“When I was in Best Buy the other day and saw the huge EA Sports Active displays it felt like we’d hit saturation but until we have Richard Simmons Wii Workout I don’t think we’ve reached it. Famous last words, right?”

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Think it began with DDR?  Think again!

• 1982 – Amiga releases the Joyboard, a stand-on peripheral for a skiing game (total flop)
• 1982 – Atari conceptualizes the Puffer project, an exercise-controlled bike for the 400/800 or 5200 systems (abandoned and never released)
• 1986 – RacerMate releases CompuTrainer for the NES, a training aid and motivational tool where users pedal along roads (very expensive)
• 1988 – Namco releases Family Trainer Power Pad for the NES, a floor mat game controller complete with giant buttons
• 1989 – Mattel and Nintendo release Power Glove for the NES, a robotic glove peripheral controller (users found to be relatively inoperable)
• 1989 – Namco releases Dance Aerobics, an aerobics video game for the Power Pad and NES
• 1992 – CyberGear Inc releases Tectrix VR Bike and Climber, a software driven interactive bike and stair stepper (difficult to maintain and master)
• 1995 – Nintendo and Life Fitness release Extertainment System, an exercise bike with corresponding on-screen games ($3,500 price tag)
• 1996 – Namco releases Prop Cycle, an exercise bike game
• 1998 – Konami releases Dance Dance Revolution (and the era of exergaming truly begins)
• 2001 – UK company Exertris unties with Microsoft to release Exertris Interactive Exercise Bike, an interactive gaming workout cycle for Windows CE and XP
• 2003 – Cat Eye Fitness releases GameBike, a racing bike for PlayStation 1 and 2
• 2004 – Respondesign releases Yourself! Fitness, a virtual trainer for PlayStation 2 and XBox
• 2005 – Bodypad is released, a suite of controllers for knees, waist, elbows and hands for PlayStation
• 2007 – Gamercise releases power stepper and pedal peripherals, a power supply system that requires footwork from the player to power consoles
• 2007 – Fischer-Price releases Smart Cycle, a miniaturized stationary cycle arcade system for children ages 3 to 6
• 2008 – Nintendo releases Wii Fit, a personalized training board for the Wii
• 2009 – Electronic Arts releases EA Sports Active, an advanced workout peripheral for the Wii
• 2010 – Sony releases Move, a motion controller for the PS3 (coming to U.S. in September)
• 2010 – Microsoft releases Kinect, a motion gaming system for the Xbox 360 (coming to U.S. in November)

That’s almost thirty years of good old fashioned exergaming history.  If some of the more retro products caught your eye, check out this great article from the folks at Boing Boing on the last 25 years of exergaming.  It’s a great one, complete with pictures and detailed descriptions.

HealthGAMERS is pleased to introduce you to Greg Kendall, President and CEO of Kendall & Son Solutions LLC. Greg has begun a family game development business which has plunged straight into mobile gaming for health. His company’s first game is called Allergies Attack and it gives players a chance to get back at all of those allergies for just $0.99, available now in the iPhone Apps Store.

The interview.

HG: Describe the general gameplay of Allergies Attack. What is the win/lose proposition?

GK: Allergies Attack follows a little boy named Richard through his dream of getting back at his allergies.  The opening story shows Richard’s mother trying to explain why he can’t go on a field trip, and as Richard begins to fall asleep, he starts imagining what he might be missing.  The game play is arcade-like with Richard in an anti-histamine pill-shaped jet, shooting his allergies as they appear on the various scenes.  Eliminate the remaining enemies, and you move on to the next of six levels of play where your allergens can be fish, dairy, gluten or peanuts.

HG: I understand that your sister inspired the creation of this game. How was development guided by her personal health experiences?

GK: Both my father and I, as well as my other older sister Erica, are asthmatics.  It was ironic that as a small child, Jessica showed no signs of asthma or any other allergies.  However, in college, we watched my sister develop severe adult-onset food allergies, most notably an allergy to soy.  We quickly learned that soy is virtually in every type of prepared food product on the grocery shelf.  We watched her frustrations grow, as we all discovered just how widespread the use of soy is in the foods we eat everyday.  When we began planning our company and creating our mission statement, we quickly decided to begin by developing a fun and entertaining game for the tens of millions of people around the world to attack back at their allergies.

