While most people think of sex games as just an extension of the porn market, with only one purpose, to entertain a mainly male audience, there are people who look at sex in games differently. The Swiss Federal Office of public health has embraced games and other interactive media, to educate the people, even the younger ones.
Catch the Sperm game
For their ‘Stop Aids’ campaign, with some excellent erotic photography, they have created a free downloadable game called “Catch the Sperm” and a talking mouth called “Love Lips”. In the Sperm game you take control of a condom canon and catches sperm, and all kind of viruses. Along the way you learn all about sexual transmitted diseases and how to prevent them. The style of the game looks a bit like ‘Worms 2’ and is quite funny. In my opinion a nice way to reach a younger audience, let them have some fun, a laugh, and teach them the basic knowledge of sexual behavior. The “Love Lips” game is just funny, you feed the talking condom words and she, or he, speaks them.
Use sex, or at least make it sexual
What’s remarkable, or maybe it’s just my own brainwave, is that the poster campaigns have a rather high erotic level and the games are graphically very safe, and I mean really safe. I can understand the caution, but they could go a bit more in the erotic direction I guess. It could reach, and educate, a lot more people, and I do think it brings the message closer to where it counts.
I would say to the campaigns art director, you did a step in the right direction in using games for educational purposes, but when you have a sexual colored message, use sex, or at least make it sexual, and that’s not only because I would like to download a free sex game :-)
The Love Life, Stop Aids website
Download the “catch the Sperm” game from here
