Edutainment: entertainment that educates, or a work that both entertains AND teaches at the same time. Edutainment is a staple of development, and in fact might be one of the most effective teaching tool available. Works of edutainment require a LOT of skill and dedication, as well as expertise in not just the art of entertainment, but the science of teaching as well. Edutainment, then, becomes a hybrid of science and art, a work whose value is measured not just in its artistic merit, but on its educational effectiveness as well. Films, television, music, even video games can be venues for edutainment, and today we look at a game that absolutely failed at its job to both educate AND entertain: Captain Novolin.
A good compliment I can give the game is that the box art reflects the game's spirit.
Released in 1992, you play as Captain Novolin, a "superhero" (the term is used as loosely as humanly possible) with Type 1 Diabetes. When the Mayor of the City is kidnapped by aliens dressed as junk food (...), Captain Novolin sets out to rescue the Mayor from the alien clutches. Along the way, he must maintain his steady diet and exercise regimen in order to keep his Diabetes in check. Also, the player will be given a piece of information regarding Diabetes, upon which they will be quizzed on at the end of the level. That's it. That's the game.
Captain Novolin can jump rather high...that's it. That's what he can do. He can jump AND walk. What a hero! (he says sarcastically). Can he jump on enemies and defeat them, like Mario? Nope! No he can't! Something as basic for the Platforming genre, and the Captain can't do it! Can the Captain punch enemies? Nope. Can he kick? Not at all. Can he pick up weapons? HA HA HA no. What CAN he do? He can jump...OVER the enemies, thus avoiding them! That's right, one of video game's most basic fundamentals, the ability to defeat one's enemies, is completely missing from the game! This could be fun under the right circumstances like in Metal Gear, where the fun comes from avoiding enemy encounters and hiding. Problem is, unlike in Metal Gear, avoiding enemies isn't the smart choice, it's the ONLY choice. This makes Captain Novolin look weak, helpless, and utterly useless, which is NOT the image a superhero should have.
Does Captain Novolin have a personality? Nope. He's a cookie cutter superhero. He's bland, he's uninteresting, he's underwhelming. Hell, even his design is too "by the numbers"! Just look at it!
(taken from http://www.giantbomb.com/captain-novolin/3005-17319/)
The main hero of our game is a boring pile of cow pie. The main game itself is boring and trite, merely an exercise in avoiding enemies. every last level is a flat, straight line, where you go from point A to point B. This is a problem, because the Platformer requires a little thing called "platforms" in order to work (you know, the element that gave the genre its name.) Super Mario Bros perfected the platformer back in 1985, 7 years before this game even saw the light of day! Had the game been one that allowed you clever use of its environments to defeat the enemies (like tricking them into falling unto bottomless pits), then Captain Novolin could still have been fun. Had level designs been a bit more fluid than just a flat path, the game could have been more fun. I have words for the Captain himself, but more on him later...
And that's not even getting into the enemies themselves: they're boring too. Not just boring, they look stupid as all hell. Take a good look at THE single most difficult enemy in the game:
(taken from http://videogamegeek.com/thread/1137738/captain-novolin-review)
Yes, an evil...cookie! ALL enemies in the game take the form of junk foods: doughnuts, packs of gum, licorice ropes, boxes of sugary cereals, and churros. And each of these enemies have very specific patterns for you to memorize, therefore helping you avoid them better. For example, doughnuts bounce towards you all the time, while cookies bounce towards you...only to jump when YOU jump, guaranteeing that they will crash into you. Every time you touch an enemy, you lose a health point. Lose four, and you lose a life. You have three lives.
An element that COULD be a saving grace for the game is the fact that it contains accurate information regarding Diabetes. In the game you'll learn quite a few things, like the fact that insulin is made in the pancreas, that it helps cells open up to take in sugar, that hyperglycemia is too much sugar in the blood, that hypoglycemia is too little sugar in the blood system, that a steady diet and exercise regiment is necessary for diabetics, among a few other things. The game also quizzes you on this, so it pays to learn... or it would, if not for the fact that there is zero penalty for getting a question wrong! The game gives you NO penalty for not learning about diabetes, therefore robbing itself of the opportunity to give the player ANY reason to learn about this condition!
