Play This Now: The Lucky Peach Game

Lucky Peach published its most recent issue — theme: Travel — not too long ago, and there are a number of pieces worth the read (among them: travel tips from Jonathan Gold and Bill Buford). But maybe the best bit wasn't in print at all but, rather, a simple but very fun game posted on the magazine's website in which your goal is “to get extremely fat, not unlike the point of life.” Right.

When you start the game, you'll find yourself essentially in the middle of the magazine's cover: on a boat, in an ocean of food.

Your purpose here is to navigate the waters and collect cupcakes and pizza and hamburgers and so on. The more you collect, the more weight you gain; keep at it and eventually you'll reach an island where you'll need to gather ingredients and build a meal. After playing the game a few times — for research, of course — we'd suggest that you use an external mouse, rather than your trackpad, on the second level. Trust us.

Aside from the conceit, maybe the best part about Lucky Peach's game is that it's rendered entirely in ASCII. Which, if you were around in the days before the Internet and used incredibly slow modems to connect to online Bulletin Board Systems, may be a fond reminder of lazy afternoons spent playing similar text-based games.

So much so that you may look up the game's developer, aniwey, and end up playing another game he created called Candy Box. Not unlike the Lucky Peach game, the object here is to collect food (candies and lollipops); unlike the Lucky Peach game, it's much more involved (read: addicting) in that you also go on various quests and collect potions and scrolls and other fun things. Consider both games good ways to pass yet another summer afternoon. And then some.

See also:

– Lucky Peach's The Essential Guide to Dim Sum

– Lucky Peach: The New Food Journal From David Chang & Friends Is Here

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