http://www.reachoutcentral.com.au/
An Australian youth welfare group has come up with a novel way to improve mental health in young people: an online video game.
But players won't be gunning down hordes of alien scum a la Halo, or hooning around the track in a BMW M3, Need for Speed style.
Rather, Reach Out Central, championed by the Inspire Foundation, is an online role-playing game in which players can "test- drive life and play it when and how you want to".
Helping and befriending the computer-controlled characters that inhabit the online world is essential, and Inspire hopes skills developed in the game - and choices made there about friends, partying, work and life in general - will transfer to the real world.
Inspire Foundation's director of programs, Jonathan Nicholas, said the program, launched today, targeted young people aged 16-25. Young males had been particularly difficult to engage using other communication vehicles, such as information sites.
"The purpose of the game is to build social standing with other characters and progress through the storyline, and to do that and progress well you have to maintain your own happiness, maintain self-confidence and you have to have physical energy," Nicholas said.
He said a major focus was to develop a cool, fun game that looked good and was engaging. Engagement was difficult to achieve by simply shovelling booklets of information at young people.
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