HG: Where can our readers obtain the app and how much does it cost?

GK: Allergies Attack is available on Apple’s App Store, and additional information on the game can be found on our website.

On his health game mission.

HG: We have seen the concept of “fighting back” in other popular health games like HopeLab’s Re-Mission for young cancer patients undergoing treatment.  Do you feel you’re taking a similar approach–empowering the player?

GK: I would say that we are taking a similar approach as Re-mission by empowering the player to attack back.  Often the afflicted feel hopeless and not in control, but with these games they are given a fun way to deal with their issue even if just for a short time.

HG: What do you hope to accomplish by releasing the game to the public?

GK: We hope that Allergies Attack will increase awareness of food allergies, that it is a serious issue that millions of people have to be conscience of everyday.  Without generating downloads the game will not promote awareness, so they are dependent on each other; synergy. Additionally, promoting awareness creates a drive for research to ultimately find a cure.  We therefore will be making a donation towards allergy research, education, and advocacy.

HG: You said that you specifically hope your game will increase awareness about food allergies, yet the character Richard is combatting his peanut allergies by shooting antihistamines.  Most know that avoiding peanut consumption is the safest way to avoid horrible food allergy reactions like anaphylaxis. Does this mean your health game is purely for fun and not about sending specific allergy-related messaging or pharma-focused messaging?

GK: If a person has severe allergies, anaphylaxis can be induced by any of the foods depicted in Allergies Attack.  We are not trying to convey a pharma-focused or accurate treatment plan through our game play.  If we can provide a fun outlet for allergy sufferers and get one person who is not afflicted by allergies to Google “how many people suffer from food allergies” then we are successful.

On business and development.

HG: Who did the programming and design of Allergies Attack?

GK: Allergies Attack was designed and produced by Kendall & Son Solutions LLC.

HG: Is this Kendall & Son Solutions’ first game? How did you get into this business?

GK: This is Kendall & Son Solutions’ first game.  It all started with a discussion we had during Thanksgiving about allergies and technology. It all did not come to fruition until a couple of months later when my sister with food allergies became pregnant.  During her last trimester, she was put on bed rest and needed assistance getting groceries, cooking etc. Being allergic to many foods, we needed to be careful of what we bought and cooked for her.  My father and I then developed our first basic application Am I Allergic, which is an allergen thesaurus.   For example, if a person is allergic to egg they most likely would be allergic to livetin, an egg protein.  Am I Allergic was originally intended for our family’s personal use, but then we decided that we wanted to publish it in the App Store in the hope that it could be helpful as it was to us.  After that, Kendall & Son Solutions was born.

HG: How long did it take to develop Allergies Attack?

GK: My father and I spent four months of nights and weekends designing and developing the game.

HG: Why did you choose the iPhone platform?  Were there any challenges associated with using the iPhone?

GK: We felt the iPhone platform had the most mature development environment as well as a very sizable market for distribution of our games and applications.

HG: How long has the game been live?  Has it been doing well in the App Store?

GK: The game has only been live in the App Store for a couple days and we will still be working hard to promote the game and having the rest of the world. Join us in attacking back!

HG: What can we expect from Kendall & Son Solutions down the road?

GK: The future looks bright for Kendall & Son Solutions.  We currently are in development and pre-development of a number of games that above all are fun and exciting to play but also champion an issue.  These issues will include health, social and environmental issues that the world is facing today.

Other allergy and flu health games on healthGAMERS.

• Interview: Nasonex’s “Don’t Blow It” Allergy Game
• The Great Flu: Global Pandemic
• Gaming the Flu: Having fun with H1N1

According to Dr. Fiellin:

The goal of our project is to provide young teens the opportunity to practice and acquire skills in order to avoid or reduce their risk behavior. The hope is that this reduction in risk would then translate to preventing new cases of HIV.

