Two new serious games

Seems like every time I hear someone describing the development of African business, crumbling or nonexistent infrastructure is cited as a major limiting factor. Similarly, you can't talk about healthcare in Africa without mentioning the delivery systems on the ground. A new game, The Transaid Challenge, puts you behind the wheel of a four wheel drive and asks you to deliver health supplies to remote African villages. My problem was not so much with the potholes as with my (apparently very limited) hand-eye coordination.

You may have read about Peacemaker in the NYTimes recently, a game where you try to bring peace to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. YouTube has an excellent 3 minute video featuring the Carnegie Mellon team who created Peacemaker and images from the game. Timely and much more sophisticated than the other serious games we've written about.