The American Legacy Foundation's ongoing anti-smoking campaign truth has released a game created by Templar Studios based on truth's "Crazy World" ad campaign. Here's what Templar's president Peter Mack had to say about the game:

I'm a bit surprised that the game is so rhetorically weak when truth's TV ads have been so powerful. The production value of the game and site are quite high, and the "satirical carnival" world is interesting, but I think the game design is just horrendous. There's no attempt to correlate the exposure to toxins with any legitimate health effects, nor even an effort to help the player understand what toxins are in cigarettes and how the high levels of such toxins are compared to other kinds of environmental contamination. This would have been possible even within the simplistic carnival game framework of the current game.

Or how about just showing the real, rather than absurdly fake health trauma caused by exposure to these toxins? Such representations could have been abstract and carnivalesque without being just plain inapplicable.

Anyway, apparently you need a subscription to read the release on AdWeek's site, so I've reproduced it in the continuation below.

TEMPLAR GOT GAME FOR TRUTH WEB SITE

NEW YORK Templar Studios has launched an online game, Mutator, as part of the American Legacy Foundation's anti-smoking Web site, www.thetruth.com.

The interactive game is based on the client's "Crazy World" ad campaign, a satirical carnival designed to raise awareness about the hazards of smoking.

"People are realizing that online gaming is just as effective as TV ads, and more cost effective," said Peter Mack, president and general manager of the New York studio. "The reason for using this as a medium is that it is always available, unlike a TV commercial that ends in 30 seconds."

The game, which is aimed at a wide audience, ages 18-50, was created to show both smokers and non-smokers the dangers of cigarettes using humor and irony. Players score points by avoiding moving green puffs of radioactive smoke. If they get caught in the smoke, they mutate into an alien-like form. "The idea is to attract people to entertain themselves and keep the message within context--to play for fun," Mack said.

Templar worked with Boston-based Arnold, one of the client's ad agencies, to create concepts for the game.

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