribes. In the Civilization stage, the player constructs a modern-esque city for the species and guides it through planetary conquest, either by befriending or defeating neighboring civilizations. Finally, in the Space stage, the species becomes space-borne, terraforming other planets for colonization and befriending or attacking neighboring planets.

As a Sim game, Spore has a heavy level of customizability at each phase. In the first two phases, the player focuses on acquiring genetic enhancements which can improve the player’s adaptability and survival in its environment. In later phases, the player focuses on dressing the species and giving them the technology, resources and allies necessary to become a successful civilization. The player has a high level of finesse, choosing, for instance, exactly which genetic enhancements a creature will possess and where they will be placed on the creature’s body. Enhancements can even be exchanged later for additional DNA points which can be used to purchase other enhancements.

The game takes place in a semi-realistic, highly detailed 3D virtual environment. Both the player’s creature and the NPCs exhibit a high degree of subtlety in their actions, from blinking, breathing and even vomiting to running away or fighting back when attacked. Given the high level of customizability of the player’s creatures, this is an impressive technological feat.

It is possible for the creature or the species to be wiped out at any stage, in which case the species re-spawns and gameplay continues from where it left off.

Spore is part of a massive online community where players can upload and show off their various species. Players can upload their creatures into short YouTube videos which are shown on a special Spore YouTube channel. Also, the player’s creatures are automatically uploaded to a Spore database, where they are downloaded into other players’ games to be used as NPCs to populate the planet or galaxy, depending on the player’s phase. (There is no direct communication between players in-game.) The species downloaded depend on the aggressiveness and other factors of the player’s species.

Further Information:
Wikipedia: Spore (2008 video game)

Summary: You’re a research scientist in Antarctica, and your job is to control the spread of a deadly space-born virus that’s infecting the human population. Use every resource at your disposal to destroy the virus and additional incoming meteors while minimizing casualties.

Health: Epidemic! is a straightforward strategic game. It begins with a map of the world divided into fourteen regions with color-coding to indicate the level of infection in each region so far. The display also includes a radar screen that shows more incoming meteors carrying the virus and where the meteors will hit.

Gameplay is a variation on turn-based role-playing, with the player as the hero and the virus as the opponent. The player must choose from a limited number of options on each turn, including whether to work on containing the virus or destroying the incoming meteors. If the former, the player can choose from an array of options with positive and negative consequences for each. Options include interferon, which kills the virus, but supplies are limited; X-ray machines, which are also effective but have a high breakdown rate; martial law, which only works well in communist countries; gene-splicing techniques, which take time (perhaps too long) to cultivate; and atomic weapons, which have a high casualty rate.

The success of Epidemic! stems in part from its basis in realistic military strategy and in part from subconscious fears regarding end-of-the-world scenarios. Putting the player in the control seat gives him or her the illusion of facing and resolving those scenarios, combined with the thrill of strategic planning.

Further Information:
Atari Magazines: Strategy Games and Simulations from SSI
Wikipedia: Epidemic!

Summary/Health: WiiSports is a package of five sports games—tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing—that was launched with the Wii. Among other things, the games are designed to highlight the mimicking nature of the WiiMote. For each sport, the player holds the WiiMote and moves his or her hands and arms in a gesture similar to playing the actual sport. In bowling, for instance, the player makes a swinging motion to roll his or her ball down the alley, and in golf, the player holds and swings the WiiMote like an actual golf club. In some games, the computer helps by controlling certain motions automatically, such as in tennis, where the computer controls the movement of the player’s on-screen character while the player swings the racket.

Players can custom-create Mii characters to use in the game set. Miis are created by choosing a variety of hair, face, clothing and skin color styles and are saved on the Wii’s hard drive for use across multiple Wii games. Some characters can even be stored in the WiiMote for use with other consoles. The player’s Miis exist in a highly interactive three-dimensional virtual environment that comprises each game.

After a game, a player is awarded or penalized skill points based on his or her performance. Once the player has accumulated 1000 points, he or she is awarded “Pro” status with a cosmetic feature for his or her Mii.

