Ayiti: The Cost of Life

I found this serious game, Ayiti: The Cost of Life, on the Games for Change website. After playing Heifer Village Nepal, I found this game to be more interesting, entertaining and easier to follow. Ayiti can be played at your computer using this link: http://ayiti.newsfrew.org/globalkids/

The developers and designers of this game used youths as part of their design team to create an authentic experience. The concept behind Ayiti is similar to Heifer in that the player lives in a poverty stricken country. This game takes place in Haiti rather than Nepal. Ayiti uses complex elements including five family members, work, medicine, education, money and a store to buy goods. This makes the game multifaceted and requires strategy and decision-making to calculate the relationship between the various elements and overcome different unforeseen obstacles.

To begin the game, the player chooses one of four strategies to support the family: education, health, happiness or money. Depending on the player's choice, the goal of the game varies. This personalizes the game, but does not make it any easier to “win.” The game progresses through different seasons in Haiti and you must determine what the 5 family members do (work, go to school, volunteer, or rest). Whatever you choose affects the family’s economic situation and each family member’s happiness and health. I found it difficult to keep everyone happy and healthy which I assume is the point of the game. Education was almost impossible to acquire and everyone had to work to stay economically afloat.

In the write-up about the game, the developers said that the most challenging aspect to the game design was making a realistic, yet sensitive representation of poverty while making the game fun. I have to admit that the game was not exactly “fun.” Instead, I was challenged and felt stress to keep the family members happy and healthy which kept me from giving up on the game. The game presented motivation in the form of challenging my skills and choices and making me think about different solution strategies. The game achieved its objective in that it was not too complex too play, but the decisions you made affected the outcomes and the game moved along quickly. I think most learners would understand the stresses of poverty and how this lifestyle affects happiness and health and makes getting an education difficult.