Using implicit learning in digital games as strategy to encourage a healthy diet

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20416815

The knowledge content of most educational games about a healthy diet is too obvious and not naturally integrated with the game mechanism. As a result, these games have difficulty changing the players' attitude towards a healthy diet. To address the current issues with healthy diet games, I designed a healthy diet game using the implicit learning theory to better embed the knowledge within a game as well as creating an engaging game. Specifically, I designed a simulation system according to the procedural rhetoric theory to convey the benefits of the healthy diet. In the game, players act as a restaurant manager, and knowledge is hidden in the food selling mechanism (e.g. customers' requirements about food) and narrative contents (e.g. dialogs of customers). Pre and post-game questionnaires were used to collect the intention, attitude, and knowledge acquisition data of participants, and a short-term positive change in intention was seen. This game provides a game design example for health game designers. This study will provide ideas for the design of health games and educational games: Implicit knowledge can be embedded in game mechanisms and narrative in the form of text and can change players' intention in the short term.--Author's abstract