The UN World Food Programme is teaching youngsters about the complexities of delivering food and supplies to refugees via a downloadable game. The game was released last Spring on Yahoo Games, but Wired News just wrote about it this week. Three million people have downloaded it. It's a good article. Here is a little taste...
The roar of the chopper blasts through my headphones. Frantically clicking the mouse, I adjust my aim for the wind speed and fire my payload: a pallet stacked high with bags of rice.
What -- you were expecting a cruise missile?
With no guns to fire and no cars to steal, you would think that Food Force wouldn't be a very popular video game in today's market. But after it launched on Yahoo Games last spring, it quickly became the most popular free game on the site, racking up 1 million downloads over the first two months.
Created by the United Nations World Food Programme, Food Force is made up of six stages, each one built around a certain aspect of the emergency food program's operations.
The entire game takes about 30 minutes to play.
Visit the Food Force site for more info.
This is a creative way to explain a complex issue. According to the article, the UN got the idea from a similar game created by the U.S. Army. Will we see more of these "edutainment" games in the future? The cost may be prohibitive, especially for Non-profits. So, it will likely need to prove itself before you see NGOs moving into this space. Of course, there are alternatives. Games like this could be created in Flash. The challenge would be to make them as compelling as this one created by the UN.
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