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Game Play
The Player navigates through a labyrinth toward a rocket ship at
its center, encountering traps, enemies and dangers along the way.
At each level of the game, the player finds on the inside walls
of the labyrinth, images of 'the good life.' All but one of these
images (per level) are creations by tobacco advertisers designed
to appeal to young adults. These 'fake' good life images lead to
dead-end rooms where the player must answer questions correctly
to exit without smoke damage. One image on each level, however,
represents the real good life. It depicts local, nonsmoking high
school students doing something that most smokers are unable or
unlikely to do. This image covers the 'portal' or entrance to the
next level of the game and entering through this image takes the
player closer to the goal at the center of the labyrinth. Once the
player enters this portal, before s/he is transported to the next
level, a video
clip (featuring the students in the real good life image outside)
is played. In the video clip, high school students share their reasons
for remaining smoke free and refusal skills they have learned.
In addition to discriminating between real and false good life images,
the player also must avoid a cycling smoke wall and opponents, called
'Poseurs' (caricatures of teen smokers),
who chase the player and blow smoke. To avoid the approaching smoke
wall, the player may enter a trap or the portal. To disable Poseurs,
the player must tag them with a "truth ray" and identify
the excuses they use to smoke. (See screenshots
of the game.)
Features
The game is cross-platform (Mac/Windows) compatible and runs on
systems found in most middle school labs. (See minimum
system requirements). The game is very user friendly. Messages
are delivered in both written and audio form and the player may
opt to see instructions or hear an audio description of the game
features at any time during the game. An aerial map of the labyrinth
indicates the location of the player and the chasing Posers.
The CD ROM includes two versions of the complete
voice over track: One for a boy and one for a girl player. (The
voice over changes according to gender is selected during introductory
screens. The 'gender' of the coughing sounds and choice of pronouns
used in the voice over changes as well.) The portal videos also
change according to the player's gender. (Middle school boys playing
the game will see videos that feature male high school students
and girl players see videos featuring female high school students.)
Poseur characters are placed randomly with each replay of the game.
Some of the Poseur characters are be assigned different smoking
excuses with each tag. The player is assigned a different, smoking-related
'cause of death' each time he looses the
game. There are also many platform-specific differences programmed
into the game: You will see different intro screens and game images
according to whether you are playing on a Mac or Windows machine.
It takes 15 smoke encounters for the player to die. There are 32
rooms (29 traps and 3 portals) in all. The player must pass through
3 levels to enter the ship. A blast off sequence follows. The player
can exit and replay at any point during the game except during the
dying sequence. Players are able to customize the game play experience
by choosing the background music, setting navigation preferences
and controlling the voice over.
The ReadMe file on the
CD gives detailed instructions for opening and playing the game.
Next Version
The next version of the game will allow the user to download new
content as soon as it becomes available from our Web database. This
new content will include different ad images, quizzes, portal videos
and Poseur characters. Much of this new content will be created
by high school students involved in the program.
How
do I introduce the game to my students?
| Where are game
play instructions for students?
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