It seems appropriate that “Serious Games” advocate Ian Bogost should take a stab at the corporate food and beverage world, given its recent attempts (ie. McDonalds) to overshadow its own part in the growth (no pun intended) of childhood obesity by pointing fingers at ‘couch potato’ entertainment forms like video games.

Bogost’s Persuasive Games has released a game examining the importance of nutrition, exercise and general good health, all under the happy, squishy name of Fatworld. Bogost describes the game in a January post on Water Cooler Games by saying that:

The game’s goal is not to tell people what to eat or how to exercise, but to demonstrate the complex, interwoven relationships between nutrition and factors like budgets, the physical world, subsidies, and regulations. In Fatworld, you create a world, design a character, and live out an accelerated life in that world. By choosing your character’s dietary and exercise habits, you can experiment with the constraints of nutrition and economics as they affect your character’s general health.

Basically, think of it as The Sims Meet Richard SImmons, all packaged in educational, thought-provoking look at our current cultural love of fast food. Bogost is quick to say that he isn’t blaming McD’s entirely, but that it’s a complex issue with many factors that need to better examined.

Via | WaterCoolerGames.com

I admit that I loved History class all through school. I’m a nerd like that and I’m comfortable in my nerdiness. Some folks though, just don’t care to learn history, and with the sometimes dry, dull and frankly lifeless details we’re expected to learn and rejoice at remembering, it’s not surprising. Why not then, combine something students struggle with (history) with something they might enjoy (gaming).

2K and Bitcasters have come together to create a professional mod for Sid Meier’s Civilization III sim that allows Canadian students to recreate, rewrite, and in a sense, relive their country’s history. HistoriCanada: The New World will be donated, yes, for free, to 100,000 high school students across the country in a bundle with Civ III. The game’s introduction set the scene in 16th century North America:

“For thousands of years the aboriginals have taken meat from the forests, fish from the rivers and grain from the soil — and settled inter-tribal disputes with sharpened flint. Now their way of life is about to be tested, for the year is 1525 and large boats of wood carrying a different, pale-skinned man have arrived off the eastern shores of a land which is surprisingly not India or China. The struggle for survival begins anew. Can the Europeans carve a niche for themselves in the ‘New World’? Will the aboriginal inhabitants prosper with the new opportunities or struggle with new challenges?”

Love it!

If you already own Civ III, you can visit the mod’s official site to download it and give it a try for yourself.

Via | GamesPress

It’s almost as though we’re asking for it; asking to be loathed and hated and regarded with general distatse by the ‘outsiders’. The gaming industry may not quite deserve the general pasting it has been receiving from lawyers and politicians, but with games like the following being made, it’s easy to tell why accusations of excessive violence and insensitivity are hurled at us with righetous abandon.

What am I rambling about? The Super Columbine Massacre RPG. Now you, from the comfort of your leather manager’s chair, can take on the troubled personas of Columbine gunmen Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in order to battle through the events leading up to the tragic happenings at the high school. It was, up until recently, entered into the Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition, an event which ‘exists to help aspiring game developers showcase their work. The festival aids developers through industry connections, peer interaction and national exposure’. It had made its way into the finalist category before being yanked by the festival organizers on short notice following protests and the threat of lost sponsorship money.
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While Rockstar is wrestling with hookers and strip joints, and news about the latest in the political tap-dance on video games makes the rounds, this one is kind of a refreshing change of pace.

Serious games, or games that serve purposes in excess of pure entertainment, are garnering a lot of attention for their good guy foil to the darker side of the industry. I personally am all for any game that can a) make non-gamers think differently about video games, b) make gamers themselves think about what they play and what lies outside the scope of that, and c) makes kids going through tough times feel better.

Re-Mission, the cleverly titled offering from Hope Lab, is the result of a collaborative efforts between science and entertainment to assist children and teenagers who are battling cancer in better understanding their disease. Don’t be fooled by the good intentions; this ain’t no cheesy flash game with all the entertainment value of a crusty falafel. Oh no. Re-Mission is a fully 3-D and fully interactive title developed with the input of gaming patients to ensure that it was packed with fun. A huge bonus is the active and supportive online community that is developing around this game, with message boards and blogs available for perusing and commenting through the main site.

The inspiration for the project came from an immunology researcher, who saw the need for better education for young patients in a way that would actually interest them. According to the official site, the creation of Re-Mission went a little something like this:

Imagine that you’re working in a research laboratory during the day. You watch cancer cells multiplying under a microscope. At night, you go home and play video games with your family and friends. Then you get the idea that a video game for young people with cancer might play a positive role in helping them fight their disease. A video game designed especially for kids with cancer might give them a feeling of power over their disease as they blast away at the cancer cells. And you could use top-notch research to test the game and see if it really would help the kids. That’s exactly what Pam Omidyar imagined. And in 2001, she founded HopeLab to make this idea a reality.

Serious game or not, I’m an immunology nerd and I’d play it. Would you?

Via | GamePolitics

Remember the heart-rending sadness when one of your axles broke, causing your children to starve somewhere out in the mid-west and your oxen to keel over from heat exhaustion? Wasn’t that fun? Didn’t you learn things about proper management, the circle of life and how, no matter how hard you try and how well you think you’re doing, that sometimes things just go wrong?

Well think Oregon Trail but with lions, and famines the likes of which even early settlers would be appalled at, and you have 3rd World Farmer. Created as part of a student project at IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark, 3rd World Farmer challenges players to eek out a sustainable living in a locale rife with poverty and bloody conflict. Grow corn, diversify with chickens, and learn a bit about the troubles plaguing third world families (and countries).

Who said gaming had to be silliness? A prime example of the growing serious games movement.

(via GamePolitics)

Edit: as of 2:34pm EST today the site appears to be down, which is saddening. Anyone know somewhere else to track it down?

Double Edit: In looking for another spot hosting 3rd World Farmer, I stumbled upon Darfur is Dying, which depicts the perils currently being faced by hundreds of thousands in this contested region of the Sudan. Enlightening. This isn’t exactly a cheery post I know, but I do think it’s important to highlight the breadth of gaming experiences and the serious game applications that extend far beyond a hack’n’slash triple-A title.