Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.
The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.
Gonzalo Frasca, WCG editor emeritus and collaborator on theDean for Iowa Game, has just released Debate Night, an unofficial game his studio Powerful Robot created in support of the Obama campaign.
Gameplay is derived from Zuma-type games; the player chooses a key issue (represented iconographically) and then uses a match-and-move gesture to swap their positions. Match three or more and they disappear, the equivalent of volleying successfully in the debate. The game both acts as a quality piece of interactive media in support of the campaign and a subtle critique of the process itself, since the issues themselves matter less in the campaign than the way they are repositioned.
Speaking of critique, there's a special reward at the end of the game as well...
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