</i>SF Earthquake

I was listening to the radio on the way into work today and they were talking about the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake. One the things they pointed out several times was how people aren't prepared for an earthquake of that magnitude.

It's certainly true I don't have a 10 step plan of attack in case a major earthquake hits. I do have a stock of water, but that's about it. So I should probably look into that.

They also talked about a documentary which had some special effects done by Lucus to demonstrate the power of the 1906 quake. A later caller was a fire chief, and she talked about going to the various schools to teach kids what to do in case of an earthquake. That got me to thinking though... People learn all sorts of things from video games. I wonder if a game where you played a fireman or policeman and were put in a situation right after a major earthquake had struck. Part of your job would be to rescue people, deal with rioters, trying to restore order, etc.

I could see going one of two ways with it: 1. you could try and go the very educational route, and perhaps get some money for creating a game for kids to play as a teaching aid, or 2. you could tack on something more unreal but potentially more entertaining for the twitch crowd. Maybe ala Resident Evil a biotech lab is mostly destroyed in the earthquake and your eventual job is to deal with mutant animals, zombies, or whatever.

Regardless, I wish there were more of an effort to combine education with gaming and entertainment. I've said several times I've been impressed with the ability of kids to learn things when they are interested. I used to play a game called Magic: the Gathering, a collectible card game, and it was amazing the words that very young children knew because they were names of Magic cards. They never considered it learning -- between the artwork, the mechanics of the card, and the name, they were able to absorb the concept of what an object was.

I haven't done my research on this topic though. For all I know, someone did already make a post-earthquake game and it totally flopped. Still, I think if you made the gameplay interesting enough, most people wouldn't even realize they were learning, yet they would be better prepared when the big earthquake finally does come.