Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Feed the World: The Video Game

People used to play Farmville a lot, but apparently they got bored with it, considering it a waste of time. Well, would they think it was a waste of time if the objective of the game were to feed the world? Why, they wouldn’t be allowed to think so then (or else!). So why doesn’t someone make a Farmville-esque video game where gamers grow food to feed the hungry all throughout the whole world?

I know this sounds like a boring game, but each level is harder and harder, with the EPA regulating for how much dust your soil can kick up in the wind, and regulating against fertilizers that work well, and with Congress taking away farm subsidies, and with corporate factory farms trying to muscle in on your business, and factory farm lobbyists bribing the government to tailor regulations specifically to put you out of business, and with insect invasions/plagues and the EPA not allowing you to use pesticides to save your crops. And normally a gamer might just think this is a red tape nightmare and stop playing, but you have the responsibility of feeding the world, so you can’t quit! And then global warming causes droughts, and you can’t grow anything, and you know it will cause a famine, but the government still will not permit you to divert water for irrigation purposes because of some teensy little endangered fish nobody’s ever heard of that is not even consequential in its own food chain, and if you can’t get the conservationists off your back with an executive order, millions of people will die a senseless, horrible death!

It’s a lot more exciting and challenging than you thought, isn’t it? Oh, but that’s not all, because there’s also a bunch of surprise story lines, like hillbilly cannibal attacks, and Pagan and Satanic plotlines like from the movies The Wicker Man and Deadly Blessing and the TV movie Crowhaven Farm, and people whose cars break down and try to seduce your daughters due to all the “farmer’s daughter” dirty jokes. It’s never a dull moment! It’s Feed the World, the video game: coming soon to a gaming store near you! (Or maybe it will pop up on Twitter to compete with Farmville on Facebook soon.)