Today, most of the health games, whether they are made for children or for adults, are based on digital drawings. The main character could be a representation of the player, i.e. an avatar, or a small figure like an animal or a monster. These games often are centered around an assigned mission for the main character whom the player can identify to himself.

You are the model

Recently, a French start-up, Fitting The Box, has developed a technology that helps individuals choose new eyeglasses among several renowned brands by a perfect match of his or her face using the Webcam or by uploading a photo from the computer.  Try it yourself for free.

Your are the main character

Currently, this site it is not actually a health game per say, but it might open the way to new development using face recognition and one can imagine to what extent this technology can be used with other part of the body or to the whole body. Avatars could represent you exactly as you are and not simply by drawings or photographs. Your photo could be converted into a 3-D character, and one could also imagine that this “real avatar” could be uploaded to any game using a common format and why not in second life. Of course, this will go against the possibility to live on the Internet a different life from the real one without being recognized.

Mirror, mirror, on the Net …

However, on the health level, it would be interesting to see how this avatar could evolve using personal, pathological or biological parameters. For example, when playing Wii Fit® and after a low score, you could see what you should look like when indicating that your are 20 or 30 years older than you really are. More seriously, if so, one could also imagine a game that would display a supposed “good” image of how you would look like after being exposed to health risk and how your biological parameters would evolve without a protection strategy (weight, skin, hair, …).

I believe this could result in people being more immersed in the game when playing and could generate interesting discussion with the physician or pharmacist if they could speak of it.

Sources :
Fitting the box: http://www.fittingbox.com
You are the Model: http://www.youarethemodel.com/ (French and English version available)