McDonalds thinks that kids are fat because of video games, but Ian Bogost's Fatworld game is coming out today, with the aim of pointing out just how many complicated issues there are surrounding obesity. I'm thinking most of 'em are economic -- gross food is cheap, veggies are expensive -- but I'm sure I'll learn by playing.
"Fatworld explores the relationships between obesity, nutrition, and socioeconomics in the contemporary U.S.. 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. Will it be wheatgrass and soy? Or fried chicken at every meal? How much can you afford to spend on food, and how does that affect your general health? Characters who eat poorly will get fat. Characters who don’t exercise will move around the world more laboriously. Disease and death will eventually ravage players with poor health, while those with good health will live to a ripe age."
I don't want to be ravaged by disease and death! Also, I am soy intolerant. Whatever shall I do?
Plus, Ian is pretty awesome. You should probably read this interview I did with him a little while ago.
[Water Cooler Games]