Let's see now: the game is boring and slow, so it fails as entertainment. The information, on the other hand, is easy to learn, to the point, and devoid of any complex vocabulary save for the medical terms, which are defined in a clear, concise matter. This is a huge point in the game's favor, but the game itself utterly ruins it by divorcing the information from the game except for some quiz mini game, which is IMPOSSIBLE to lose! There is no incentive to learn about diabetes because there is no REWARD for learning about diabetes! One of the Golden Rules of Gaming is: if there's effort from the player, there must be a reward. When the player puts an effort into the game, the game HAS to reward the player with something, even if that reward is merely the joy that comes from beating a part of the game (which is a good feeling, as we all know). But there is no reward for learning about diabetes. The quizzes at the end of each level are only one question long, and the player can just put a blindfold on him/herself and just hit the A button until he/she gets the answer. This is not effort. This is not skill. This isn't even luck.
A better game would have done something different. A better game would have implemented the diabetes by making Captain Novolin a superhero who can jump high and punch enemies with his super strength, and who happened to have diabetes. Captain Novolin could function like any normal superhero so long as his blood sugar was at a controllable level, which could be represented by a life bar on top of the screen. Every level, Captain Novolin starts with a finite amount of foods which he can consume to keep his sugar levels. Slowly, the sugar level drops, so Captain Novolin takes a moment (represented by the player pausing the game and using the foods) to consume his food. If he gets hit by any of the sugar aliens, his blood sugar spikes. If his blood sugar goes up too high, or goes down too low, it's Game Over. The game could have had simple puzzles, like Trivia questions regarding diabetes that could reward the player with things like Power Ups, or extra food for Captain Novolin. Captain Novolin himself could have been a fantastic character if any REAL effort were put into him! He could have been a way to teach kids the most important lesson about diabetes: you can control the disease, instead of letting it control you.
The reason I care? My family has a history of diabetes. My dad has it. My uncle has it. My grandmother has it. I'm showing signs already that I'm vulnerable to it. Diabetes is something that I might get in the future, but that is not what worries me. What worries me is that my future progeny will also be vulnerable to this disease.
Diabetes is a reality that my family and I face, but we don't hear about it often enough. In the past ten years, for example, the Disney Channel, one of the most prominent networks geared towards children, the subject of diabetes was touched upon ONCE, on ONE episode of Hannah Montana, in which Oliver was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. This episode had to be re-edited because the subject matter was made into a joke. On Nickelodeon, the word Diabetes has not been uttered ONCE in the last ten years. On Cartoon Network, over consumption of junk food was seen as a regular thing, if not celebrated.
Representation matters, ladies and gentlemen. One simple act of representation can make a difference in a kid's life. Whoopi Goldberg got into acting because she saw Nichele Nichols on Star Trek. In her own words: "There's a black lady on the TV and she ain't no maid!" Lupita N'yongo took to acting thanks to Whoopi Goldberg. And a black girl decided against bleaching her skin after she saw Lupita N'yongo had been declared the World's Most Beautiful Woman. A link: http://www.youbeauty.com/skin/lupita-nyongo-african-skin-bleaching
Captain Novolin could have been that representation for diabetics. He could have been that ONE work that taught kids that they CAN be super, they CAN be like anyone else, they CAN control their disease with hard work and dedication. Captain Novolin could have been someone to look up to, like Batman or Iron Man. But he's not.
Captain Novolin is the exact opposite of what kids with diabetes need to see, because the Captain IS his disease. He is defined by his disease, he's controlled by it. If he didn't have diabetes, he'd be nothing special, a nobody. He's not super, he's not special, he's not anything. An opportunity was wasted.
At the end of the day, what pisses me off the most is the wasted potential. Captain Novolin could have been the instrument to teach kids about diabetes. It could have been the work that taught the facts about diabetes, with the respect it deserves. It could have given kids with diabetes someone to look up to, to identify with, to emulate.
But the game didn't. The game made diabetes into some boring, textbook disease. The game failed to make diabetes seem important OR relevant. It didn't educate, nor did it entertain. People who play the game aren't going to come out any smarter about diabetes, or any wiser about people with diabetes. They aren't even gonna come out feeling entertained! THAT'S why this game utterly fails as edutainment!
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