An Exploratory Analysis of Game Telemetry from a Pediatric mHealth Intervention

Pediatric obesity is a growing epidemic, with unhealthy eating habits and poor physical activity being major contributors. While video and mobile games have been shown to have a positive impact on behavior change in children, the mechanisms underlying game play that impact outcomes of interest are poorly understood. This research aims to examine the impact of a novel mobile gaming app on the design of behavioral interventions by learning from the rich and unique game telemetry generated from a randomized controlled trial of the app use by school children. In this exploratory analysis, we extract a partial dataset to build and analyze chronological sequences of game plays to understand key patterns in the game mechanics that players utilize as they navigate the game, and possible implications of the results.