Two games have caught my eye.

These two games have caught my eye in the last couple of days.
At school we have been watching "Pay it Forward" and we are encouraging the children to start thinking about a project they can initiate that will involve some social action or service to others. I've been thinking about how to incorporate video games in a meaningful way and these two certainly get you thinking. The game Ayiti is part of the Taking It Global website which has a whole range of social projects that kids can get involved in or initiate themselves. I played it for a bit last night and quickly became engrossed in trying to achieve a better life for the characters in the game. So many factors to think about and take into consideration. This is a really powerful game for having kids think about the interrelationship between health, work, family, education, happiness and success. Certainly made me think.

Dafur is Dying is also powerful for conveying the desperate situation that exists in Dafur. I wondered if it almost trivialised it too much by turning it into a game. I'll have to think about this but I think that maybe World Vision do this better by connecting children to real stories about real children in real situations. What do others think?