The material for this game will be drawn from our database via a Web tie-in. (This will provide constantly updated content to the CD ROM.) The game will first present the player with an audio visual reenactment. Then it will draw from the database short (audio or video) interviews of non smoking high school students recommending successful refusal strategies that worked in that situation.

This game will challenge the player with actual situations teens encounter when pressured to use tobacco and helps them develop a repertoire of creative solutions to peer pressure. The player will be presented with multiple scenarios. Each scenario includes a situation where the player is offered a tobacco product (cigarette, cigar or smokeless tobacco). At this point in the narrative, the presentation becomes interactive and receives player input. The player may pick (maybe with a time limit) from several responses to the offer and accumulate points for 'popularity' and/or 'health.'

The best response is one which registers both popularity and health points. This response is also the real response of a teen subject who submitted the scenario and is featured after the reenactment. (The database of scenarios/ responses that will supply this game with content will be filled with submissions by non smoking high school students who participate in an on-line contest. This contest will be held to gather refusals which demonstrate inventive ways to decline an offer of tobacco. This will usually mean saying "No" without sacrificing popularity.) The object of the game is to predict how the non smoking high school subject actually responded in the given situation. (A player who makes an incorrect choice is immediately redirected to the correct option.)

An Example
Video clip: The player is looking from perspective of a person knocking on an apartment door. Door opens to reveal a room is full of young, attractive people having a good time. The action and noise level lowers and people in the room turn to look at the player (audience). The people then move closer together in their groups, turn backs to the player and begin talking amongst themselves. The player is summoned by a member of one group at a table playing the game, Risk. All at the table are smoking. The player is offered a cigarette and is asked "Wanna play?" All eyes at the table look to the player. The frame freezes as the cigarette pack is presented, one cigarette sticking out. Immediately the possible responses to the offer appear* on the screen:

Pick a response:

"Sure!" Take the cigarette, light it and sit down to play. "No, I don't play board games." Leave immediately. "No Thanks" to the cigarette and sit down at the table to play "Sure!" Take the cigarette and sit down to play without lighting it. "No Thanks" Back away from the table. "Sure, but do I have to smoke to play?" Sit down at the table only if they say, "No". "Not now. Let me know when the no smoking game begins." Smile and leave. "Keep your smoke man, I am a tobacco-free teen!" Leave table. "Opps! I gotta go my mom just paged me." Leave table.

Storyboard for above segment