Third World Farmer

Third World Farmer is a free, online simulator depicting life on an African farm. Originally developed by students in the IT University of Copenhagen, it evolved into its current form with input from professional gamers and relief agencies. The game puts you in charge of an African family who must farm to survive and earn money. Each turn of the game represents a year in which you must plant crops, raise livestock, avoid dodgy foreign investors, survive wars and somehow raise enough money to feed yourself, educate the kids and purchase medicines. The game is very thought provoking and after just a couple of minutes of playing it’s very easy to see how quickly life can go wrong in developing nations. Have a look, it’s well worth your time.

3rd World Farmer is a new kind of game. An experiment in the genre of Serious Games, it aims at simulating the real-world mechanisms that cause and sustain poverty in 3rd World countries. We find this kind of experience efficient at making the issues relevant to people, because players tend to invests their hopes in a game character whose fate depends on him. We aim at making the player “experience” the injustices, rather than being told about them, so as to stimulate a deeper and more personal reflection on the topics.