Lit 2 Quit!

GLS Attendee Choice Award

Azadeh — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:52:17 +0000

Thanks to attendees at Games, Learning and Society conference in Madison, WI, our game Lit2Quit: A Mobile Game for Smoking Reduction won “Attendee Choice Award” for being the game that inspires playing most. This is the BEST award that game designers could accept!

We are thrilled!

Interview about Lit2Quit on Pulse + Signal

Azadeh — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:21:06 +0000

Read the latest interview with Azadeh Jamalian about Lit2Quit for the public health innovation blog, Pulse + Signal:

“If you’ve ever smoked, and tried to quit, chances are you know how much fun quitting, and quit attempts, aren’t. The cravings, the mood swings, the weight gain – ugh! What if quitting smoking was fun instead?” read more

Nicotine Around the World

jessmezei — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:14:53 +0000

A great infographic from the folks at GOOD on Nicotine impacts and educational efforts around the world.

SMOKERS WANTED

jessmezei — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:08:16 +0000

EMAIL litthegame@gmail.com TO PARTICIPATE

Smoker? Play our game and receive $30!

pazit — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:39:53 +0000

If you are a 20-39 years old nicotine smoker, and live in or near New York City, you can support our research by coming into Columbia University for 1.5-2 hours to play-test our game. $30 compensation for your participation. For more information please email LitTheGame@gmail.com. Thank you!

Lit2Quit on Video

djr255 — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:13:04 +0000

Watch our team speak about the research and process of our mobile game for health. As always, stay in touch and give us your comments/questions.

via AdvanceWeb

New research about game-play and quitting

pazit — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:56:53 +0000

Article published by Nicole Martinelli on March 16th, 2011

New research shows that game boosted quitting success rates by 15%, according to a new article on “Cult of Mac” by Nicole Martinelli. Read more – http://www.cultofmac.com/psychologists-crush-your-smoking-habit-with-an-app/86678.

Meaningful Play 2010

jessmezei — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 01:22:14 +0000

I’ve been meaning to share my experience at Meaningful Play…

This past October Dr Kinzer and I (Jess Mezei) attended the biennial conference Meaningful Play (MP) at Michigan State University on behalf of the Lit2Quit team. I presented the first physiological and emotional data results of our alpha phase of research for the Rush mode of our game. You can flip through the presentation below and get in touch if you have any questions/comments. The presentation was apart of the Assessing Games for Health track and also featured Rob Goldman’s presentation about At-Risk a suicide prevention training simulation and Laurie Hartjes’ work about a malaria reduction game.

View this document on Scribd

We were also caught on camera by the event crew at registration and wondering during the game expo and poster session.

In and amongst attending presentations and design sessions, I was also able to meet some great folks and see some awesome game projects. Some of my favorites included:

François Boucher-Genesse’s poster and game called Mechanika. Which is a physics game that feels like a mashup of Lemmings and World of Goo. The goal of Mecanika is to collect stars with little rocks by creating a path of impulsions, accelerations and rotations. It will be a freely available as a flash game that you can play on the Games for Science.ca website .
Dan White and the team from Filament Games and their work on learning games. I was particularly interested in their science games and found out they have been collaborating with the JASON project. Some of their science games such as Ecodefenders, Transform it! and Energy city are live and free to play on JASON site.
The crew from gambit (MIT’s gamelab) also didn’t disappoint with presenting incredibly thoughtful and esthetically beautiful games. I was able to see the game Yet One Word in action at the game expo night. It’s a game that is apart of their Sophocles project aimed to invoke personal reflection. It prompts the player to come up with words that reflect their lives, actions, and relationships in order to progress while maneuvering a faceless horned character through a world of perilous platforms.They also presented a game called Elude that deals with the oscillating experience of depression. By the end of the conference, both games were recognized as award winners, which was well deserved!

Additionally, there were some great key note speakers featured at the event. James Gee, Contance Steinkuehler, Ben Sawyer, Robin Hunicke, Katherine Isbister and Helle Winding made the lineup. Lucky for us, the film crew at the event captured each of the keynote addresses and you can view them from the MP website. enjoy!

Inside Magazine, Lit, and our research team

Azadeh — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 13:57:59 +0000

Azi (Azadeh), one of the researchers from the Lit2Quit team, has her profile featured in the latest issue of Teachers College Inside magazine. It’s an interesting article which briefly talks about her vision on games and their role in education.

Get the feel-good chemical flowing!

jessmezei — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 19:51:41 +0000

People love music for much the same reason they’re drawn to sex, drugs, gambling and delicious food, according to new research. When you listen to tunes that move you, the study found, your brain releases dopamine, a chemical involved in both motivation and addiction.

Even just anticipating the sounds of a composition like Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” or Phish’s “You Enjoy Myself” can get the feel-good chemical flowing, found the study, which was the first to make a concrete link between dopamine release and musical pleasure.

The findings offer a biological explanation for why music has been such a major part of major emotional events in cultures around the world since the beginning of human history. Through music, the study also offers new insights into how the human pleasure system works…

http://news.discovery.com/human/music-dopamine-happiness-brain-110110.html