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Sonic for School Lunches December 1, 2006 - by Ian Bogost Snack Dash is a Sonic-style side-scroller distributed by the UK's School Food Trust. "Speed is the key as you race to collect as many healthy eating points as you can while avoiding the bad guys and keeping up enough energy to get through the course." Normally I'm a bit cynical about these sorts of games, because they tend to decouple the subject represented from the gameplay. But there are a few nice touches here, most notably the fact that junk food slows you down, which is abstractly accurate and also important in a Sonic-style game. Still, it's a pretty low-level commentary. The game is well made, although when you get going really fast you can't see the food you're supposed to capture. The carrots elicited a fond reminder of the old Epic game Jazz Jackrabbit. (thanks to Nico) Comment from Patrick on December 3, 2006
This reminds me of a talk Earnest Adams gave last year, where he was talking about the potential of games to teach or something, and illustrated it with a shmup involving a sperm or something. Maybe it was a game about safe sex involving condoms, whatever. The point is, using a shmup mechanic as an example of what games can do misses the point, and so does this game, though maybe by not so wide a mark. The junk food mechanic would be much more effective if there was a balance between junk food and healthy food, reflected in the level design's distribution of the different items and their mathetmatical relationship. Having a single encounter with junk food make you fat, effectively unable to continue until you stop and do push-ups, takes away from what could have been a more subtle statement about a balanced diet. Overt didacticism is best left for children's literature and Church group theatre productions, where they can be conveyed much more efficiently. Comment from Ian Bogost on December 3, 2006
What's ironic about it is that it's precisely the medium of videogames that have the potential to represent the complexity of these relationships, even if simplified for a younger audience. At the studio, we've been working on a game about the politics of nutrition for a while now. We got delayed, but expect more on it early next year. Comment from jason a. on December 8, 2006
This game sounds extremely familiar: Plus: retro Atari graphics, Ian! POST A COMMENT
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