Holy Burrito! Chipotle Made a Game

By on September 13, 2013

Holy Burrito! Chipotle Made a Game

The fine folk over at Chipotle may move a bit glacially when it comes to adding new items to their menu, but this week they launched something new and exciting for the company: a video game that may just serve as some of the best advertising I have ever seen (or eaten).

Meet Chipotle’s The Scarecrow.

On the surface, The Scarecrow is merely a new free game for iPhone & iPad, of which there are millions made every day. (Generally this occurs when a cat walks across a keyboard and accidentally sets an app to build and submit prematurely.) To win, players must “join the Scarecrow on his quest for better food.” As a game, this means fetch quests, high scores, time trials, and the occasional level obstacle.

Check out the trailer, complete with a variant on the theme from the classic Willy Wonka movie:

Looks promising, no?

But damn, if you play this game, you may want to get ready for a blast of food sadness. Not because the game is lousy — far from it. It’s just that the Scarecrow’s world is depressing.

In the accompanying short film by Moonbot Studios, giant metal crows (like BioShock Infinite‘s Songbird), stalk the land, take all of the good ingredients, and turn those ingredients into evil, un-fresh food. Dairy cows are haphazardly sealed inside of fast food mascots, while food factories are stacked triple high.

Fortunately, while other scarecrows are being displaced by more and more metal monsters, your scarecrow has caught on to a secret. Outside of the cities, there are swaths of land where things like little chipotle peppers grow. By cultivating such super freshness, the scarecrow finally manages to get people in the City of Plenty to buy and eat his chipotle food.

About Brian Hoss

As a video game designer, I have worked for years with companies like Activision, Electronic Arts and Zenimax. Naturally, my fascination with technology, the internet, and the age-old social sharing of storytelling has prompted me to indulge writing for The CheckOut. Google BMH

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