Some parents might think twice about a Web site with monsters and video games ruling their kid’s online world. But fear not, parents! The monsters are the good guys, and the games carry messages about health and physical activity.

Playnormous.com promises not to be yet another boring health site for kids, but instead, lets kids discover in a fun, interactive way that eating nutritious foods and exercising are keys to a healthier life. You can find all the Playnormous games inside HealthLeader under Games and Tools.

Playnormous is the brainchild of Archimage, Inc., a Houston-based design company that merges computer technology with visual arts for architecture and interior design projects, computer games and animation, Web site design and other forms of multimedia.

Designing buildings has been on the Archimage roster for more than 25 years, but in 2001, the company took a leap into the genre of video games for health.

“The idea of using a video game as a health modality is just now starting to become widely accepted by the research community,” says Melanie Mowry, MPH, director of marketing for Archimage. “However, there are several institutions that are ahead of the game.

“All of our games are conceptualized, designed and field-tested with the guidance and assistance of our medical researchers at The University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston and Baylor College of Medicine’s Children’s Nutrition Research Center,” Mowry continues. “The Children’s Nutrition Research Center provides the nutrition and physical activity content presented in our games to ensure it is both accurate and appropriate for kids. The School of Health Information Sciences acts as our “fun and learning experts” to make sure that both learning and fun occur during game play.”

‘Casual’ games teach and reach

All the games on Playnormous are “casual games,” which have short durations and learn-as-you-go mechanics. (Think Solitaire and Bejeweled.)

“Casual games are an excellent form of media to teach and to reach people,” says Cynthia Phelps, PhD, assistant professor of health informatics at the UT School of Health Information Sciences. “And, you can tap both kids and moms in the same demographic.”
 
Women ages 20-40 typically lead the casual game demographic, but because the games are free and available online, kids play them, too.

Phelps’ designs, develops and evaluates technology-based learning environments.
“Casual games give you a finite way to teach certain learning objectives,” she says. “For example, the specific learning objective of Food Fury is to teach kids how to categorize foods into healthy and unhealthy groups.”

Go, Slow and Whoa

Food Fury was the first game launched on the Playnormous Web site, and is geared for third- through fifth-graders. The idea behind the game is to give children some basic knowledge of food groups, so they can improve their dietary choices.

“We wanted Food Fury to get at the fundamental task of categorizing food, so people had this knowledge to work with when they went out into the real world,” says Phelps, who created Food Fury in collaboration with Archimage and with funding from the Aetna Foundation.

Kids should eat plenty of Go foods, like apples, bananas and whole wheat bread. However, they should slow down their consumption of Slow foods, which have some fat and sugar (cups of yogurt, pancakes and baked potatoes with butter). Whoa foods are at the bottom of the food chain – think cookies, ice cream and soda.

“My job as a game designer is to make sure the game is fun and that the learning is fundamental to playing the game,” Phelps says. “Food Fury is educational because the way we designed the game is that you have to group like foods with like foods.”

Food Fury is a matching game. To win, kids have to make chains of three or more items repetitively before time runs out. “When you start playing the game in the first levels, the foods are color-coded. Go foods are green, Slow foods are yellow and Whoa foods are red,” Phelps explains, adding that the color scheme is based on the stoplight metaphor.
 
She said the game is “pretty easy” in the beginning because kids just match the colors. However, in higher levels, color labels are shown only part of the time. “To beat the game at the higher levels, you have to make the transition from doing this color matching to actually matching like foods to like foods,” Phelps says.

‘Stealth learning’

Archimage sees Playnormous as a way to introduce its health games to a wide audience – namely children and parents. “Our goal is to create an enriching experience for kids that is safe, free and something that parents would support,” Mowry says. 

Archimage is one of the few design firms in the country with experience making games for health. In fact, the company received $9 million in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health to design two computer health games to modify children’s behavior regarding diet and exercise, Escape from Diab and Nanoswarm: Invasion from Inner Space.

“Our health games are unique because we use stealth learning to educate kids about health,” Mowry says. “We are able to weave entertaining gameplay with health information and components clinically proven to change health behaviors in children.”

Playnormous members can post their high scores and earn tokens from playing the health games Mowry says. The tokens can then be used to “purchase” accessories and clothing for their monster avatar or buy houses, furniture, trees, etc. for their monster environment.

Three games are live on Playnormous – Food Fury, Bubble Trouble and Juice Jumble. With plans to unveil two new games a month toward a goal of 10 original games by the end of 2008, the Web site should have no problem attracting a fan base.

“Playnormous was originally designed for children ages 6 to 15,” Mowry says. But children as young as age 3 and adults at 65 are playing these games and finding them entertaining and informative, she says.

Safety comes first

Playnormous is a safe site for kids. Very little personal information is collected from its users and no chat features are available, so there’s no worry of online predators lurking about. Plus, children under age 13 need a parent’s approval via e-mail to be a member of the Playnormous site.

“We are well aware that virtual communities can serve as dangerous hunting grounds for online criminals, such as identity thieves and stalkers, with children particularly at risk,” Mowry says. “Because of this, we have developed a system that aims to give Playnormous users the best online experience possible. The only user information that can ever be seen by other users is screen names. Even with this, we use a proprietary filter technology as well as staff selective monitoring to ensure that users create screen names that are appropriate.”

Kids cannot communicate directly with other kids, play as partners or compete against each other on Playnormous, but that does not mean that competition has to be absent.

“We have found in testing that even though kids can’t play directly against one another or directly partner online, playing together becomes a natural tendency for kids playing in the same room,” Mowry says. “Kids want to help each other while they play the games, and real social gameplay is initiated in contrast to just virtual social gameplay.

“Furthermore, because our games are tested, we know what components are actually teaching kids and which ones aren’t,” Mowry continues.

“Playnormous is for families, not just kids, because parents play a huge role in the health of their children,” Mowry says. “Usually, it’s parents who make the ultimate decision when it comes to purchasing food or allowing their child to be involved in an activity. We want to inspire families to take the information they learn from the Playnormous site and use it in the real world to make healthier lifestyle choices.”

 

 

Last Updated: 10-08-2008

 

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