A blog turning into a game

At Ramo, we’re big fans of serious games, games that serve a purpose other than pure entertainment. The ability to create engaging products with meaning beyond the games themselves is wonderful, especially if the lives of others can be improved.

In a previous post, we wrote about FreeRice. The website, in cooperation with the UN World Food Program, donates 20 grains of rice to the hungry across the globe for every word that a visitor gets right in its word game.

Best of all, the game is surprisingly simple. You are given a word and you must click on one of four choices that most accurately reflects its meaning. The game gets harder after each correct answer, but 20 more grains of rice get donated for each word that you get correct.

As of today, 39,471,718,130 grains of rice have been donated. Roughly several million grains of rice get donated every month.

The simplicity of FreeRice, combined with the charitable nature of the cause and the fact that visitors of any age can play it make it one of the best examples of a serious game with meaningful educational value. In fact, the guy who started the game built it using the 10,000 words his son was studying to prepare for the SAT.