From the rest of the interview, I picked up on some key points about health games as they relate to diseases such as HIV/AIDS:

• Young teens are already engaged in game play
• Games allow for repeated practice and play
• Highly engaging (if designed well)
• Portability – can be applied to various mobile platforms
• Opportunities to improve knowledge, prevention efforts and increase adherence
• Global application increasing

Although we don’t have an official name for the game just yet, I’m looking forward to seeing what the folks over at Yale come up with as far as design. Last year, we highlighted a game called +Click that looked at helping HIV positive teenagers make positive choices. Hopefully this will motivate other groups to think outside the box with this disease.

Top Doc combines high-quality medical images of conditions and abnormalities affecting various parts of the body with challenging real-life questions that help medical students, residents and junior faculty improve their visual diagnostic skills. For an online demo, visit topdocgame.com.

“We want users to feel as though they are facing and dealing with relevant scenarios within a virtual medical clinic,” said James Studdiford, MD, FACP, the product’s lead author and Associate Professor at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

More than 600 fill-in-the-blank style questions are presented for skill levels ranging from novice to expert. Medical students can use Top Doc to prepare for exams; practitioners can use it to sharpen their diagnostic skills.

Navdeep Chehl, a fourth-year medical student at Jefferson Medical College, said the “clear, vivid images and user-friendly format” provided “an effective and enjoyable way to test, refresh and increase” his knowledge.

Meeting a Need

Elsevier has been developing various medical products to meet the growing demand for digital and mobile access.

“As medicine continues to move into the digital space, products like Top Doc will be excellent resources for medical education,” said Randy Charles, Managing Director of Global Clinical Reference. “By offering the program as an iPhone app, Top Doc provides mobile access to medical students and practitioners who value on-the-go learning opportunities and high quality technology capabilities.”

How it Works – and Why

Top Doc users view clinical photographs depicting a physical sign or symptom and try to make the correct diagnosis as quickly as possible. In the game version, the player enters single letters of the alphabet, which fill in spaces to form the correct answer. Three wrong letters result in no credit. But as the student fills in correct letters, the number of remaining characters and the location of these letters serve as clues to prompt memory of the right answer. Questions automatically adjust to the player’s knowledge level.

Players must navigate through multiple levels of difficulty and through all body regions to become the Top Doc. Learning in this way has a scientific basis. Recruiting neural networks to perform pattern completion from partial cues triggers and strengthens memory associations each time the game is played, according to Dr. Patric K. Stanton, Professor of Cell Biology & Anatomy at New York Medical College and an expert in cellular mechanisms of learning and memory. This increases the likelihood of retrieving the appropriate information in future test and diagnostic situations, he said. At the conclusion of each fast-paced game,  players are given a final grade based on their performance, which they can automatically post to their Facebook account. A review mode is also available for those who want to study the content in a  non-competitive flashcard format.

“Users are able to experience and react to realistic patient encounters that require quick, concise clinical responses,” said co-author Amber Tully, MD, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at Jefferson Medical College.

Top Doc is available for purchase in the iTunes App store and retails for $14.99.

About the author

This article was written by Lisa Haasbroek with the Consumer Marketing / Product Management division of Legacy Interactive. If you wish to know more about Top Doc she can be reached by email: lisa [at] legacyinteractive [dot] com. Thank you so much for providing the information, Lisa!

The Twitter message I saw from Manny had to do with a Facebook game that the DHF partnered with other organizations to develop: HealthSeeker. With the help of the Joslin Diabetes Center and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, HealthSeeker (designed by Ayogo Games, Inc.) launched to join the movement of healthy gaming. One of the things I like about this concept is how easily it integrates into your Facebook experience. The social gaming movement for healthy behavior change is still in its infancy but is gaining traction with projects such as Get Up and Move headed up by Jen McCabe and her Contagion Health company (oh yeah and they are hiring).

Check out the HealthSeeker video to get a bit more familiar with the platform:

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I love seeing how connecting with your own peers/friends is the concept of social gaming for health. For more information on the game, check out this post from Manny’s blog.

The hidden 1200 kcal !

Since that time many efforts have already been made to try to change the slope of the overweight and obesity curves. Although it is believed that daily caloric intake should be around 2,500 kcal for moderately active men and high active women, it has been estimated that the average American ingests 3,748 kcal per day.

In fact, this excessive portion intake  in the American population might come from eating more because the environment is offering more than necessary. According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and its Obesity Education Initiative this “portion distortion” has grown in size and energy in the last twenty years at a horrific trend. The size of a bagel has doubled and the weight of French fries portion has tripled!

If you add up all these distortions, it is no surprise that this additional 1,200 kcal would be quite hard to eliminate by physical activity since it corresponds to about 4 hours of cycling …. and result in gaining weight and all the complications that are associated.

Don’t blame it on me !

Indeed, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) has issued in 2007 the revised version of the American Plate that includes more low calories food and a significant reduction of animal proteins. Not to mention what unnatural molecules are found in meat and other food products, the reduction of portion was not accompanied by a recommendation of reduction in dish sizes resulting in the same visual perception of a plate and what size and height it should have.

In a scientific study published in the Obesity Research Journal in that same year (2007), Clemson and Penn State University scientists have studied who establishes restaurant portion sizes and factors that influence these decisions and examined this in a survey that included 300 chefs their opinions regarding portion size. Executive chefs were identified as being primarily responsible for establishing portion sizes served in restaurants and 76% of them thought that they served “regular” portions, the actual portions of steak and pasta they reported serving were 2 to 4 times larger than serving sizes recommended by the U.S government.

It’s not so easy to just blame overweight and obese people when there are numerous accomplices in this nutritional crime.

Play the plate

I believe education can make a huge difference in our portion size problem, especially for children, by creating health games and educational activities that might help better consider regular or normal proportions and use the corresponding dishware to achieve good and balanced intake. In fact, some quizzes or recommendations are available on the Net to draw attention on the portion distortion effects.

On the games side, many are found to address the right food balance but few if any were found to specifically address the problem of size portion and to educate kids on the space and time dimension of portion.

Considering the above-mentioned scientific articles, there is room for such computer and video games that can address specifically the visual perception of a normal or adapted food portion and certainly the duration aspects of eating.

Small is beautiful

In conclusion, instead of only focusing on the public to manage its problems with the help of social and healthcare community, strong incentives could also be issued toward the food industry and dishware industrials to change their habits and products, and participate to this worldwide challenge of war against obesity.

For example, a reduction of the dinner plate size would normally result in :

• lowering the price of menu and make it accessible to more people
• lowering the amount of leftover food that has to be thrown way
• lowering the price of house dishware
• lowering the generated pollution on non-used and discarded material
• changing the size perception of portions

HardCORE Swimming is an Exertion Game prototype that combines the use of a Wii Fit balance board, Wii controller and nunchuk to swim through a shark-infested sea while collecting treasure.  In our last healthGAMERS interview we talked Floyd Mueller, an instructor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who is teaching students the art of computer game design through Exertion Games: games that not only require exercise input but also rely on exercise for game outcomes. Today we talk with one of these innovative student teams.  Kane, Alex, Amber, Dean and Christian have created an exertion game they call HardCORE Swimming, a game that their instructor feels is ready to pitch to Nintendo today.

The interview.

HG: HardCORE Swimming seems to utilize several Wii peripherals.  Can you describe the general gameplay for us?

HCS: The gameplay of HardCORE basically involves the player or players lying on their stomachs in the middle of the Wii balance board and holding the Wii mote and nunchuk in their hands. They lie in the a superman-like pose with their arms outstretched. Basically the player is constantly falling and the only way to stay up is by shaking the Wii mote and nunchuk.

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HG: What makes HardCORE Swimming entertaining?

HCS: At intermittent times a flashing message will appear on the screen saying ‘SHARK INCOMING – LEAN!!!” and a second or so later a shark will rush past the screen. If the player leans to the left on the balance board (basically balancing on their side) then their character will lean and dodge the shark. If they don’t lean to the side they will get eaten. There’s also treasure spawning randomly at the right side of the screen that can be collected to add points to their score.

HG: The ultimate purpose of Exertion Games is to get a great workout while still having fun.  What muscle groups should a player expect to work while playing HardCORE Swimming?

HCS: This game is particularly great for people who want to do abdominal exercises whilst still having fun. Your body’s core is one of the most important things to build when being involved with any physical exercise. In our game, the player is in an existing exercise position called the superman which is designed to work the core. By lying down in a superman pose waggling the remotes out the front and leaning to the side, the player gets quite an abdominal work out.

