 What we’ve been waiting for.
The University of California in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneer Portfolio have been working on a fantastic health games site this year for their national program Health Games Research. Health Games Research funds research to advance the innovation and effectiveness of digital games and game technologies to improve health. Just recently they launched the bulk of their website content in the form of a database, the Health Games Research Database, which has been getting quite a bit of attention these last few days. Why? Because it’s the largest database of health games and related conferences, organizations, publications, and resources to date. read full article at Health Gamers HealthGamers.com
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Exergames of the future. 
HardCORE Swimming is an Exertion Game prototype that combines the use of a Wii Fit balance board, Wii controller and nunchuk to swim through a shark-infested sea while collecting treasure. read the full article and see video at Health Gamers HealthGamers.com
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from gamefwd.org Written by Brian J. Papineau  Like many gamers that live with physical disabilities, I have had my fair share of difficulty with many of the non-traditional control schemes that have become synonymous with Wii software since the console was launched almost three years ago.
Whether coming to grips with the Nunchuck attachment or simply using the pointer of the Wii Remote, sometimes it has been difficult and frustrating for me to play Wii because of the limited dexterity of my left hand associated with Cerebral Palsy and the Arthritis in my hands and arms. I wanted to share a few simple tricks that I use to help me enjoy playing Wii, even on days that my body doesn’t want to co-operate. More…
From the time we brought our Wii home on launch day, I had problems using the Nunchuck attachment. It became apparent to me that over the years I had spent learning to use game controllers with my left hand, I had become used to having my right hand providing both resistance and support. To this day, I still have trouble pushing up on the analog stick and end up just tilting the Nuchuck down because my right hand is not holding the controller in place.
I have tried a couple of things to help alleviate this. First, though I am right-handed, I tried swapping the Wii Remote to my left hand so I could use the analog stick and small C button with my good hand. This setup reminded me of the way I learned to use an N64 controller “left-handed” and it is how I played through most of Super Mario Galaxy.
Now, I do find it tough to use the pointer extensively and reach the 1 and 2 buttons with my left hand, but for me it was an extremely simple solution to a very frustrating problem and it has allowed me to play and complete quite a few games.
 Something else I learned to do early on while struggling with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was to use my leg to stabilize my left hand. I simply rest my left hand on the side of my leg to stabilize it and prevent it from just moving through the air. I find that this also helps me grip the analog stick better with my thumb. It still feels unnatural to play games with my hands so far apart, but it works most of the time.
I actually have idea for an attachment that would basically be an arm/wrist rest that hooks over your leg. I think my problem with pushing the Nuchuck through the air stems from weakness in my elbow and forearm and that resting my left arm/wrist on something allows my hand to grip harder.
While the lefty flip method works for some games, there are obviously others it is not practical for. The Trauma Centergames are some of my favourites on the DS, but the Wii versions proved to be difficult for me to control because of extensive Nunchuck use that needed to be executed with precision and pointer-heavy gameplay that I needed to use my right hand for.
My solution here is the Wii Zapper accessory. It lets me turn the Wii Remote and Nunchuck into a single, two-handed controller that allows me to better use the analog stick. It also lets me guide the pointer with my right hand and though using the A and B buttons in concert took some getting used to, I found that this also provides me with greater pointer stability.
When I’m having a day that sees me struggling with Arthritis pain, even holding up the Wii Remote and keeping it still enough to use its pointer can be difficult. While the Wii Zapper is great for games that require a Nunchuck, it isn’t very comfortable and it’s impractical for games that use only a Wii Remote or genres like third-person action that tend to require shaking the Wii Remote and/or Nunchuck.
An accessory like the Nyko Perfect Shot is affordable and allows for a more ergonomically sound grip on the Wii Remote while allowing free movement of both the pointer and Nunchuck attachment. The drawback here is that using the A and B buttons at the same time is virtually impossible with one hand.
Of course, the pistol can be gripped with both hands in the case of Wii Remote-only games like Zack & Wiki or my import copy of Another Code: R, which allows for operation of all the Wii Remote buttons and also for shaking, twisting and tilting of the controller. The Wii Wheel attachment is also effective as a two-handed grip for pointer-based games, though I tend to use it for something else.
 When I was playing Super Paper Mario I grew to hate playing games for any extended length of time while holding the Wii Remote sideways “NES Style”. The controller is simply too small and the left side of it is very thin. I found it tough to grip it properly and my thumb would tend to slip off of the d-pad and accidentally hit the A or B buttons.
