Pros: An interesting new approach to games. Encourages people to be active in their real life. Suggests places to go or things to do if you want to be more active.

Cons: Can be confusing at times

Stars: 4 out of 5

“Mindbloom” is a game owned by a company of the same name. You can find it as a Facebook application or a site of its own.

The purpose of the game is to make your real life a game and encourage you to be active in your real life. It does this by making all of your life a tree, and you then must perform tasks to make that tree grow.

Making the tree grow consists of two aspects. The first is sunlight, which you get by putting music, quotes and pictures that inspire you into their database. The second is rainwater. You get this by doing things in your life such as taking out the trash, smiling at someone or listening to a song.

First off, this game is interesting because it brings a much more interesting approach to computer games. Instead of creating situations in the computer, the story turns your life into the story, and the actions of that story are taken in real life.

Though there have been some games out there that encourage real life activity, most of them are meant for children and are hosted by sites like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

The game doesn’t just tell you to “be active” and then leave you to interpret what that means. Some action games actually suggest where to go if you want to be active in them. For example, they suggest listening to an inspiring lecture. If you chose to click on that activity, it will give you links to things that will help you find a good lecture.

If one bad thing is to be said about “Mindbloom” it is that it can be excessively confusing at points. When it comes to activities, sometimes you can’t be sure if the game has acknowledged that you completed activities considering nothing has really changed.

Though all of this can be figured out in time, when one first jumps on to the game it may be frustrating.

This game is very interesting with its approach to gaming, and, personally, I look forward to using this application more.