Funny Serious Game

fred · Thu 22/09/2005 04:56:17

Hey,

I'd love to hear you guys' comments on this:

~~http://www.itu.dk/people/ofktoubro/3rdWorldFarmer/index_content.html~~

EditÃ,Â 22-04-2006:
The site is up with a slightly modified version.
Crits are welcome here or at the site forums :-)

link: 3rd World Farmer

- Frederik

Gilbert · Thu 22/09/2005 06:10:54

Interesting, are there no goal apart from surviving as many rounds as possible?
All my people died after a desperate 10 rounds.

magintz · Thu 22/09/2005 11:24:53

I got 24 rounds, very enjoyable little game, funny how it's an almost lose lose situation. Although I started out pretty rough i think I got to about $150 before being wiped out my the army or something.

Andail · Thu 22/09/2005 17:33:42

I also managed to survive for quite a while, with a tractor, a well and a cow, but then I just lost everything.

IM NOT TEH SPAM · Thu 22/09/2005 18:59:30

I get huge amounts of money relatively quickly, and once i got myself an elephant, a tractor, tons of peanuts a huge barn 4 chickens and a cow I lose everything. Is it just built so you can't do good?

I don't know what half the things do. What is the whole point of buying sheds, wells, or barns?

THis game is rigged! No matter how good you do you die. Its a sick joke! I HAD NO FAMILY AND A FAMILY MEMBER GOT SICK. WHAT THE HELL.

Andail · Thu 22/09/2005 21:08:03

I think the concept of failure is the main point with this game

IM NOT TEH SPAM · Thu 22/09/2005 21:27:49

I figured out the secret to the game.
If you get to rich something happens (sickness, a bank failure, ect.) The secret is to keep your cash hovering around 50. I had one pig and 2 shovels, so that if i got low i could plant a few crops, but if not, i just lived off the pig. Im up to round 51 right now... Ill post a screenshot when my dude goes belly up

EDIT: Round 80! i added a donkey to my allstar team of poor farmers!

Edit2: We made it to round 101, but our donkey got us raided by gurilla warfare people. Now I'm back to the old format, only with 3 shovels instead of 2 shovels and a donkey. We had to sell my wife so i could afford a new pig.

Edit3: Round 120- DIsease and refugees keep killing my pigs. I am a lucky guy, its suprising that a guy who lives in the middle of nowhere on pennies, still manages to live 120 years.

Edit4: Level 125, I'm bored, and my dear pig was stolen, so I'm going to buy an elephant!

Edit5: I only had one precious year with my elephant before gurillas took him and consequently starved me to death.

Nikolas · Fri 23/09/2005 00:31:23

After playing a while it seems that things in the 3rd world (it's in the game name) are not so good. No matter what you do people will always starve there. :'(

Now I don't know if this is a message for us to change our minds, or it is to stop caring...

IM NOT TEH SPAM · Fri 23/09/2005 00:53:14

Well, then again, there's not neccecerily going to be geurilla warfare and bank failures and civil wars every few years... those are more long term things, and are more made to make the game a more constant playable than to show about the struggles of 3rd world farming.
And it's also a bit unfair to assume the second anyone gets money over $100's worth there's going to be a sudden civil war or something...

I wish they'd just explain what everything did... man...

LGM · Fri 23/09/2005 01:54:25

126 years? No wonder your family is dead.

IM NOT TEH SPAM · Fri 23/09/2005 01:57:41

Well... two of them starved... two of them I exposed to toxic waste, thus killing them $:-\$

Andail · Fri 23/09/2005 10:05:32

Living in the third world seems to be a blast! You get to ride an elephant, and you live for 126 years! I wanna move there too!

fred · Sat 22/04/2006 18:28:41

Hey guys, the 3rd World Farmer game has been updated and has a new site - some of you may have found it through my signature, but the rest should go play it right away :-) Crits are welcome here or at the 3rdWorldFarmer forums.

3rd World Farmer

DoorKnobHandle · Sat 22/04/2006 18:59:07

Wow, everything was going great. I had more than $500 bucks and cows, barns and still all family members. I bet I was the richest person in the 3rd world -- but then the game told me that I lost everything due to a civil war.

Really, the message is good presented in this game and interesting, but game design-wise the game sucks. It just kills all the fun when you lose everything you can build up after one or two years. I know that the situation is like this there, but still this doesn't make the game good or fun to play.

sovka · Sun 23/04/2006 04:06:21

Yeah, I played it some time ago and liked it a lot, interestingly especially the design. Imho it's more of a statement than a compelling game, even if the statement is a little flawed. You know, it may sound cynical but if the game would be an accurate portrait of reality, Africa wouldn't have today's problems: their population would just die out.
In reality the population is still growing though, the problem is rather to feed the many newborns. So maybe the player should get some new kids regularly, no matter if he's very poor or not. All critics aside, kudos.

fred · Mon 15/05/2006 17:23:27

OMG - the 3rdworldfarmer site was mentioned at FARK.com yesterday
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2065132,

and now it's officially "farked"Ã,Â
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=farked

Anyone have experience with this kind of thing and how long it may take to wear off?

Afflict · Tue 16/05/2006 15:41:42

Looks like it wares of quickly since the site doesnt load... and i mean the 4rd world farmer site

No honestly the site doesnt load on my firefox browser

anyway how about a high score page on your site ?

fred · Tue 16/05/2006 17:54:49

Gaah! Our web-hotel just closed down the site - seems their multi hosting server caused problems for other domains than just the 3rdworld-one once the fark-crowd swept in. And now our host can't live up to their "no-limit on traffic"-deal. Which seriously sucks, since it was actually the deal.

I've set up a temporary mirror here http://www.itu.dk/people/hermund/3wf/

We had hiscores - but none on the mirror. And no forums, they're lost in some database somewhere.

bspeers · Tue 16/05/2006 19:03:57

That's what happens when you get too popular.

You want to keep your popularity low, so you don't extend your bandwidth and end up with a net-famine.

Of course, there is still the problem of net-corporate ownership and flame wars, but if you keep your profile low by being uninteresting as I do, you can keep going for a bit longer.

Just don't get a net-elephant.

fred · Thu 18/05/2006 22:07:11

Heh, I like it - I just *might*get it.

Oh, and we got a new host

So www.3rdworldfarmer.com is up and running again.