Extended Abstract: Impacts of Narrative, Nurturing, and Game-Play on Health-Related Outcomes in an Action-Adventure Health Game

Action-adventure video games often provide very engaging, dramatic story lines that draw players in, and attractive characters that players care about deeply. Players are compelled by the story, eager to see what will happen next, either as spectators or as interactive participants. Media audiences often identify with certain characters (Cohen, 2001) and empathize with them in their struggles. It is not surprising, then, to see how hard some video game players try to help them prevail. Dramatic narratives give players a reason to strive and a strong feeling of satisfaction when they succeed. Some studies of video game stories (e.g., Ricci & Beal, 2002; Schneider, Lang, Shin, & Bradley, 2004) find that they significantly contribute to players ’ enjoyment and identification, and can increase aggressive behavior and learning. Narrative creates emotion and context, and provides a framework to help people remember events and the information conveyed by those events. This study investigates the role of video game narrative in the formation and strengthening of health-related attitudes. It hypothesizes that the attitudes most affected by narrative devices in a game will be those that involve emotion and empathy for characters. In addition t