A few weeks ago, I heard shouts of frustration coming from some friends of mine, not on the track, but rather gathered ‘round a computer screen, their face muscles tense, fingers whizzing on the keyboard. These poor souls had discovered QWOP. QWOP is a free online computer game in which you use four keys, Q, W, O and P, to move your character’s (also named QWOP) thighs and calves, with the goal of making it across 100 meters of track. This sounds simple, but as anyone who has tried will tell you, organizing your muscles into a coherent and balanced run is about as impossible as finding a Garfield student who agrees with our attendance policy.

The second I began seeing people so enthralled by one man’s legs I had to know, in addition to how QWOP got his iconic bod,who the man behind the (cartoon) muscles was. QWOP was designed, developed, drawn, and written by Dr. Bennett Foddy, a moral philosopher at Princeton University.

“I write and teach ethics and the philosophy of moral decisions,” said Foddy, who is also the author of three other online games of the same enthralling variety, and of numerous writings on ethics. Having tried his other games, QWOP is his funniest and most intriguing creation.

“The idea came to me suddenly during the Olympics last year,” Foddy says. “But you could say it’s also inspired by other simple physics games, like Elastomania, Ski Stunt Simulator and Porrasturvat.” The physics games he speaks of, though the last one make me think of German sausage (it’s actually about falling down stairs), all share a kind of computer-simulated gravity.

“I had the prototype up and running in about three hours, and it was hilarious, so I knew I had to finish it,” says Foddy. He is currently teaching a class on the ethics of steriod use in sports.

“Athletes take steroids to become superhumans,” he says. “But QWOP can barely even run. He’s the opposite of a superhuman.”

The Princeton professor is also in the midst of writing a book on drug addiction, and along with being a professional pursuit, this helps him achieve his goal of making all his games as addictive as possible.

“I think it is not so bad to be addicted to a game,” he says. “I suppose there are limits, though. I would never play World of Warcraft.”

He understands addiction, yet classmates of mine are constantly lured in by his games. He writes on steroids in sports, yet there aren’t any around to get QWOP on his feet. This professor’s got it all figured out. And I wasn’t even aware that there could be ethical ideas behind a character who would never pass a muscular coordination test.

Go to http://​www​.foddy​.net/​A​t​h​l​e​t​i​c​s.html to play for yourself!