Meals for Monsters: a Mobile Application for the Feasibility of Gaming and Social Mechanisms

Meals for Monsters is a mobile application where users help monster avatars with background stories (e.g., having type 2 diabetes) work on a particular nutritional goal (e.g., reduce carbs) by selecting crowdsourced "in-the-wild" meals to feed them. In this mixed methods study, we deployed Meals for Monsters as part of an online survey (n=68) and interviewed additional users (n=3) to learn whether "neutral" monster avatars might be effective for nutritional engagement and whether the community's response had an influence on their nutritional decision making. Results showed that 39.7% of the users changed answers after viewing community responses which resulted in 14% more accuracy across all items. Strong player-avatar-identification and increased utilization of the crowdsourced community board were strongly correlated to users' enjoyment of the app. Findings suggest how lightweight tools can leverage gamification and social mechanisms to facilitate engagement and reflection on nutrition topics in enjoyable ways.