Seriously fun

Suhonen, Katja; Väätäjä, Heli; Virtanen, Tytti; Raisamo, Roope

doi:10.1145/1457199.1457204

Cited by 15 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Serious games are games that have been built with additional objectives on top of entertaining the players. These additional objectives include gaining knowledge, improving lifestyle behaviour, skills and abilities, and raising awareness on difficult topics [1,20,21].…”

Section: Serious Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Virtual Pet Serious Game in Motivating Children with Cancer in Treatment and Self-Care: A Conceptual Design

Carmen

Mahmud

Tsun

2020

MJPCH

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Childhood cancer is the number one cause of death by illness in children. However, despite being such a deadly disease, survival from childhood cancer is high with cancer treatment. Unfortunately, undergoing cancer treatment can result in many treatments related side-effects. Daily self-care such as maintaining a balanced diet, drinking enough fluids, practicing proper hygiene and getting enough rest, can be effective in lowering the severity of these symptoms. It is found that existing interventions for cancer patients do not target treatment adherence in children. Therefore, the aim of the research is to design an intervention which is able to motivate children to adhere to treatment and encourage daily self-care. To enhance the design of such an intervention, the article explores the potential of virtual pet games as a health intervention, and the use of the Protection Motivation Theory and Social Learning Theory’s observational learning in increasing the intervention’s effectiveness. Finally, the design considerations, game objectives and overall conceptual architecture of the proposed intervention are discussed. A conceptual comparison is also made between the proposed game and existing serious games for cancer patients. Future work is required to develop this design into a working prototype, and to evaluate its effectiveness on improving treatment adherence and promoting daily self-care with childhood cancer patients.

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Section: Serious Gamesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Virtual Pet Serious Game in Motivating Children with Cancer in Treatment and Self-Care: A Conceptual Design

Carmen

Mahmud

Tsun

2020

MJPCH

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“…These games have often included children as part of the design process, and embody core values of the IDC research community [17] including social interaction, playfulness, exploration and equity of participation. The design of FitQuest was influenced by early guidelines emerging from the design of exergames and physical games on other research projects [12,[21][22][23][24][25][26]. The specific guidelines, including for example supporting social influence, micro-goals, free play and marginal challenge, are discussed in detail in [27].…”

Section: Exergames Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Savouring our mistakes: Learning from the FitQuest project

Robertson

Macvean

Fawkner

et al. 2018

International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction

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Although serious games for children can potentially have important social, educational and health benefits, the research process from initial game design to a robust evaluation is lengthy and complex. This paper describes the design and evaluation process of an exergame for children. It reports on the inconclusive results of a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) conducted among children aged 10-11 years attending 10 state-funded primary schools in Scotland. One class in each school was randomly allocated to intervention (n=5, 111 children) or control (n=5, 104 children). Intervention schools were given FitQuest, a smartphone game for the Android platform, and were requested to play the game during at least one hour of mandated Physical Education (PE) lessons per week for 5 weeks. Participants in the control arm took part in standard mandated PE lessons. Primary outcome measures were step count, minutes spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and exercise self-efficacy. None of the children spent the recommended time per week playing FitQuest. There were no significant differences in step count, MVPA or self-efficacy by intervention group. The paper reflects on possible flaws during the design and evaluation process which could have led to the disappointing results, and presents some proposals for improving the research process for developing serious games for children. These include: deepening the ways in which we interact with domain expert colleagues, developing a shared understanding of the expectations for different phases of evaluation, closing the gap between game design knowledge and domain theories, raising

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Designing and Evaluating Casual Health Games for Children and Teenagers with Cancer

Gerling

Fuchslocher

Schmidt

et al. 2011

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract. Because they offer an easy entry into play, casual games have become an increasingly popular leisure activity among children and teenagers, engaging particularly broad target audiences. In this paper, we present a casual game that addresses childhood cancer: Besides mere entertainment, a health game that focuses on cancer may serve as a clinical tool in order to teach children about the particularities of the disease and initiate discussion among cancer patients, their parents and medical staff. In this context, the results of an empirical study revealed a generally high acceptance of the health game among young patients, while parents and medical staff highlighted the educational potential of health games addressing cancer. Additionally, we discuss the challenges of evaluating digital games in a hospital setting which were revealed during the evaluation phase.

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Seriously fun

Cited by 15 publications

References 11 publications

A Virtual Pet Serious Game in Motivating Children with Cancer in Treatment and Self-Care: A Conceptual Design

A Virtual Pet Serious Game in Motivating Children with Cancer in Treatment and Self-Care: A Conceptual Design

Savouring our mistakes: Learning from the FitQuest project

Designing and Evaluating Casual Health Games for Children and Teenagers with Cancer

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