Putting the brakes on drunk driving

"Serious games" research makes roads safer around the world

A video game that started as a class project is helping keep drunk drivers off the roads in cities across Canada and around the world.

Booze Cruise—developed by digital media professor Jim Parker and his students at the University of Calgary—simulates the experience of driving under the influence of alcohol, complete with blurred vision, delayed reflexes and a skewed sense of reality.

“Some people believe that if you just focus, you can drive really well while impaired,” says Parker. “Our game shows them it is just not possible to think yourself sober.”

Booze Cruise is a prime example of Canada’s growing “serious gaming” industry, which develops computer and video games for non-entertainment purposes such as teaching and training. Since its launch in 2007, the Booze Cruise game has been used by police departments, schools and not-for-profit groups—like Students Against Drunk Driving—to educate people on the dangers of driving while under the influence.

“We’ve had requests to use the game from as far away as New Zealand and Sweden, as well as across Canada and the US,” says Parker.

In fact, one of Parker’s biggest requests came from the US army, which paid thousands of dollars to have the original game beefed up and is now using it to reduce drunk driving among its members.

Booze Cruise is just one of several serious games developed out of Parker’s IMAGINE research network funded by SSHRC. The network also spawned two groups, Serious Games Canada and the Canadian Game Studies Association, which have helped mobilize Canada’s serious gaming industry and create a Canadian presence on the world stage.