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.
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)
Information is Beautiful
The Art History of Games
The Art History of Games
Objects & Things
Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Comments
Ian Bogost on Information is Beautiful
Shane on Information is Beautiful
Jeff Medcalf on Information is Beautiful
Shane on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Ian Bogost on Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium






