The Game Dame™

I smoked my first cigarette at Wet n’ Wild water park when I was 13 years old. We were sitting in a pavilion and this old fat lady was being a jerk to us, so we stole a few Marlboro Reds out of her bag when she wasn’t looking and went to smoke em up. Everyone thought I was cool because I could blow smoke out of my nose. Ahh, good times in middle school. Eventually, though… smoking became less “cool” as more “a pain in the ass that costs way too much money and kills you.” And there are various quitting methods you go through until you either finally stop or turn into one of those “I only smoke when I drink… (and wake up, and take the dog out, and on the way to and from work…)” people. Could developers be onto a quit forever solution with their latest video game for the DS?

Ubisoft recently announced that it will develop and publish My Health Coach: The easy way to stop smoking in conjunction with experts who worked on Allen Carr‚Äôs Easyway to Stop Smoking method. Due out in November, the DS game aims to provide “a truly interactive engagement with the game through which he or she learns that it can actually be enjoyable to quit smoking.”

So what’s the gameplay like? Apparently there are multiple mini games that help you learn that you don’t need cigarettes anymore. According to IGN:

One [minigame] we were shown took place in a discotheque, where a mean old cigarette monster was trying to pull the player outside for a smoke. The cig has lassoed the player, and we had to draw lines with the stylus connecting our avatar to the other dancers in the club for moral support.

Uhhhh… Hrmm…. Idunno. Sounds lame to me. And besides, I don’t really visualize someone sitting on a barstool, having a beer and busting out their DS instead of a pack of smokes. Or flicking the end of their stylus as they drive to work down the freeway. Or turning on the game after sex…