Darfur is Dying

Then a graduate student at the Interactive Media Program at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, she was inspired to make a game after her nephew told her about a class lesson on the Holocaust that did not mention any modern genocides.

She was attending the Games for Change conference in New York City in October 2005, at which mtvU announced that they, in partnership with the Reebok Human Rights Foundation and the non-profit International Crisis Group, were launching the Darfur Digital Activist Contest for a game that would also be an advocacy tool about the situation in the Darfur conflict.

The team spent much of the design phase talking to humanitarian aid workers with experience in Darfur and brainstorming how to make a game that was both interesting to play and was an advocacy tool.

While most media coverage of the game has concentrated on its advocacy aspect rather than its gameplay, one review has commented that it is initially unclear in the management mode how to go about growing food and other tasks.

[1] The game has been reported by mainstream media sources such as The Washington Post, Time, BBC News and National Public Radio.

In an early September 2006 interview, Ruiz stated that it is difficult to determine success for a game with a social goal, but stated that more than 800,000 people had played 1.7 million times since its release, of which tens of thousands had forwarded the game to friends or sent a letter to an elected representative.