While the Wii Remote Jacket that Nintendo introduced some time later does help by creating a larger surface to grip on the left side of the Wii Remote, the right side is still small and quite often I’ll feel myself getting “Claw Hand” from trying to grip it, especially on days when my Arthritis is flared up. I find that the Wii Wheel not only makes the controller symmetrical, but slightly thicker as well, allowing me a more comfortable grip. It also makes the B button on the back easier to detect and it still allows for shaking, tilting and pointing.
The first thing I do when I play Wii software is check to see whether it supports the Classic Controller or GameCube controller. For many games it simply feels more natural to play on a traditional controller and I do whenever it is possible, which is sadly not nearly as often as I would hope. Many of the “traditional” Wii games like platformers are ported from, or simultaneously developed for the PS2 and/or PSP, so implementing a traditional control scheme on the Wii version should be easy enough for a developer.
While the Wii is arguably the least accessible home video game console ever produced for people with physical limitations or disabilities, adaptations can be made to make it more enjoyable for those of us that struggle with its standard control setup.
I would love to see Nintendo or a third party step up and actively try to make playing Wii more accessible, whether through specifically-designed accessories or by making traditional controls more standard. Nintendo has gone to great lengths to bring video games to a wider audience, now it’s time to bring it back to millions of gamers living with physical limitations and disabilities who grew up and learned to play with them.
gamefwd.org
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from gamefwd.org Written by Nathalie Caron  Encompassed in the new Games Beyond Entertainment Week, the 2010 Games for Health conference runs from May 25-27 in Boston, MA. The annual event will feature six thematic tracks, including a new Games and Rehabilitation track and it features over forty sessions and sixty speakers. Building off the experience and successes of the past six years, the conference is strengthening its role as a key resource in the field of video games in health care.
“This annual conference has become the premier event attracting the top minds in game development and health care,” said Paul Tarini, senior program officer and team director for the Pioneer Portfolio at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, one of the conference's key partners.
Certain study areas are definitely maturing, finds Games for Health Project founder Ben Sawyer. "They're building upon a basis of work that really exists. You're seeing second generation work go forward and new trails start to fire off," said Sawyer in an interview with Game Forward. More...
Conference organizers are also seeing a greater interest in the Games for Health movement. "This year we have more companies requesting to work with us to do introductions to key researchers and developers. That has gone up three or four fold from last year," said Sawyer. "People want to meet the kind of attendees we attract."
Big names are also making a formal entrance into the Games for Health space. The conference is opening with a keynote presentation by Dr. Richard Marks, Senior Researcher at Sony Computer Entertainment. He will be discussing the relationship between gaming, play and exercise. Marks will also explore the psychological dimension of seeing yourself on screen combined with the physical interaction of having a controller in your hand--referencing his work on the new PlayStation Move controller. With the prevalence of the Nintendo Wii in health care games research and rehabilitation particularly, Sony and its new motion technology have the potential to become serious contenders in the field.
 Getting involved with the rehabilitation sub-community this year is an exciting new opportunity, explains Ben Sawyer. On May 26, the conference will be hosting the first Games and Rehab track, with sessions entirely devoted to game-based sensorimotor rehabilitation efforts.
The track notably features Dr. Henrik Haptop Lund from the Center for Playware, Technical University of Denmark. Lund is the creator of therapy tiles (PDF), a robotic system using playing for rehabilitation. His talk will touch on the design of technology used to enhance playful rehabilitation for different groups from cardiac and stroke patients, to hospitalized and disabled children.
Other rehabilitation sessions will focus on human computer interfaces; the study of Parkinson's patients using Dance Dance Revolution; home-therapy games for autism; the making of a mobile rehab application; as well as virtual reality cycling for people with asymmetrical movements. Several presentations will look at uses for the Wii for such things as a balance tool for high fall risk individuals, sports injury rehabilitation, active aging and physiotherapy, recovery from burn injuries and post-traumatic stress reduction through cooking games, and for playing your way to a health back and body.
The Active Gaming track, the Cognitive and Emotional Health track and two open tracks will span both days. One of the Active Gaming presentations will explore the health effects of drumming games. A few will look at exergames, the kind of energy expenditure they create, their incorporation in schools, and how they can help with pain management. Another will present the main design principles to follow to create an active game.
The track devoted to cognitive and emotional health will explore subjects like the use of casual games to fight depression, anxiety and cognitive decline; the creation of a suicide prevention game and the behavioral effect of video games on ADHD patients. Another session will discuss the development of a game for depression--one of three collaborative projects born from conversations started at last year's conference.
The track's featured talk comes from Dr. Jayne Gackenbach, dream researcher and professor at Grant MacEwan University, in Edmonton, Alberta. She will speak of her work on video game players and the development of consciousness, exploring the effect of games on sleep patterns.
