Ayiti:The Cost of Life

This week, our assigned game was to pick anything from the website Games for Change. Games for change is a non-profit group that works towards the goal of creating "socially responsible games." Ok, I hear people groaning about "socially responsible"..."politically correct"..."WTF"..."Who's going to play that"...and so on.

Here's why these games are important and need to exist:
Remember playing Oregon Trail in grade school? Ok, maybe you don't, but I'm guessing that at some point in your K-12 experience you played some kind of game that was supposed to teach you something. These games about life in developing countries are a NECESSITY for teaching bored suburban kids about places in this world where you don't get three meals a day or Christmas presents or even antibiotics when you are sick. Games like this give us perspective on why someone would risk their life and travel to this country illegally in order to keep their family alive.

That said, this was a sobering game to play. The goal is to keep the parents of a family of 5 people alive through 4 years. You have to decide who goes to school, who stays home and who goes to work. There are certain obstacles for making choices such as the amount of money or education you have. If you want the mom to have a job as a secretary, she needs to have some education, but sending her to school means that there will be less money for food. There are hurricanes, and it's very easy for people to get sick. This game has very few happy endings, but shows the player the trade offs that must be made if you are trying to raise a family in Haiti.

I found the game strangely addicting. I so wanted to keep the children alive, and they died every time I played. Technically, I did win the game one time, but it was a hollow victory. Only the parents were alive and even they were in poor health. I knew that the game was going to be depressing, but what I wasn't expecting was just how much I would want the family to survive. This game, whether intentionally or not, does a terrific job of exploiting a player's hope that they will win.

If I were a social studies teacher or a history teacher, I would require students to play this game just to give them perspective. In my experience, kids will laugh and say something is really stupid, but in the end it does make a difference and they do learn the lesson whether they are willing to admit it or not.

Because of the nature of the game I've reviewed here, I'm including a few web-sites for charities that provide aid to developing countries:
The International Rescue Committee
Unicef
Friends of the World Food Program...had problems with the tag for this so here is the url: http://www.friendsofwfp.org

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