[OLPC-Games] a new game for OLPC from us

Ben Sawyer bsawyer at dmill.com
Thu Mar 13 13:16:19 EDT 2008


The problem with a game like this is getting the design to be such  
that the obvious things like Pizza are not in the game.  To make the  
challenge be more subtle then eating pizza - bad eating fruit good.

Also you need to consider that food and nutrition are quite culturally  
based and therefore there are things in other parts of the world  
normally eaten that are bad for them but we never eat and the opposite  
issue which is that foods which are good might not even exist in that  
culture.

What would be cool is if you made a game where the ability to program  
in the nutritional data is left to a separate file that one could edit  
to calibrate things more.

You might also want to look at different ideas for food pyramids and  
also the issue that some fats are fine but things like trans fats are  
bad.  Nutrition games can't be so black and white or they will fail  
like many other ones have that I've seen and collectively call "catch  
the fruit" games as they devolve to that premise when in fact that as  
a premise does not lead to significant behavior change.

Ben
co-founder Games for Health
www.gamesforhealth.org



On Mar 13, 2008, at 1:11 PM, eunyoung chung wrote:

> My team and I have been developing an activity for OLPC laptop.
> The name of the activity is Food-Man !
> The feature of game is Pacman that many people are familiar and easy  
> to play. It will have three Levels. Each level will have a nutrition  
> indicator (Carbohydrate, Protein, fat, calcium, and fiber). The  
> criteria to proceed to a higher level will be to achieve the  
> required daily percentage of nutrition. If the food is good / 
> nutritious they will get more points. The purpose of the activity is  
> to teach important facts about food and nutrition and why it's  
> important for them to make healthy food choices from a young age.
> this is link for prototype of the game
>
> http://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~chung/olpc-foodman.jpg
>
> As you see in the prototype, when pizza is eaten, nutrition bar is  
> increased.
> we are using python and pygame lib.
>
> How do you think about the game??
> we need your feedback so that we can improve more!!
> -- 
>
> Eunyoung Chung _______________________________________________
> Games mailing list
> Games at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/games



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