WiiSports has proven to have significant health and social benefits for the players. It has become a popular party game and is sometimes used as a means for organizing social gatherings or competitions. It has been cited as attracting more female, elderly and casual gamers and providing a bonding experience among family members. Professionals have observed that regular play helps players exercise and lose weight, and the game set even comes with a fitness test that calculates the player’s fitness age. From a medical standpoint, it has been used in physical therapy situations for ill or injured patients, and stories emerged of players incurring injuries when hit by either another player swinging a WiiMote or a WiiMote itself that had flown out of a player’s hands. Prolonged play could also lead to muscle fatigue.

As the launch title for the Nintendo Wii, WiiSports introduced a new interactive environment for home consoles. By mimicking the actions occurring in the game, players had finer control and a greater feeling of immersion than any console system up to that time.

Further Information:
Wikipedia: WiiSports

Summary: Fight your way through the Mortal Kombat Tournament until you face the corrupt Grand Champion himself. Defeating him will earn you the title of Grand Champion and restore honor to the Tournament.

Health: Mortal Kombat is a product of the Street Fighter era when one-on-one fighting games were popular in arcades. Players can play either against another player or against the computer. The controls consisted of a joystick and five buttons in an “X” pattern that allowed the player to use a number of fighting moves new to the genre, especially blocking. Unlike most fighting games of the time, characters blocked only when the block button was pressed, took less damage, moved less, and counterattacked more easily, creating a more furtive playing style. Players could also “juggle,” or attack a character repeatedly after an initial hit knocked him or her into the air. Various combinations of buttons and joystick yielded a variety of complex moves, including the ability to shoot energy beams.

Mortal Kombat generated considerable controversy, however, for its fatality moves, special fighting moves that players could use to finish off an opponent. These were often violent, most famously in one move where a character could rip his opponent’s head off, holding it up with the spinal cord visibly dangling beneath the neck. These moves, combined with blood splattered during fights, made Mortal Kombat one of the most graphically violent games ever at the time. Concerned parents worried about impressionable children urged lawmakers to do something, but the video game industry formed the self-regulated Electronic Systems Rating Board (ESRB) instead to rate games for parents and offset congressional hearings.

Players can choose from a variety of characters to use at the start of the game, although the only variations between them were differences in speed, hit detection and damage. The list includes a female character, a trend that was starting to become common in fighting games at the time. Also, the character avatars were digitized photos of actors, making them look more realistic than most video game characters.

Mortal Kombat includes a minigame called “Test Your Might” in between battles. The player’s character would be placed in front of materials of increasing hardness (from wood to diamond), and the player would build up strength by tapping certain buttons repeatedly and then strike the material.

Further Information:
When Two Tribes Go to War: A History of Video Game Controversy
G4 TV: Mortal Kombat
Wikipedia: Mortal Kombat
Wikipedia: Fatality (Mortal Kombat)

Summary/Health: UbiSoft will be releasing a game in late 2008 to help players learn to curb their smoking habits. The game itself is based on the methods described in Allen Carr’s 1985 book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, an international bestseller that claims a 90% success rate for patients that use the treatments Carr prescribes. The game takes the methodology to a new level by allowing users to input their own smoking statistics, developing a customized anti-smoking treatment regime:

Ubisoft's DS title hopes to leverage the brand cachet of the Easyway name to create a "game" which translates Carr's method into the now-established Brain Age paradigm. Smokers will use DS software to track their own habits and "actively participate" in the process of quitting along with assistance and motivation from a personal "Easyway coach." Ubisoft has been keen to stress that the game's developers worked closely with the Carr Institute's top personnel in crafting an accurate-as-possible DS translation for the program.
-- http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168018

Carr’s treatment is rooted in the philosophy that smoking does nothing more than mitigate withdrawal symptoms, therefore taking away the smoker’s belief that smoking provides them pleasure and with it the corresponding fear of stopping.

Developed in conjunction with Allen Carr's top experts, the game echoes the philosophy of Allen Carr's Easyway method, enabling players to be entertained, challenged and to stop smoking at the same time.

"Ubisoft's creative team has worked hard to deliver a game that successfully communicates Allen Carr's Easyway method via play," said Christian Salomon, vice president of worldwide licensing at Ubisoft. "The player experiences a truly interactive engagement with the game through which he or she learns that it can actually be enjoyable to quit smoking."

-- http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/109191.php

Additional details of the game will be available following its release.

