In this Tech Talk report, Time Warner Cable News’ Adam Balkin reports from the Games for Change Festival, focusing on video games that make a positive impact.

Video games can often take over small or sometimes large chunks of our lives. The annual Games for Change Festival is all about finding new ways to take that power games have over us and turn it into a force for good.

 “Games for Change is an organization that started 11 years ago with a mission, a very simple mission to show that games could go beyond entertainment. That they could do positive impact in fields like education, health and social change. Changing society for the better,” says Asi Burak of Games for Change. “

For many years though, the problem games like these had is that they were kind of like eating your Brussels sprouts. You might play for a bit because you could tell they were good for you, but for the most part, you didn’t want to come back for more. That may be changing though.

The folks at Zynga, behind popular games like FarmVille and Words With Friends, say game development tools are so sophisticated these days, it’s possible to make a Game for Change that competes on every level with a Game for Fun.

“Games for impact - designers have gotten more sophisticated about striking a balance there, and I think they’re also more realistic about the fact that their games need to compete with commercial games. They at least need to be in the ballpark," says Ken Weber of Zynga.org.

While most of the games you traditionally see at the festival will teach you about things like the environment, the economy, social issues, this year we are seeing more games aimed at teaching you about you.

One example, Mindlight uses the gamer’s brainwaves to operate and help teach children how to better cope with scary or stressful situations.

 “The headset is reading whether they’re relaxed and calm or whether they’re very anxious,” explains Isabela Granic of Radboud University Nijmegen. “When they are frightened, it’s very dark, and what they have to do is relax. And as they relax, they grow their mind light and it becomes lighter and lighter in the game."

To learn more about Games for Change or to play some of the titles you can head over to GamesforChange.org.