HG: Is gameplay designed for one player or two?

HCS: There is multi-player mode where two players vie for treasure to stay alive. Two player mode has a slight limitation because each player must haves their own Wii Fit board.  We wanted to figure out a way to make the game more economical and utilize only one balance board, but we need to keep designing.

HG: How did you come up with the concept for HardCORE swimming?  Was there any particular inspiration?

HCS: The concept of HardCORE swimming was originally formed when we were searching for a game idea and one of our team members who is competitive swimmer suggested incorporating something to do with swimming.  The central idea was to get the players to engage in what is actually a very strenuous core body exercise but to distract them using a simple game they could focus on.  Thus hardCORE swimming was created! However, I must stress that we ploughed through many, many ideas before finally settling on this one and as a result we had to rush on the final technical implementation – but it still worked!

HG: Who do you see enjoying this game? Does it appeal to a specific age group?

HCS: HardCORE swimming is a game that is suitable for all ages and gamer skills. It is fun for children whilst teaching them good skills for a balanced lifestyle. It is good for swimming professionals to take time out from real training and enjoy simulated training whilst still having fun.

HG: Studies show that many exergames like Wii Fit are played for two weeks and then never played again. What about your game gives it replayability?

HCS: Our game’s constant replayablility is drawn from the way that it is based on a core exercise. Many people involved in sport or just general fitness already do the superman core exercise, and we have made it more enjoyable to do. The idea that you can beat your existing score or compete against a different opponent also adds to the interest of playing the game over and over.

HG: Your teacher, Mr. Mueller said that he believes this prototype game in particular is ready to market to Nintendo.  What makes your game special compared to other class prototypes?

HCS: We think HardCORE Swimming would appeal to Nintendo because it is a fun game for all people of all ages. It is marketable because it is a simple concept to understand, and the easy interface makes it basically unnecessary for the use of complex instructions. It would be a very suitable game for the Wii console.

Closing remarks.

I think this game has a lot of potential both from an entertainment and physical activity perspective.  I haven’t seen a Wii game that utilizes the core muscle groups, specifically the abs, yet. Perhaps we will see this game or one like it on the market soon.  Congratulations to the HardCORE Swimming team, and best of luck with their prototype!  To see more amazing Exertion Game prototypes from RMIT, Australia, visit their Lecture 2130 website.

I first found out about Floyd Mueller and his creative “Lecture 2130” at the University of Melbourne, Australia from the Games For Health listserve.   Mr. Mueller is doing some pretty amazing stuff with his computer game design students using Exertion Games.  Here’s my fascinating interview with this innovative instructor and how his students are taking exergaming to the next level.

The interview.

HG: For those unfamiliar, define “Exertion Game”?  How is this different from an exergame?

FM: For my work, I use “Exertion Game” because I want to highlight that in my games the exercise affects the game outcome. For example, running on a treadmill while playing Xbox is not an Exertion Game for me. I also use Exertion Game to highlight the game aspect, for example, interactive yoga exercises such as some done with the Wii Balance Board, they are not games. By highlighting these aspects, I hopefully will be able to show designers that there is still a vast amount of potential we have not explored yet!

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HG: Tell us more about your class at RMIT.  How and why did you start teaching physical games “Lecture 2130″?

FM: This is a first year class for aspiring new computer game designers. Through an extensive selection process only the best students with the most potential will be selected, as competition is fierce.  I have been researching “Exertion Interfaces” for almost 10 years now across Europe, the USA and Australia, being interested in designing better technology for the body. This class teaches the important role that physical concepts have in computer games. It evolved from looking at the underlying principles in 3D worlds, as seen particularly in FPS, to the emerging trend of physical games that challenge our understanding of the player’s body. This becomes important when designing for new platforms such as the iPhone, Nike+ and the Nintendo Wii. With this trend from being ‘physical’ in the virtual world to being ‘physical’ in the real world, we realized that there was an opportunity to make a difference to the future careers of young game designers, but also to the future of gamers, as these games can address the obesity issue.

HG: What makes exertion games appealing to students?