Further Information:
UbiSoft Announces Stop Smoking ‘Game’
Ubisoft bringing Allen Car’s ‘Easyway to Stop Smoking’ to DS
Ubisoft and Allen Carr’s Easyway Team Up To Help Smokers Quit
Wikipedia: Allen Carr

Summary: Build a design a city. As time passes, work to keep it prosperous by balancing all of the factors that go into city management, including population growth, taxes, environmentalism, zoning, crime, pollution, power supply, and even relieving the effects of natural disasters.

Health: SimCity is an exercise in resource management on a large scale. The game starts with empty land which the player then zones as he or she sees fit. The player sets aside space for the essentials, including a power plant, roads, power lines, residential zones, commercial zones, industrial zones, police and fire stations, and schools. The player must take geographical location into account, including the presence of sources of water and the relative proximity of each zone type to one another. Taxes must be raised to ensure income for construction and public service, but they will also lower the player’s approval rating, making it harder to get things done.

Unlike most video games, the player cannot win or lose SimCity. However, successful management will help the player’s city grow from a small town into a metropolis. The player’s responsibility is to establish the initial resources that will help the town grow on its own over the passage of time. As the town grows, however, the player must add more resources to meet the town’s needs. Also, the town may encounter random natural disasters or increasing civil problems (crime, pollution, etc.), which the player must help mitigate by reallocating resources where necessary.

SimCity was one of the most complex games for its time, presenting the user with a large array of maps, data windows and buttons used to monitor and control the city. The overwhelming amount of data made the game famously difficult but still extremely popular. However, the player can control elements that make gameplay easier, including the game’s difficulty level, the rate of passage of time and even a famous cheat that adds funds to the player’s account (at the cost, however, in a major earthquake).

SimCity also includes several prepackaged, timed scenarios which the player can play instead. Each scenario includes a reconstruction of an actual city with an impending disaster which may be either historical (ex. the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) or fictional (a 2010 nuclear plant disaster in Boston). The player's job is to manage the city for a fixed period of time following the disaster.

The appeal of SimCity may derive in part from both a subconscious desire for control and a feeling of insignificance in a metropolitan environment. SimCity satisfies both of those feelings by giving the player the power to lord over a virtual city, placing the player in an omnipotent role that undercuts any feelings of insignificance.

Further Information:
MobyGames: SimCity
Wikipedia: SimCity

Summary: Move a paddleboat down a jungle river, rescuing stranded explorers who are in danger of being killed by alligators, jungle snakes and deadly spear throwing natives. Be quick about it, since your boat can only handle six passengers at a time, and the rest could get killed before you return. Also, be sure to maneuver your boat carefully along the shore, lest you accidentally mow the explorers down.

Health: Jungle River Cruise was a game Atari developed for use with the Atari Puffer, an exercise bike that hooked up to the Atari console. The player pedaled the bike to drive the boat in the game. However, Atari was forced to declare bankruptcy in the early 1980s before the Puffer project was completed, so neither the game nor the bike were ever sold on the market.

The Atari Puffer was the first attempt by a video game industry to consciously encourage video game players to integrate physical exercise into their lives. Atari noticed that video game players often suffered from health problems due to a lack of activity and theorized that the Puffer could make exercise both healthy and fun:

There is a whole generation of kids (and adults) out there who aren't into sports and/or don't get enough exercise. At the same time there is a huge fitness market. We have seen how kids can become addicted to our video games. We are going to hook up an exercise bike to a video game, where the bike is the controller…We can make fitness freaks out of the kids and game players out of the keep-fitters. We capitalize on the combination of the two powerful markets -- video games and aerobic fitness.
-- http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/15/from-atari-joyboard.html

Atari’s plan was to release several models of the Puffer, including one for gyms and another for video arcades.

Jungle River Cruise showed that the Puffer would have been capable of working in tandem with traditional action-style games. The player controls a boat going down river, and the faster the player pedals, the faster the boat moves. The player controls the direction of the boat with the Puffer’s handlebars. A split-screen perspective gives both an overhead view of the boat and any incoming obstacles and a side view of the boat, showing how deeply it’s sunk into the water. The more passengers the boat carries, the lower it sinks, and the more power the game requires from the user to move the boat.

For players without a Puffer, Jungle River Cruise also worked with a traditional joystick.

Further Information:
From Atari Joyboard to Wii Fit: 25 years of “exergaming”
Atari Gaming Headquarters: Atari Project Puffer
AtariProtos.com: Jungle River Cruise

Summary: In this slalom skiing game, ski your way down a snowy hillside, clearing obstacles without crashing.