 "She is a researcher in dreams looking especially at REM sleep," explains Ben Sawyer. "She started getting intrested in games because her son started playing them. She looks at dreams to see the relationship between how they confine memory and how they are regenerative. Sleep and dreams go hand in hand; sleep and health go hand in hand."
The open tracks feature such varied subjects as designing games for impact--a panel hosted by HopeLab; teaching health game design; a review of game-related injuries and illnesses; the use of video games in psychology; how off-the-shelf games can influence child development; as well as presentations on audio games and games for cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, HIV prevention, cystic fibrosis, flu, surgery and even to fight tooth decay.
Games for Health founder Ben Sawyer will also take the floor to explore the concept of healthy video gaming and gamers. He will mainly look at the environment in which children play and the attitude that kids and parents have toward gaming.
Scheduled on May 27, the Simulation, Education and Modeling with Game Technologies track will host sessions on military combat and care training systems; a game for national incident management; and a case study on creating a game about malaria.
Games Beyond Entertainment Week
This year for the first time, Games Beyond Entertainment Week will aim to promote networking, marketing, business development and knowledge sharing between different segments of the video game industry. Building on the Games for Health conference, the week includes the returning Game Accessibility Day and Virtual Worlds and Health Day, both in their third year, on May 25.
Game Accessibility Day will focus on case studies successfully addressing the video gaming needs of individuals with various disabilities and notably includes a "Hacker Hardware Challenge." The Virtual Worlds and Health Day will attempt to redefine a field which has plateaued in recent years, explains Ben Sawyer. Understanding what virtual worlds in health care mean today and taking into account the popularity of social games, the day will focus on this changing landscape.
The week-long event will also introduce new events mainly focused on the serious games space. The first annual Serious Games Festival & Conference is set for May 24 and will explore design notions, market penetration and learning outcomes of serious games. On May 25, the Out & About: Mobile Serious Games Conference will offer a variety of presentations on mobile health and learning apps.
Also on May 25, two serious games workshops will give attendees the opportunity to discuss hands-on development of mobile and serious games. Lastly, the Emerging Markets in Video Games Symposium, also scheduled for May 25, is expected to focus on new and non-traditional market opportunities for video games and their technologies.
While these events are early in their life cycle, Sawyer hopes to see some of them expand into longer, full-fledged events in coming years. "We're trying to establish this idea that each year in Boston, wrapped around our core Games for Health offering, we can spawn other conversations about how games are living beyond just entertainment helping developers, companies, non-profits find the people they need to be able to take advantage of what games can do as technologies and as design pools to solve problems," says the lead organizer. gamefwd.org
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 Hello friends of Games 4 Rehab, my name is Sean Kelley and I'm a C 3-4 quadriplegic. Years ago when Play Station 2 was the big name video game console out my friend got me a modified PS2 controller from QuadControl.com and I am now able to compete with my friends playing video games. I played MX vs ATV Unleashed, Tourist Trophy, and Hot Shots Golf. Now I have a Xbox 360 with a modified controller from the same company QuadControl.com and like it a lot. Most of the games I play are racing games like GRID, Dirt 2, and MX vs ATV. I've tried to play Call of Duty WaW and was not very successful. On games that both analog sticks are needed to play it is near impossible unless you or somebody you know that's good with electronics further modify the controller. For example the game MX vs ATV Reflex one analog stick controls the riders lean, forward, backward, right, left and the other stick controls the motorcycles turning. I was only able to control one or the other. After some time with the game and my frustration my buddy clipped some alligator wires on the correct wires to get both sticks working together. This is not ideal for some games but it definitely helped with MX vs ATV Reflex.
If you use another controller or you have some ideas to modify this controller I would like to hear about it as well as many other disabled. Xbox 360 user name: themxlab video of me playing MX vs ATV Reflex on Xbox 360
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 If you have some head and neck movement the SmartNav is a great computer cursor and clicker device that will most likely get you playing on the computer. My name is Sean Kelley and I help the good people here at Games 4 Rehab where I can. I'm a C 3-4 quadriplegic and I use the Natural Point SmartNav daily for work and play on my computer. It's a simple device with a USB connection. It comes with the software program needed to get you going. I have mine set on top of my iMac, a reflective dot on a pair of glasses, and a KeySrtrokes onscreen keyboard. I also use a sip and puff switch to control the left and right clicker instead of the dwell clicking feature that come with the SmartNav system because I think I'm able to type faster that way.