FM: Maybe it is a realization that games that go beyond the gamepad experience can be more social, more emotional and healthier. These games will be huge, and change the lives of millions, and students see the market and potential to be creative in an otherwise very competitive market.

HG: I see from your blog that students in your class have to create their own Exertion Games as part of their large final project.  How much did it cost students to create their game?  How long?

FM: The students had 6 weeks from their first class at university, which included forming a group of 5 students, to a Madness session where they had 1 minute to present their idea to 80 other students to get rapid-fire feedback to implementation to demo’ing in week 6, including showcasing the game on their website. They each invested 20 Australian dollars (ca. $US 18), so they had $AU 100 together as a team. Currently, they are preparing for the next demo round to do it all over again with even more exciting games!

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HG: Can you see these games being used in the “real world” such as those made for The Fun Theory?  For example, the Escalatek game could utilize a mall or office building.  How could the game be modified or implemented to benefit the public?

FM: We actually talked about the Fun Theory (it is not actually a theory though) on the blog, and a lot of our games fall into this category. The Escalatek team already has some ideas on this, and I let them (and the others) talk about how they ‘blur the magic circle of play’ (some of the topics discussed in class) in order to benefit the public.

HG: Was there one project in particular (2009 or 2010) you thought had commercial potential?  Why?

FM: I thought the Hardcore Swimming game could be sold for Nintendo tomorrow, so could the Hot Head Balloon game.  The JunkFooders’ Game was loved by everyone because it required so much exertion and could be installed in schools. And another game uses existing Foursquare technology on an iPhone but turns it into a game.

Closing remarks.

There are many, many other creative ideas on the class’s blog.  Each team has a webpage (accessible from the left menu on the class’s blog) where they document their ideas and progress.  Be on the lookout for more ideas from this innovative class, and stay tuned for part 2 of this interview series where we go behind the scenes with one of these amazing student teams.

The University of California in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneer Portfolio have been working on a fantastic health games site this year for their national program Health Games Research.  Health Games Research funds research to advance the innovation and effectiveness of digital games and game technologies to improve health.

Just recently they launched the bulk of their website content in the form of a database, the Health Games Research Database, which has been getting quite a bit of attention these last few days.  Why?  Because it’s the largest database of health games and related conferences, organizations, publications, and resources to date.  As of today they boast:

• 74 Conferences and Events
• 337 Games
• 526 Organizations
• 398 Publications
• 125 Resources

The interview.

When I asked Dr. Debra Lieberman, director of Health Games Research and communication researcher at the University of California Santa Barbara about the undertaking, here’s what she had to say.

HG: Why did you decide to create this massive health games database?

DL: We decided to create the Health Games Research Database because there are so many people who are looking for information about health games and related research.  For example, for the past 15 years I have received at least 40 or 50 requests per month from people who want to talk with me to learn more about research, publications, behavioral health strategies, design, development, publishing, marketing, people, events, game titles, funding opportunities,and business ventures related to health games.  It is impossible to respond to all the requests and also get my own work done, and the number of requests has been increasing as the field continues to grow. I wanted to develop the database so I could point people to a dynamic resource they could explore to find the information they need.

HG: How many people did it take to make this database a reality?

DL: The information in the database was gathered and organized by the Health Games Research staff with the help of 10 student assistants at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  I especially want to thank our team’s project manager for the database, Erica Biely, and the deputy director at Health Games Research, Maria Chesley Fisk, for their diligent work and valuable ideas.  Erica has been the driving force of this project and we appreciate her many contributions.

HG: I assume aggregating all of this information was costly due to the number of staff required.  What was your major source of funding?

DL: We are very grateful to the Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, led by Pioneer team leader and senior program officer Paul Tarini, for their financial and collegial support for this project.

HG: As we all know, most of the information on health games is pretty scattered.  Can people make suggestions for additions to the database that may have been missed?

DL: We welcome community input to the database.  It has a Recommendation Form where people can suggest new content or revisions to existing content.  There are now more than 1,200 items in the database and we plan to add a lot more, and we would like to hear from our colleagues in a variety of fields who have more items to suggest.

HG: What an amazing accomplishment–congratulations!  How does it feel now that the database is complete?

