I did this “live update” style, where I jot down my thoughts and observations as I go along.
So, right off the bat, this looks confusing to me. I’ve never experienced this lifestyle so I’m not sure how much time to invest in what, and the default setting of 12 hours of labor seems pretty absurd to me, especially since that virtually means there is no time for school for these two teenagers, Kodjo and Fatou.
It took me a minute to figure out how to change seasons, but once I did for the first time, jumping to 2014, I only got bad news. All my crops failed, I allocated time horribly, basically, I failed at everything. Apparently, cotton can rot? And I didn’t have the expenses I needed to transport it? I never even thought about that…
I ended the turn again and now, somehow, I’m in severe debt. As in, had to take out a loan from the bank debt. Apparently, I’m not allowed to be over 100 CFA in debt, which is going to make things very complicated considering I was banking on investing in my small business to see if I could get things going off the ground that didn’t have to focus so much on farming and fishing. Not to mention, the health of Kodjo and Fatou isn’t doing too hot. How is everything going downhill so fast???
Okay, I’m going to have to reset this game. This is literally impossible. They both need doctor’s visits but they’re so far in debt I can’t even switch turns and I already took out too much money from the bank. I don’t know why they even bother to have little trinkets to buy; it’s not like I’ll ever be able to afford them anyways.
After playing thoughtsÂ
After playing a couple more rounds, and failing miserably every time, I think it’s very eye-opening that even in a simulation I can’t seem to control these resources properly. Everything I think is important isn’t or is in some other way, I’m constantly working my family to death, doctor’s visits are crazy expensive, and bad crop luck seems to plague this family no matter what I do. There’s never enough water, never enough wood or fuel, never enough money, never enough anything… I’m not even positive there is a way to make Kodjo and Fatou happy, healthy, wealthy, and overall content and successful, which seems to be anything other than just plain starving or going into severe debt.
First off, I really appreciated the way you wrote your response, it was very enjoyable to read. Second, I agree with what you said about feeling as though you could not allocate resources properly no matter what you did. Despite the fact that I was supposed to be completely in control of allocating resources and how money was spent, I felt very out of control of the results each turn.
I really like that you wrote your thoughts down while playing the game as well as the afterthoughts. I went through a very similar though process as you, as I was failing miserably each time, not being able to both keep Fatou and Kodjo healthy as well as having enough money at any point within the game.. Considering this is just a simulation, it is so hard to imagine that there is such a large group of the worlds population that has to live like this, and even do this amount of labor at such a young age as Fatou and Kodjo did.
Very good commentary style, doing it live instead of after. I felt frustrated too, every time I was doing well issues would come up. Have enough food and fuel? Drought happens, and fuel stocks are running low. Try to implement a fuel quota? Now you can’t cook your food. Then you get sick because you do not have enough food, and then you die. it is mind bogglingly frustrating to watch and even more so when you realize people actually live like this.
I had a very similar experience with this simulator. I thought the hardest part was finally finding a bit of a balance, and then a natural disaster, like a drought, happens and it all goes to waste. It is so hard for us to even do this in a game, and I cannot imagine having to find this balance in real life. They have to do so much and Kodjo and Fatou were also so young in the simulator, so it is hard to comprehend that we can find some similarities to them.