I'm behind the wheel of a lumbering supply truck on a dirt road on the island of Sheylan. Gripped by a food crisis that has been exacerbated by civil war, the people of Sheylan need the staples my convoy is carrying. As a rookie member of a World Food Programme relief mission, I want to prove I have what it takes to save lives.

But I've failed to clear the road of mines, and I lose a truck and all its food. As a result of my clumsy leadership, people will starve to death. This may be only a game, but a bit of the chill of real lives in jeopardy reaches through the pixels. Perhaps that is why Food Force, developed for the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) by the UK's Playerthree design studio and Deepend, a design company in Rome, has become one of the more talked about games recently, despite being a relatively minor entry to the field.