When it comes to many pieces of media out there, there is always a goal in mind when it comes to what the product is meant to do. It could be used to entertain the masses, it could be used to assist you in some way down the road, or it can be used to bring up a compelling argument that is meant to make you think. Sometimes though, a product is purely meant to educate its audience on a wide variety of topics, and in terms of video games, there have been plenty of educational titles that cover a wide variety of subjects. There have been games that are purely aimed at preschoolers, which teach pretty much exactly what you would expect them to, and then there are games aimed at more broad topics that are aimed at people of many ages, like with drug PSA games like Wally Bear and the NO! Gang. But then, there are games that tackle issues that are less discussed, such as with one game that tackles… diabetes. Yes, I’m serious. That game would happen to be Captain Novolin.

Surprisingly, I have known about this game for quite a few years now, and even then, I am still completely baffled by the fact it exists at all. I mean, seriously, what other video games out there do you know about that’s sole purpose is to inform kids about how to handle diabetes? Yeah, not many others. But either way, I went into this with pretty low expectations, because considering what this game is, there isn’t much to get excited about, but I was at least hoping that I would actually learn some stuff about diabetes, because that is the whole point, after all. And you know what? I actually did learn a good number of things about diabetes, so I can say that it does its job well. It is complete garbage in every other way, but for being a piece of educational software, it did educate me, which is all that I asked for.

The story is about aliens invading, and they just so happen to take the form of junk food, so naturally, it is up to the diabetic superhero, Captain Novolin, to save the day, which is a much better plot then anything from the MCU, so I will give it that, the graphics are about the quality that you would expect from a game like this, but I will give it some credit for not making me wanna punch a hole straight through the screen, the music is extremely forgettable, to the point where I don’t remember a single track from the entire game, but I can tell you that there definitely was music, the control is extremely basic, having your typical platforming controls, and they work well enough most of the time, and the game is about everything you expect it to be, in all the best and worst ways that a game like this can deliver.

The game is the most on-the-rails 2D platformer I have ever played, where you take control of Captain Novolin himself, take on a set of very boring and generic levels, avoid every single bad food enemy you encounter to avoid death, gather enough of the food prescribed by your doctor to keep your blood sugar at a normal level, with all the food of course just being scattered around the ground as it usually is, and answer plenty of questions relating to diabetes while checking your blood sugar levels often. And that is it. That is pretty much the entire game. Like with Wally Bear, there are really only two ways that I can properly judge this game: as a game, of course, and as an educational tool.

As a game, once again, it is pretty fucking bad. There is nothing particularly wrong with the main gameplay itself, as it does serve as a means of getting you along in your journey and teaching kids about diabetes, but what’s wrong with it is that it is the most bland gameplay for a platformer I have ever seen. You don’t have any form of attack, you don’t get any powerups, you don’t have any means of defeating enemies, and there is only one boss in the game, who is a big ol’ fat guy, because of course he is. For the entire game, you are just walking from left to right, gathering up the food you need, and avoid enemies. It’s fine for what it is, but you don’t need me to tell you that this shit gets very boring very quickly, and if you play through just one level of the game, you pretty much have played through the entire game right then and there. One problem I did have with the game though would be with the cookie enemies. I swear, no matter what you do, it is almost impossible to avoid getting hit by these guys, as they jump when you do, making them very hard to avoid.

So yeah, the game completely fails as a game, but how does it do as an educational tool? Well… it is actually pretty good, and very informative in that aspect. For the record, I should state, I do not have diabetes myself, and I have never known anyone personally who is diabetic themselves, so I went into this game knowing only very basic knowledge of what the condition is all about. Thankfully, the game was able to teach me plenty about it, not just through answering plenty of questions relating to the condition, but also shows/describes what a diabetic individual goes through on a daily basis. So, even if the game itself fails completely at being a fun and enjoyable video game, I can say that it is a very good educational tool, and one that I’m sure many can learn from. That doesn’t mean I’m ever going to play it again, but still.

Overall, despite being a very informative piece of software that taught me more about diabetes than anything else ever could, it is still a piece of shit video game that nobody should ever play, unless they wanna get a laugh about how completely random and bizarre it is, in which case, then go right ahead. Just, you know, don’t expect to have any kind of fun with it, because that is certainly not what you will be getting from the game whatsoever. And before we end this off, you wanna know something else I learned from this game? That it isn’t the only one. Yeah, there are apparently three more of these kinds of games, with another one also being about diabetes, and the other two being about smoking and asthma. I have no idea how these things kept getting made, but either way, I am now very terrified and excited to play those in like five years from now.

Game #385