Third World Farmer

“Serious” games usually have to balance between being “educational” and being “fun”. Third World Farmer presents itself as a greatly educational game, promising to teach the player the hardships of maintaining a family in a world full of corruption, war and diseases. But once played, it turns out that it’s fairly easy to be successful. And that’s exactly why this game is actually pretty fun for an “educational” game.

Third World Farmer is about playing a family, telling them what to do and hoping to make enough money to afford education, health and luxuries. The game is highly comparable to the previously featured Ayiti: The Cost of Life. What stands out between the two games is their difficulty. In Ayiti, only with the best thought-out strategies will all of the members survive (read our article here for ideas). In Third World Farmer, hardly anybody dies and there are plenty of strategies that will lead to wealthy, educated and healthy living standards. Addictive wealth cycles ensue.

This has the effect that Ayiti leaves a much stronger lasting impression; it’ll make you feel really bad every time one of your kids dies because you couldn’t pay for some medicine, making you wonder if life conditions are really that bad out there, hoping they aren’t. But it’s hard to enjoy the game as the difficulty makes you feel like you’re doing something wrong.

Third World Farmer gives the impression that all you need to do for succesful living is make sure you plant as many crops as possible each year. Even though every year there’s a great chance your farm will become robbed or a drought will destroy your earnings, you’ll practically always be okay in the end. Because the game is so easy, the player can concentrate on how to make as much money you can in one year, a challenge that is much more fun since you don’t have to worry about losing everything due to one mistake.

It’s interesting to see how these two games have chosen different paths on how to design their game and that it all depends on how tightly the player has to plan its spendings. In the end, Ayiti seems to teach the player more, while Third World Farmer seems to keep the player wanting to play more.

Perhaps the lack of realism in Third World Farmer has to do with its blatant capitalist ideals. Your family hardly benefits from any government support. In fact, schools, hospitals, roads and even politicians have to be personally bought before they help you. Even worse: the government actually only loses your money or has its troops steal from you. The only way to beat the game is to take care of yourself and make as much money as you can, as deep pockets can easily take care of any problems. It’s as if the game is telling the player all people have to do to get out of poverty is make things and sell them for profit. As long as you stick to that idea, by the third generation, your family will have gone from extreme poverty to incomes that exceed most Europeans! How’s that for educational gaming?

But never mind that, it’s a splendid way to waste your time. Especially if you’re burdened behind your PC at the office having to do horrible arbeit only people in the West have to “endure”.