A mobile phone based virtual pet to teach social norms and behaviour to children Hanno Hildmann Anika Uhlemann Daniel Livingstone University of the West of Scotland School of Computing, 1 High Street PA1 2BE Paisley, Scotland hanno@cypherpunx.com anika uhlemann@web.de daniel.livingstone@uws.ac.uk Abstract The paper presents a Tamagotchi-like mobile phone game that uses an artificial neural network driven charac- ter model and is designed to teach positive moral values to children. The behavioural model is explained and the ap- proach is supported by a proof of concept implementation. Our results suggest the feasibility of the approach. 1. Introduction The game presented here intends to teach children be- tween 6 and 12 different social values, e.g. taking care of someone or taking responsibility for your own actions. The player has different possibilities to interact with the Tam- agotchi to achieve a certain behaviour, but is limited in influ- ence because the creature has its own personality and deci- sion making abilities. Like in real life the player has to take care of the creatures basic needs, as it needs food, sleep and social interactions, but there are also some more advanced needs like affection or intimacy. To keep the Tamagotchi in a healthy condition the player will have to choose actions that please or benefit the virtual creature. Contemporary mobile phones can easily outperform any computer on which the 70’s generation played their first games (e.g. Commodore64, Amiga, Atari) which makes mobile phones an ideal platform for serious games, i.e. for games designed to deliver teaching materials. Quoting [4], the main benefits to game-based learning (i.e. which skills are developed and which abilities are pro- moted) are: Problem solving skills, Communication skills, Analytical skills, Discovery skills, Team working skills, Ne- gotiating skills, Social & cultural skills, Logical thinking skills, Critical thinking skills, Visualisation skills. This list is meant to be a comprehensive list of the dominant skills that can be developed or trained through serious games and no game is likely to encompass all of the above to the same extent. The prototype game presented in this paper primar- ily targets the social and cultural skills of the player. 2. Targeting attitudes of children Generally the reasons to play a game are to experience fun or challenges, not to learn [2]. If learning does take place it is either incidental or aimed at becoming a better player. A certain drawback to this is that it is very difficult to assess the effect the game has on the player, certainly if there is no controlled evaluation environment. In the past, games that simulates a virtual creature which is depending on the player to survive have been criticized as being addictive, yet under a certain (our) viewpoint this is a positive aspect of the game. The addictive element of the game is that the user has to interact with the game in order to prevent it from ending. The degree with which children get attached to virtual pets in some cases even matches their affection for real living pets. This attention and care chil- dren have been observed to muster for an inanimate toy is unrivaled, up to the point where a deceased Tamagotchi is actually mourned as if it was a living being. In the field of psychology the theory of planned be- haviour [1] provides a model for human behaviour in which the attitude a person has towards some action is a deciding factor for the decision to execute this action. There are re- sults from the literature on behavioural psychology support- ing the claim regarding the undesired effect video games can have, especially with respect to increased automatic ag- gressiveness through violent computer games [6]. While these results claim that computer games can incite be- haviour which society as a whole does not condone, they do indicate that the model in question does have merit. Chang- ing someone’s attitude towards a behaviour is to change the likeliness of that person behaving in this way. In this theory, human decision making is guided by three conceptually different considerations and beliefs: Second IEEE International Conference on Digital Games and Intelligent Toys Based Education 978-0-7695-3409-1/08 $25.00 © 2008 Crown Copyright DOI 10.1109/DIGITEL.2008.41 169 Second IEEE International Conference on Digital Games and Intelligent Toys Based Education 978-0-7695-3409-1/08 $25.00 © 2008 Crown Copyright DOI 10.1109/DIGITEL.2008.41 15 Second IEEE International Conference on Digital Games and Intelligent Toys Based Education 978-0-7695-3409-1/08 $25.00 © 2008 Crown Copyright DOI 10.1109/DIGITEL.2008.41 15 Second IEEE International Conference on Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning 978-0-7695-3409-1/08 $25.00 © 2008 Crown Copyright DOI 10.1109/DIGITEL.2008.41 15 Second IEEE International Conference on Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning 978-0-7695-3409-1/08 $25.00 © 2008 Crown Copyright DOI 10.1109/DIGITEL.2008.41 15