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• 1 2013-07-29T07:34:02-07:00 Food Desert -- a social justice game 7 Food Desert -- the game media 2013-07-29T12:28:43-07:00

  What is a Food Desert? 

  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:

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

  Platforms / mechanics tbd  --  mixed action and strategy 

  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.”