A Lyon video game creation studio, in partnership with public health experts, is currently developing a mobile application to quit smoking.
Patch, electronic cigarette, hypnosis… To quit smoking, really motivated tobacco addicts are ready to try everything. How about a smartphone video game? Interactive, motivating, fun… This smoking cessation method seems to have all the advantages. But it still needs to be developed. This is the objective of the Lyon-based start-up Dowino, which launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Ulule website to create the game Smokitten.
“Smokitten is the first video game to quit smoking or never start,” says Pierre-Alain Gagne, manager and co-founder of Dowino. Halfway between a serious game and a pet game – a game where the player must take care of an animal -, Smokitten is aimed at smokers aged 25 to 45.
The player must take care of a virtual cat who also wants to quit smoking. A cat that will be the true reflection of the player. To create this avatar, he will have to indicate his daily cigarette consumption and will have to fill out questionnaires to gauge his level of physical and psychological dependence. Clearly, if you smoke like a firefighter, your virtual cat will walk around continuously with a cigarette in its mouth.
Diversion
The serious things start when the player clicks on the “I quit smoking” button. From there, the objective is to unlock activities for his virtual companion. The designers have created relaxation mini-games with yoga or, on the contrary, activities where the player can let off steam by clicking as much glass as possible or a rhythm on the screen of his laptop. “The player will have to occupy it by all means. A game of Smokitten could thus replace cigarette breaks, ”adds the game designer.
Pierre-Alain Gagne, co-founder of Dowino: “ We are committed to creating games that are useful to the general interest. »
But the Smokitten project is not just a simple game. Behind the graphics and the video game techniques hides the ambition to be a real method of help when stopping. The company then turned to the Center Hygée, the public health platform of the Cancéropôle Lyon Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, to benefit from their expertise in addictology, smoking cessation, behavior change and psychology.
“We know that classic interventions such as poster and awareness campaigns have a fairly modest effect on smokers, explains Professor Franck Chauvin, deputy director of the Hygée Center and professor of public health. The video game brings together all the qualities that we look for in prevention, such as role-playing and player involvement. With Smokitten, we exploit another quality: the use of social networks”.
Supported by the community
Mutual aid between players is indeed at the heart of the Smokitten project, especially in the relapse phase. “The player will be able to have the support of the entire adult community but also that of the children who play on the prevention version called Smokitten Park”, explains Pierre-Alain Gagne. Little attentions that will result in personalized messages of encouragement or the sending of additional credits to help the player and make him progress by unlocking an activity.
Frank Chauvin, deputy director of the Center Hygée: “ We must try to identify where the player is in order to send him the messages adapted to his situation. »
On the children’s side, the application will aim to teach them all the dangers of tobacco and how to avoid them. “The weight of society, especially that of industry, for smoking is very important otherwise we would not have such rates. The game aims to warn them of this marketing that they will undergo, ”indicates Professor Chauvin.
For now, Smokitten is just getting started. A first prototype will soon be finished and ready to be tested by smokers at the Hygée Center. But to launch production, the creative studio and their partners are looking for investors. On the Ulule platform, the campaign raised more than 13,000 euros out of the 25,000 needed. If the project materializes Smokitten will be available on iPhone and Android at 4.99 euros. The child version will be free.
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