The Re-Mission Recipe

What does it take to build an effective “serious game”? Can the process be applied broadly? Since the launch of Re-Mission, the HopeLab team has spent a lot of time sharing research results and lessons learned during the development of our first product. But we’ve never published a summary of the steps we took that led us to success – until now.

A new article in the inaugural edition of the International Journal of Learning and Media (IJLM) outlines HopeLab’s strategy for intervention development, with Re-Mission as a case study. The article includes Re-Mission game images and video clips that illustrate our “rational engineering” process for intervention development, anchored by these six core principles:

1. Choose a target health outcome
2. Identify its key behavioral mediators
3. Define the psychological determinants of behavior
4. Capture that perceptual field in the game-play scenario
5. Live out contingencies in the virtual world instead of real life
6. Always have fun!

The full article is available free online.

We’re thrilled to be part of this first edition of IJLM, published by MIT Press with support from the MacArthur Foundation. And we’re committed to sharing our experiences and insights with others who want to join us in finding new ways to promote healthy behavior through technology. In fact, we’ll also be presenting this work and other insights into our development process at the upcoming Games for Health conference in Boston June 11-12. If you’ve never been, it’s a great place to connect with forward-thinking gamers, academics and health industry leaders. Hope to see you there!