Food Desert – the Game

This game has a variety of levels and ways to play.  

The first two versions of the game use a 4Square type app. 

Mobile Game 1: compete with others to map sources of fresh
fruit and vegetables within a given zip code. 
Higher points are given for mapping locations on bus routes or for finding
food sources that are with a few blocks of a fast food location.   Farm
stands or farmers’ markets get double points. 
If a location is within an area designated as a food desert points are tripled.   Options are for individuals to compete with
each other or for bus routes to compete.

Mobile Game 2:  Compete
to plot the best routes from a variety of starting points to purchase to fresh
food.  Points earned factors in time of
travel, bus fare, amount of groceries that can be carried by a pedestrian / on
the bus / on a bike, and gas money.  The
game computes the real cost of the food for the player’s staring point and displays
the adjusted cost of a variety of staples. 

The games are intended to illustrate how hard finding,
acquiring, and affording non-convenience store, non-fast food is in certain
areas as well as to highlight sources of food. 
It troubles the idea that the poor have realistic access to fresh food,
but simply choose to eat badly.   The game applies both to urban and rural poor.

Web Game Version:  Guerilla Gardens ( a twist on Farmville) where players
compete to raise virtual crops in “borrowed” spaces  such as vacant urban lots, foreclosed yards, and
rooftops of corporate offices or forbidden places --  front yards, suburban green spaces and tree
lawns.   Players must successfully involve community
members to assist them in working in the gardens, pushing back against
regulations / landlords/homeowner associations, and in selling the produce at
fair prices within the community.   

Other Concepts

Platforms
/ mechanics tbd

*Take Back the Food. Food co-op  / farmers’ market for the non-yuppy.  Low prices, no argula or frou frou
stuff.  Does this mean the poor don’t
want heirloom foods?  No, but it does
mean those places tend to price out / unwelcome the poor.  The basics should be on offer in portable quantities.

*Beet Routes --   Set up veggie stands at bus stops. Convince
the transport authority to allow vendors 
of  fruit and vegetables to sell
on the buses.  Think Cigar Girls and Boys
with carrots and apples.

*Our Shit Don’t Stink! 
Creative composting and manuring game for urban gardeners.

*Recipe Round-Up – involves fruit and vegetable recipes offering
fast and cheap preparations.  Time is a
commodity, and consideration of exhaustion after a day of physical work and a
bus ride is a factor.  Recipes should not
rely on a well and exotically stocked pantry of seasonings.  Points for taste and appeal and
non-yuppiness. 

Other more explicitly political games:

Platforms / mechanics tbd

Monsanto Massacre
, Walmart Wars, and Arby’s Abattoir.

The action game-play levels  involve zombies turning crops into crap, taking
over small businesses,  and chasing cows
with chainsaws.   The strategy levels
build creative pushback against the undead corporations.   Points are scored for protecting heirloom seed
banks, stealing patented seeds and Johnny Appleseeding them, and destroying
silos of GMOs.  Walmart Wars includes setting
up food banks for workers in Walmart parking lots, resurrecting Sam Walton to
pursue his descendants, and mobilizing an army of greeters to  direct people to the nearest mom and mom  or pop and pop or even mom and pop
store.  Arby’s Abattoir includes
strategies for  how to whistleblow and how
to film animal processing  abuses.  It also includes organizing protests against
laws that prohibit “agricultural operation interference.”