Tampon Run: The Game About Menstruation

How many video games can you name that even acknowledge menstruation?

With Tampon Run, you can name one. In fact, it’s a central part of the game.

Two New York high school girls (Sophie Houser (17) and Andrea Gonzales (16)) recently made an online game based around menstruation and tampons: Tampon Run. It’s a simple run and gun video game whose premise I will let speak for itself:

“Instead of holding a gun, the runner holds tampons, and instead of shooting enemies, the runner throws tampons at them”

An 8-bit rendition of Moonlight Sonata plays in the background while the player shoots and collects tampons.

Behind Tampon Run

Although this might sound like a crude joke, the girls’ intentions were anything but. The two met through Girls Who Code, a summer training program that teaches high school age girls coding skills.

They made this video game to spread awareness of menstruation and combat the taboo they believe it faces in modern society. Why are guns and violence acceptable in today’s media, but menstruation isn’t, they ask?

“It isn’t weird or strange or gross, or at least we don’t think it should be,” says Sophie Houser. Although admittedly a minor game, Tampon Run, on some level demonstrates some of the ideas that video games have yet to explore.