The Texas Department of Transportation brought its impaired dodgeball truck to the Jesse Rogers Promenade on Aug. 31 to promote their “Plan While You Can” campaign that encourages students to plan ahead before consuming alcohol. This interactive game shows students how alcohol effects their movements and lowers their reaction time.

“Holiday weekends are notorious for a lot of drunk drivers, and Labor Day fits right into that whole bill. We are out here with the students trying to remind them that if they have a good time this weekend, that they need to plan while they still can and are still sober,” Adele Lewis, TxDOT public information officer, said. “We brought out drunk dodgeball to show them and allow them to play an interactive game that shows them what they are missing out on when they’re drunk.”

GDC Marketing and Ideation was contracted by TxDOT to create the game.

“A lot of people will do the drunk goggles thing, but people just say it’s blurry. With this, as you play and take the drinks, the player’s shadow gets slower and slower,” Christian Munoz, GDC tour manager, said. “Right now as they move, the shadow is right on them. When they get to drink three, they will move and the shadow will slowly trail behind.”

Students ducked and swerved to miss the ball coming toward them, but the computerized game illustrated their delayed reactions from the alcohol, and many times the ball hit them and they lost points. The winner of each game received a free box combo from Raising Cane’s.

Paige Cantrell, education freshman, participated in the game and said, “This was a really fun way to show what drinking does to your reactions.”

Cantrell’s friend, Sedona Swanner, radiology freshman, agreed with her and said the game was informative.

“For us, especially since we didn’t know how the alcohol really effects you, it was a really good demonstration just to learn how much the alcohol does,” Swanner said.

People can plan ahead before drinking by using TxDOT’s ride share program website.