Game Review: Amazing Food Detective

Sleuth Your Way to Health 

Reviewed by Tracey Kirkland

The Amazing Food Detective is a game from Kaiser Permanente, developed in order to teach children about proper nutrition and exercise.

Calling all "Maltese Falcon" fans! The Sam Spade-like (okay, Samantha Spade) opening of the Amazing Food Detective game is very engaging. The chief detective exorts me to choose a case file of a child. We have a collection of 8 children, somewhat disconcertingly holding line-up cards against their chests. I picked a cute little girl with pigtails, who, as we check her case file, exercises but her strength isn't what it should be. She eats too much pasta and not enough protein. I'm here to help you, Catherine; hang on!

The next view is of Catherine's cute little house (taking cartoon-like decorating notes), and then we head into the kitchen. Catherine is lounging against the counter and it's up to us (the pressure!) to choose a food with more protein than carbs. When we make the right choice, the Food Detective congratulates us and gives us a bit more information about the food. And yes, after mumble-mumble-mumble years of eating, I did learn something.

Once we make better food choices for Catherine, her case is closed, and we can move on to some other activities. We can make fruit smoothies, do some muscle-building exercises or go on a food label scavenger hunt. Different characters have different "extra" little games to play, so there's plenty to do when you finish your first foray!

I did choose another little girl, Emily, who (ahem) was suspiciously like someone I'm very close to. Very close. It turns out that Emily eats well but eats too much. Okay, that wasn't the most disconcerting part. We get to shrink Emily's food portions! The Food Detective has cleverly installed a shrink-your-food-portion-ray-gun in Emily's kitchen. Can I get one of those at Home Depot?

The only thing I didn't like about the game was the way it disappeared if I wasn't giving it constant attention. Everything moved quickly, had a snappy narration and nicely combined information on specific ways to eat better along with the body benefits.