Review of the game Ayiti – the Cost of Life created by the high school students in Global Kids in conjunction with game developers at GameLab
Rating: 
Game Overview
Ayiti: The Cost of Life is a single-player simulation strategy game playable for free over the internet using a flash-compatible web browser. It is aimed at school students – although even adults will find the game challenging. The player takes on the role of managing the activities of the Guinard family – a family of 5 who live in the developing country of Ayiti. The player’s goal is to help the Guinard family get an education and improve their lives.
Above: The Guinard family – Jean, Marie, Yves, Jacquline and Patrick. (SOURCE: screenshot from game, used for review purposes)
The game-play occurs over 16 rounds. Each round represents a season. There are four seasons a year so the overall timeframe represented by the game is a four-year period.
At any time, the player can click on a member of the family to view information about them. The information panel tells the player the character’s current level of health, happiness and education and also tells the player what the character is currently doing, the character’s current health status and the character’s current education status.
Above: At any time, the player can click on a member of the family to view their vital statistics. This screenshot was taken at the very start of the game before the start of the first season. (SOURCE: screenshot from game, used for review purposes)
The game also keeps track of important information regarding the family’s progress as a whole. This information is always visible in a panel on the left hand side of the screen. Information that is stored includes:
- the total number of (educational) diplomas the family has collected
- the amount of money (Gouds) the family has
- the current living conditions the family is subject to – The living conditions can be changed manually but also change automatically depending on the level of income of the family
- the items that the family owns (these are purchased from the store).
Above: The panel at the left hand side of the game screen stores information about the status of the family as a whole. (SOURCE: screenshot from game, used for review purposes)
Money can be spent on school tuition, living conditions and items in the store such as books, bicycles, home remedy kits and chickens for the family farm.
The player’s goal is to keep the family happy and healthy for the four years. If both parents die, the game is over. If the parents survive, the level of success is measured by the amount of education each member of the family has.
Check out this Youtube video for a walkthru of one round of the game (Youtube video created by holymeatballs).
What makes the game compelling?
One of the reasons this game is compelling is that it is easy to learn what to do; but it is extremely challenging to master. The reviewer has played the game at least four times. On the most recent occasion, both parents and one child died of cholera. The remaining two children were scattered between different relatives and foster homes and lost all chances at a brighter future!
Above: The game is compelling because it is difficult. (SOURCE: screenshot from game, used for review purposes)
Factors that make it compelling include:
- the challenge and conflict within the game comes from the desire to accumulate resources so that they can help provide a better standard of living and education for the family, however, if only a resource accumulation strategy is applied to the game, the characters will become sick or depressed and will no longer be able to work to accumulate resources
- a balanced strategy needs to be employed to take on the system effectively
- it is free to play
- the narrative is engaging
- the 2D graphics are reasonably high quality
- the game music and sound is reasonably high quality
- the user interface is intuitive
- it allows for differing player approaches – there is more than one way to “win” the game
- there are no easy choices – every choice made within the game comes at the expense of something else
- there is uncertainty – the player makes meaningful choices but is not certain how it will impact on the lives of the characters in the game.
Game Play
The gameplay bears similarity to Lemonade Stand style games and more complex tycoon games. The player starts each round (each round in this game is a season) with a certain amount of money. The player can use that money to buy things such as school books, home remedy kits, toys, a bicycle.
Above: Money can be used to buy items at the store. (SOURCE: screenshot from game, used for review purposes)
The money can also be used to educate the family members.
Above: Money can be used to educate family members. (SOURCE: screenshot from game, used for review purposes)
The player also has to decide what each member of the family will do during the season. Will they receive education, stay at home and rest, work the family farm, get a job, volunteer for a non-government organisation or go to receive medical treatment?
Above: Family members can take on jobs providing they have the right levels of education and have appropriate transport. (SOURCE: screenshot from game, used for review purposes)
Once the player has decided where to allocate resources and what each family member will do for the season, the Start Season button is pressed.
Whilst most of the game’s decisions are made before the season starts, there are some decisions that the player can make during the season . Decisions that the player may have to make during the season include whether family members should stop working if they are sick, whether they should seek medical treatment and which level of treatment is most appropriate and whether to spend more money on hurricane-proofing their house.
If the money gets low or the health of a family member gets really low, some decisions are automatically made by the game. For example, if a family member gets really sick, they will be no longer able to work and will be forced to go home. If the family runs out of money, all family members receiving medical attention or education will be forced to return home.
Larger Culture around the Game
The game provides some extra ways to engage with the game content. These include lesson plans for teachers and other supporting information such as maps of Haiti (the country which the game is based on) and links to other supporting materials. Check out this page on the Unicef – Voices of Youth website for more information.
