The 3rd world farmer game review
This game allows you to pretend to be a farmer in a third world country (Africa). It is a family of 4 (2 adults under 30 and 2 children under 9), with very little money. The children put in 38% labour each into the farm work while parents put in 100% each, The children have no education.
My impression of this game is that it is easy to play and quite a basic way of adding up numbers and good for decision making process. It provides an avenue for the user to predict expectations and consider the existing circumstances before making decisions which where varied not just about farming but also about family and community as well as the work ethic. This game held my attention for as long as I played it and I was not bored.
It allows you to make calculations and consider risks and possibilities, profit and loss. At the end of each year there is an annual report with summary and analysis of all the elements that played a role in the outcomes of the year.
I think it has potential to teach math, accounting, commerce and concepts like budgeting and investing in a primary grade with a possibility of extending it with some tweaking to higher grades.
In the first year I had to make decision on which crop to buy and sow and which would likely yield profit as I had very little money but with a family of 4 (2 adults over 27years and 2 children under 9years), where the parents work fulltime.
By the end of the harvest season, I was able to make minimal profit. It was a good farming year but I had planted very few crops because I had very little money. My enthusiasm increased when an offer from a distant relation in the city mentioned job opportunity that would pay more than what I made in that year. I sent my son off to live with the relation while working in the city and the advance payment from that doubled the money I had, allowing me to buy more crops the second year even though that year turned out to be a bad harvest for farmers leading to petty theft, I had chosen crops that did well and was able to make some profit.
The third year threw an unexpected curve as I accepted the offer from militia to pitch their camp in my less fertile land. My intention was that it would provide security for my family because of the war, while accepting payment from them to increase farm crops. I made a lot more that year both parents worked approximately 72hours each but unfortunately, I lost the child left at home child in the crossfire.
Posted in: Week 05: Game-Based Learning
themusicwoman 12:36 pm on October 5, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Dear Ifeoma,
Thanks for the great breakdown of what seems to me to be a fairly engaging and educational game. One of the concepts that game based learning pushes is the immersion of the player into the game and this certainly proves the point. There have been a number of games over the years that build on this idea. I played one that had to do with Chinese dynasties and until the workers learned how to do certain things, I wasn’t able to “graduate” into the next technological age. The Age of Empires series does the same. However, your game is from a much more “recent” time which can teach the immediacy of the situation. Thanks for the contribution.
ifeoma 3:04 pm on October 5, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi,
I definitely was immersed in the game and because i grew up in aAfrica and have a good sense of the context most of the concepts that were being brought up were not alien to me and so it was quite close to real life for me. I think the game is a successful one in terms of immersion.
Personally, I think people learn more when learning is situated for them and this game scores an A for that from my point of view.
jarvise 2:23 pm on October 5, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi,
I played this one too. On my second year, I allowed a company to store their ‘harmless barrels’ on my land, and one of my kids died. Pretty depressing.
What I find interesting about this game, and the Spent game as well, is that there is a sort of authentic “will you ever win?” feel to it (just like real life). There are no hard and fast rules, and you have to deal with whatever the fallout is from your decisions and move on. There are some serious life skills here. Maybe this is an advantage of GBL.
Emily
ifeoma 2:53 pm on October 5, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Jarvise, I couldn’t agree more with you that this game teaches life skills and I might add with ease. I was particularly awed by the influences that were factored into the game including the fact that being pregnant was a factor too 🙂 It is a serious game for getting kids to understand cause and effect. I really enjoyed t,Thanks to your grup for opening my eyes to the potential lying within GBL