Chan's Personal Blog

I came across this really neat flash game called Ayiti: The Cost of Life. It's a game where you take control of a rural family of five living in Haiti. The object of the game is to acquire education, health, money, and happiness.

It's kind of an eye opener of how difficult life is for the poor, as every move you make is a huge tradeoff. For example, sending kids to school is quite the trade-off. They could have helped work to bring in cash, but instead they're off to school. Sure, they'll get a better career in the future and bring in more money; however, that's a long-term investment, and very tough to do if you don't have a lot of money. So, maybe we could send the whole family to work. Well, with not a lot of education, that means working at risky jobs where people can get hurt. An injury or sickness means a trip to the hospital which can be quite expensive.

The game's also kind of neat, in that you can buy different things for your house to improve the quality of life of your family. Running water is quite the luxury that I haven't managed to get yet.

Nature also plays a very expensive role. Every year, there's hurricane season, and if you don't spend money preparing for the hurricane, nature can destroy your house and throw you into huge debt.

Life kind of sucks eh?

In either case, my high score has been, all 5 members of the family surviving, with 5 diplomas, and a chicken on the farm. I'm not exactly sure how anyone can afford a computer in the game.

Anyway, very educational game, and pretty fun. I've wasted 1.5 hours on this game so far. Maybe next time I should try sacrificing the kids... they cost too much money to maintain j/k.