Why was the game created?
Goal 1.
Ayiti: The Cost of Life was developed to educate people around the world about the complexity of the issues facing people living in poverty in developing countries. Its key message is that no single factor can account for success.
Goal 2.
The game development process itself was used as a tool to promote digital literacy and career awareness for underserved youth as part of the GlobalKids Program. This game was designed by high school students in collaboration with a professional game development company.
Did the game achieve its goals?
Goal 1.
Whilst there were some shortcomings in the evaluation of the game, it does appear that the game’s goals were achieved at some level. The evaluation conducted suggested that individuals playing the game had a fuller understanding of the complexities associated with living in poverty than they did before playing the game.
Goal 2.
The evaluators conducted two separate focus group meetings with six students involved in the program. These focus groups revealed that as a result of their involvement in this project students learnt many lessons including:
- respect for each other and other people’s ideas
- how to share their ideas and listen to the ideas of others
- how to work as part of a team
- increasing their computer skills
- understanding what goes into making a game.
Watch this youtube video created by students who made the game.
Shortcomings of the evaluation
A large-scale survey was conducted with players of the game to ascertain whether it was useful in educating people about the complexity of the issues facing people living in poverty. The survey took the form of a pre-gameplay question and a series of True/False post-gameplay questions.
Shortcoming 1. The pre-gameplay question
The pre-gameplay question asks players to identify a strategy that they intend to use to play the game as depicted below.
Above: Before playing the game, the player is asked which strategy they will choose. (SOURCE: screenshot of game, used for review purposes)
The problems with this pre-play question all centre around the Happiness option:
- the text describing the Happiness option is chopped off mid-sentence
- the heading used for this section does not match the content of the answer. Many people choosing an answer to this question would be so keen to skip to the actual game that they may read the heading and not look at the rest of the text.
Even though the happiness descriptor is probably the most balanced strategy, players probably would not select it based on the incompatible heading and the fact that not all of the text for the descriptor is not present.
Interestingly, even in the game evaluation, the evaluators chose to replace the heading happiness with the heading survival stating that “although the survey instrument referred to the theme of happiness, we refer to survival in our analysis as it is a more accuracte reflection of the content of the corresponding statements”. The reviewer believes that survival is also not an appropriate heading for the description. In fact, this heading really is about having a balanced game strategy. It is likely, though, that if the word “balanced” were used as a heading on the screen pictured above that most people would choose that option. The reviewer believes that this evidence is enough to question whether a valid strategy has been used to evaluate the success of the game.
Shortcoming 2. The post-gameplay questions
The post-gameplay questions were a series of eight true/false questions as depicted below.
Above: After playing the game, the player is asked a series of 8 true/false questions. (SOURCE: screenshot of game, used for review purposes)
There was a technical glitch in the version of the game that was evaluated and the final question did not appear. This problem was subsequently fixed, however, no data was included in the evaluation that contained responses to the final question.
The evaluation split the statements into pairs around the themes money, health, education and survival and classified each statement as an absolute or a relative statement. See the image below for more details.
Above: Table used in Nudell, Brunner & Pasnik’s evaluation report 2007. (used for review purposes)
The percentages of users who chose to check each statement was then calculated and compared with the percentages that chose the initial game playing strategies. It should be noted that a player is able to mark both the absolute and relative statement in each category as being both true, both false or one true and the other false.
Above: Table used in Nudell, Brunner & Pasnik’s evaluation report 2007. (used for review purposes)
Whilst this does provide some useful data and it would seem to indicate that those who played the game demonstrated some level of understanding of the complexities associated with living in poverty, given the issues with the questioning techniques used how valid is the data? Could other statistical methods been used to further prove the association? Is using a survey as the only means of assessing player understandings useful? Should other methods of evaluation such as focus groups have been used?
Image Attributions
http://www.unicef.org/voy/images/costoflife_banner_180×150.gif (Used for review purposes. If you are the copyright holder of this image and wish it to be removed, please add a comment to this blog entry.)
Other images are from the game’s evaluation report and are screenshots of the game. All are used for review purposes. If the copyright holder of this information wishes it to be removed, please add a comment to this blog entry.
References
Nudell, H., Brunner, C. & Pasnik, S. 2007. Playing for Keeps Evaluation Report. EDC | Center for Children and Technology. Accessed from http://gamesforchange.org/resource_uploads/c1c5600b0026a083e5b3f67beea27040/21219805895P4K_Year_2-Report.pdf on 14/9/2009
Unicef 2009. Voices of Youth – Game: Ayiti: the cost of life. Unicef. Accessed from
http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/rights/explore_3142.html on 14/9/2009