An honorable enterprise, indeed. And from a gameplay perspective, all stuff that have definitely been done before, with nothing new to add.

As far as what it’s trying to do is concerned, however, I can think of other reasons why this doesn’t work, especially on this game’s most likely target audience, grownups.

Grownups in general are a stubborn bunch of people, always striving for independence and a “I’m doing this because I, and definitely not you, want to” mentality. What this means is, just telling someone to sit down or not press the big red button or in this case just quit smoking, straight up and direct to the point, is definitely not going to work. These games, with their kiddy demonizing of all thinks smoking-related, is a rainbow-colored brute-force hammer to the head which equally boneheaded grownups are all too ready to snark off, monologue against with their “years of experience”, and ultimately ignore.

No need to tell a grownup straight; just subtley demonstrate to them the message, and let THEM decide for themselves. Any other media does this all the time; the sexy lady in red with the blood-stained butcher knife hidden in her handbag (I didn’t say psycho murderer), a crooked old man who soundly beats up thugs in plain view of everyone else without them noticing (I didn’t say retired kung fu master), a yuppie with an awesome-looking cigarette that’s now losing his cool because his doctor just told him he’s only got 2 weeks to live (I didn’t say smoker with health issues). Granted, even that last example still seems blunt.

For games, the same applies. A demonstration of what cigarettes are, informed by the actual game rules; something like if the cigs were some kind of overpowered “I win” button that lasts only for a short while and severely cripples the player’s ability to complete the game objectives for the rest of the game. A choice of playing the game fairly, or abusing the game breaker and eventually make the game unwinnable; an in-game dilemma like this that better mirrors how cigs work would go further in a grownup’s mind than any cereal-box advertisment presentation ever would. (for an example of the fairplay vs game breaker mechanic that actually drives a story/message, look up Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume.)

Might work on kids or teenagers, but there’s a huge difference between quitting smoking and peer pressure.