Health: Mogul Maniac is a sports game that was sold alongside the Atari Joyboard. An early predecessor to the Wii Balance Board, the Joyboard was a flat plastic balance board that the player operated by standing on it and leaning in different directions. The player can plug a joystick into it for access to a fire button.

The Joyboard is the first example of video gaming requiring physical exertion from the player, although Atari didn’t develop it with any personal fitness motivations like the Balance Board 25 years later. The Joyboard was a market failure, since it didn’t offer enough nuanced control to remain interesting.

Mogul Maniac itself is a straightforward skiing game, offering little that was innovative in video games even for that time, except perhaps its first-person perspective. Nevertheless, the game is an accurate simulation of slalom skiing, requiring the user to maneuver around various obstacles on the way down the slope. The player can control his or her speed, and if he or she goes too fast, the skis can become harder to control. The player can also wind up off-course in the trees, forcing him or her to slow down and ski around the mountain back towards the course.

Further Information:
Amiga Joyboard
From Atari Joyboard to Wii Fit: 25 Years of “exergaming”
Mogul Maniac @ Everything2.com
Wikipedia: Joyboard

Summary: The night sky is filled with stars. Drag stars down into the rising darkness, where they will be kept until the darkness retreats. Then, connect the stars into creative constellations.

Health: Like Gravitation, Stars Over Half Moon Bay is a game that functions as a metaphor for the creative process. However, the creator here explores this idea through the ancient practice of studying the night sky:

This is a game about two things which is reflected in the two titles. The feeling of looking up at the stars and makings patterns with your mind but also a symbolic game about the creative process itself.

There are three segments to the game. The first a free flowing place where things are curved and fluid, the second a rigid place of straight lines in which permanent structures are created. In between is that magical place where human ideas change, the bite of the serpent into its own tail. That place remains inexpressible; I can only point to it with signs.
-- http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/SOHMB.html

Stars Over Half Moon Bay begins with a night sky that’s gradually overtaken by darkness (what looks like the silhouette of a landscape) from the bottom of the screen up. The player takes this time to drag stars down into this rising darkness, where they become fixed squares. As the player drags the stars around, they form tails which can break apart and fly off in different directions (“a free flowing place where things are curved and fluid”).

As the darkness retreats, the night sky becomes completely clear except for the squares embedded in the darkness, which turn back into stars as the darkness retreats. While still in the retreating darkness, however, the player can maneuver them along the horizontal or the vertical, leaving a star pattern which the player then connects into a constellation (“a rigid place of straight lines in which permanent structures are created”).

Further Information:
Stars Over Half Moon Bay Home Page

Summary: Bounce a ball between yourself and a blond-headed woman, increasing the visibility window of the game and giving you the ability to jump higher. Jump up to platforms above to push stars down to the ground, which turn into giant ice which you can push into a fireplace.

Health: Gravitation is a highly artistic game designed as an autobiographical metaphor for the creator’s creative process. The creator hopes that Gravitation will help the player understand his creative mood cycles by inducing similar emotions in the player.

I needed to make a game about this process that I was going through. About success, and creative leaps, and mania, and mood cycles, and the aftermath…For me, what I call "mania" involves an excited feeling, fast talking, mental racing, and an onslaught of creativity. At the peak of this mood, it can feel a bit like my brain is on fire.
--http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/statement.html

For instance, the player begins by bouncing a ball to a young girl, a pixilated representation of the creator’s daughter. For each successful bounce, the girl shows more love (via a heart above her head) and the visibility window around the player’s sprite expands in size, allowing the player to see more of the game screen. The creator suggests that this is a meditation on how he sees his moods and creative endeavors affecting his family.

Once the screen expands to a certain size, the sprite’s head catches fire, the background music becomes more energetic, and the sprite acquires a temporary ability to jump vast heights. This is a reflection of the peak of his creative cycle, when he feels like he can accomplish almost anything. As the effect wears off and the window size shrinks, the player reflects on coming down off of the emotional high.

In short, Gravitation’s significant health representation is its artistic effort to introduce a paradigm shift into the player, helping him or her see the world through another’s (i.e. the creator’s) point of view.

Further Information:
Gravitation Home Page
Gravitation Creator’s Statement
TIGSource: Gravitation