DL: The three of us are very excited to have the database to use ourselves and to share with our colleagues in the wide-ranging health games field. My hope is that the database will spark new ideas and collaborations in the field that will help it grow in constructive and exciting directions.

A special healthGAMERS thanks.

On a personal note, I just wanted to extend my gratitude to Dr. Lieberman for answering my questions about their exciting database. As you can imagine, Dr. Lieberman is an extremely busy individual, but she always takes the time to respond, regardless of how small or large the request. The Health Games Research team was also kind enough to list our little blog on their resources page from the very beginning which has really assisted us in creating a dynamic, diverse reading audience.  Thank you so much Dr. Lieberman and team!

The Games for Health Conference will be holding its sixth meeting this year at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel in Boston, and the schedule is finally out.  The traditional two-day conference will offer over 40 sessions with 60 speakers and will cover a wide range of topics including exergaming, health behavior change, biofeedback, rehabilitation, physical therapy, disease management, epidemiology, medical training, cognitive and emotional health, nutrition and health education.

What really makes this year’s conference exciting is the addition of several co-located pre-conferences, including the first ever Mobile Serious Games Day.  These five days of health game events have been dubbed Games Beyond Entertainment Week.  Here’s what to expect for Games Beyond Entertainment Week.

Serious Games Day: Monday May 24, 2010

Games Beyond Entertainment Week 2010 kicks off with Serious Games Day. The Serious Games Initiative, with support from the Federation of American Scientists and other partners present this event in which leading serious game projects and research will be showcased to assist developers, sponsors, and partners operating in the serious games field.  The evening will be wrapped up with the Serious Games Festival.

1st Annual Mobile Serious Games Day: Tuesday May 25, 2010

Out & About is the first ever event dedicated to the creation and distribution of serious games on mobile platforms.  From ARGs, to pedometer powered adventures, Out & About will bring you up-to-speed on this exciting new area of the serious games field.  The conference will feature a mobile games gallery and two tracks to choose from: pioneering projects and mobile games for health and healthcare.

3rd Annual Games Accessibility Day: Tuesday May 25, 2010

Games Accessibility Day explores every aspect of making and creating accessible games specifically for people with lifelong, chronic, and temporary disabilities.  This conference included demos of existing accessible games as well as lectures and networking opportunities dedicated to making all games more accessible, and helping people with disabilities play their way to better health and wellness.

3rd Annual Virtual Worlds and Health Day: Tuesday May 25, 2010

Virtual Worlds and Health Day explores the entire spectrum of opportunities and happenings related to health, healthcare, multiplayer games, and social virtual worlds.   Be prepared to learn about massive multiplayer games and social virtual worlds and including WhyVille, Second Life, and Habbo Hotel.

Emerging Markets in Videogames Symposium: Tuesday May 25th, 2010

This single track conference will cover highly emergent efforts in commercial entertainment and non-traditional sectors. The goal of the Emerging Markets Symposium is to create a place for understanding new opportunities in games as well as provide a forum for discussion of how such innovative areas can be created and nurtured long-term.  Tuesday will conclude with an evening at the IDGA Boston games showcase and reception.

6th Annual Games for Health Conference: Wednesday May 26th and Thursday May 27th, 2010

The sixth annual Games for Health Conference will be held at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel in Boston from May 25 to 27.  Building on the success of previous years, the 2010 conference promises to provide even more insight around the use of interactive video games advancing heath and health care through exergaming, active games, health training games, disease management efforts and more.  Wednesday evening also includes a GFH reception and afterplay event.

International Leadership Breakfast: Friday May 28th, 2010

Conclude your serious games week by connecting with international networkers and leaders at the International Leadership Breakfast. The goal of this event is to foster stronger cross-border collaboration, project, and business development.

Registering for the conferences.

This line up is sure to attract healthgamers from all over the world.  Last year’s Games for Health Conference sold out early so the Games for Health Project recommends you register as soon as possible.  For complete information about this and the rest of the week, visit www.gamesforhealth.org and www.gamesbeyondentertainment.com.  To download a complete brochure suitable for forwarding to colleagues, visit http://www.gamesforhealth.org/brochure.pdf.