‘Houston, We Have Spinach!’ Will Help Fight Childhood Obesity

Acme Nerd Games’ Houston, We Have Spinach! feels like what one might expect to obtain should they ever stick an entire dietary-curriculum into a blender alongside Kerbal Space Program (minus the part about Kerbals constantly wetting themselves and dying). The team’s goal is to promote improved nutritional-literacy — amongst both adults and children — in an age when obesity is on the rise, all via providing a fun playground with which to explore various nutritional-concepts. These ambitions are executed through a game where players strive to explore the vast untouched-reaches of outer space, all with the help of mighty-rockets powered through the burning of food itself!

The first skill players will need to master is physically loading the available food into their rocket, which must be carefully executed via a crane-esque mini-game (and early on simply mastering this will be an accomplishment unto itself). Thankfully the rockets players will initially be working with will simply be concerned with having enough calories to burn for propulsion, thus easing players in as they master the crane’s foibles. However, through the passage of time — and slowly learning how to control the food-grabbing crane like a true pro — players will eventually begin sending their earliest rocket-ships ever further into starry-abyss!

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The result of all this is that — seeing as how government-research grants are awarded based on flight-time performance — players will eventually begin earning big bucks with which to construct even snazzier rockets, and that’s when the real learning-fun kicks in. Rockets made with premium special-parts — which thankfully can’t be bought via IAPs — have far better performance-potential than your starter-rocket, yet these later parts are also way pickier about their nutritional needs. Thusly, as players use different rocket-types — all to explore ever further — they’ll slowly be forced to form an in-depth mastery of various subtle-factors regarding how nutritional-elements all interact.

Of course, since all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy — especially if you’re living inside a Stanley Kubrick film — there’s also a bevy of unlockable mini-games to be found within Houston, We Have Spinach! Already shown is one where you fly a rocket-ship around space, all while trying to destroy inexplicably-floating giant space-donuts (which basically plays out like a food-themed homage to Atari’s Asteroids). Although none of the others have yet to be named, Acme Nerd Games has promised that their full-game will contain a plethora of similarly-themed mini-games for players to slowly unlock.

If all of this currently sounds rather interesting to you, then you should know that — judging from the project’s Kickstarter page — you actually aren’t alone on wanting to fly food-powered rockets through space! Houston, We Have Spinach! has thus far raised all 100% of their $25,000 funding-goal, but there’s additionally three whole days still remaining for those of you whom wish to further lend aid. Thusly you should be happy to hear that just $5 is all that’s needed to be forever immortalized via the in-game credits, with a variety of swag additionally being offered for those whom provide extra-funding.

Ergo, should you know find yourself eager to launch carrot powered rockets into space — or at the very least fail miserably in the process — be sure to remember the deadline for this Kickstarter’s launch-date has been set for June 17th!