Food Force: The First Humanitarian Aid Game 1 Favorite 

Date: 

Nov 30 2011

Location: 

Online

From Konami Digital Entertainment (makers of Dance Dance Revolution, Castlevania, and other hits) comes a significant expansion of their long-running support of the World Food Programme’s gaming initiatives. The result is the re-emergence of Food Force, one of the most successful early games for change titles. This spiritual sequel to the 2005 original boasts all of the bells and whistles of today’s social games and it is also Konami’s first free, social game.


In 2005, the World Food Programme (WFP) funded and released one of the most successful games for change ever: Food Force. Created by the British game developers, Playerthree, and the Italian computer design studio Deepend, this PC game was downloaded over 6 million times and played by over 10 million players in 18 countries. In Food Force, players were transported to a fictitious, famine-stricken country in the midst of a civil war. Throughout the game’s six missions, players experienced the crucial steps needed for WFP to deliver large scale, humanitarian aid.

The reboot of the series has been developed and funded by the world-class game studio, Konami. This iteration of Food Force takes full advantage of the social web, as players must interact with each other in order to progress. This is done through buying crops, sending friends on missions, and buying virtual goods to boost performance. Money spent on these items directly funds WFP projects in the real world, such as campaigns that send daily meals to 20 million children every year. These crucial resources allow children to stay healthy and have the necessary energy to do well in school. To make a strong connection to their contributions, players can view their “real-life impact tracker”, a feature that shows them how many children their virtual good purchases are affecting.

Food Force has been in development for over two years and represents a significant advance in Konami’s commitment to supporting the goals of WFP, a collaboration that began in 2005 when they produced the original version of Food Force in Japanese.

As the world’s largest humanitarian aid agency, WFP is no stranger to the power of gaming and has forged impactful relationships with commercial developers – both in creating its own games (such as Free Rice) and by serving as the beneficiary of large-scale socially conscious campaigns run by Zynga and other game studios.

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