When I play mouse operated games there are no problems using the SmartNav but if it's a game using the arrow keys on a keyboard it is more difficult or even impossible to do. check out their site here for more information and other possibilities video There are many quadriplegic and others that are disabled so if you use another device to get around on the computer I would like to hear about it. Some games I play on the computer and my high scores 3 D Pong: 20250 Blockout: 1517 Cunning Stunts:739.44 De-Animator: 145 Egypt Puzzle: 28370 Filler: level-36 86,584 Filler 2 - 38 91,294 Long Walk Home: 53 Math Attack: IQ -111 Matter: 940 Mercy Killing: 2865 Nordic Chill: 37478 Paintball: time: 62.42 score: 7,892,178 Panic: 15645 Pendulumeca: 2105 Quick Brick: 532,610 Ramps: 106620 Rat Shoot:35059 Screwball: 1400 Slingshot Santa: 348.3 Stickman Avalanche: 13192 W.R.A.X: 3780 Yeti Sports: 3051.62 also solitaire, chess, Plants vs. Zombies If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask. My user name is pulmyplug
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New ExerGame project titled Hanging Off a Bar. Hanging off a Bar tires one out on the hands, arms and stomach quite quickly. Luckily, from time to time, there is a raft in the form of a set of logs coming by in the river, and the player can jump on these to rest and recover, but not for too long, because the raft disappears in the waterfall behind, and the player has to jump back up. - from Exertion Interfaces See a video and read about it here Image from Exertion Interfaces website 
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A new partnership with Nintendo and the American Heart Association will begin labeling specific games as "active-play video games." read article here 
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Here's a link to an article and free pdf download from The AbleGamers Foundation about the gaming industry losing money for not considering accessibility in general and seniors in particular.
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The game industry is losing out on up to $3 billion in revenue by failing to cater to older or disabled gamers. read article here
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Will it bring multiple people together on one device to play games, watch movies, and search the internet? read article here
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 I'm not sure why all games don't allow a gamer to change up their controller options but it sure does frustrate me. I play racing games for the most part on Xbox 360. Codemaster's GRID and Dirt 2 give me great options for control set up while Rainbow Studio's newest dirt bike game MX vs ATV Reflex's control set up is very limited. Previous versions of MX vs ATV did give the gamer more control over their controller options. Why did they take this great function away? I have no idea. I was injured crashing my dirt bike and now being a C 3-4 quadriplegic I use video games to get a feeling of being on a bike and it's upsetting to know that the game could have had these options but didn't care enough to include them. There is a MX vs ATV forum to post ideas for the game but my post in the "Idea Pit" went unanswered.
 Chuck Bittner asks for game developers to spend the time to build remapping into their games, or for the console manufacturers to build the functionality into their hardware.
read article here
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Article review by Sheryl Flynn This is an interesting article written by Kenneth Fong, Kathy Chow, Bianca Chan, Kino Lam, Jeff Lee, Teresa Li, Elaine Yan and Asta Wong from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Department of Rehabilitation Sciences. (For article information please contact Dr. Fong at rsnkfong@polyu.edu.hk The aim of this project was to examine the usability of a newly designed virtual reality simulation of the automated teller machine (ATM) for assessment and training. Twenty-four people with acquired brain injury (ABI) participated in the study. Two groups were tested. In the first group, the authors asked "Is the VR ATM accurate in predicting success or failure of using a real world ATM for persons with ABI. Second, the authors asked "Is the VR ATM an effective training tool compared with computer-assisted instruction (CAI) for improving performance in persons with ABI?. The authors hypothesized that task specific training with the VR ATM could enhance problem solving that would then be generalized to real world ATM experiences. Assessment consisted of measures of reaction time, percentage of incorrect responses, levels of cues required and time spent on task. Participants were asked to withdrawal money, transfer money, or make an electronic payment. Cues were provided after 15 seconds no-response intervals. First, a reminder is given signaling the user to try again, if the user was incorrect again, a flashing light indicated the correct response, if wrong again- an auditory cue was offered, and lastly if wrong again- a bright arrow cue pointed to the correct button.  In the second group- each participant was trained to use the ATM by either the VR-ATM or CAI program (groups were assigned in matched pairs). Training consisted of 1 hour sessions, twice per week, for 3 weeks. Outcomes included testing with the Cognistat, average reaction time, percentage of incorrect responses, number of cues needed and time spent. The authors found that the VR-ATM was usable and valid as an assessment and trai ning tool for relearning the use of ATMs prior to real life practice in persons with ABI. Critique: In general, the report is quite interesting. It seems that the computerized VR-ATM has a significant advantage over traditional computer assisted training. The paper would benefit from a futher discussion of how the two training systems differ. The authors provide a photo of the VR-ATM, but no significant description of the CAI is discussed. Lastly, reaction time measurement is not defined in the paper, results of pre/post Cognistat for TBI is not reported. ~Sheryl Flynn PT, PhD
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