The Corn Conspiracy

During my time playing Third World Farmer, I accidently played an earlier version with slightly worse graphics. However, what really made this earlier version remarkable was the difference in “destroy the player” variables (by which I mean what the game did to lead you towards failure). In this version, the very first year almost always had a “bad year for corn.” What this means is that a new player like myself, having recently learned the rules and being excited to try my luck, planted all corn (as is the norm) and immediately went broke and lost. A crushing defeat, made worse by the fact that the same thing happened again the next 2 games before I realized that was just how it was coded.

Now, in the most recent version of TWF, the bad corn harvest usually does not appear for a couple of years, giving the player much needed leeway (or at least 1 year) to grow their farm before things get bad. This difference between game versions, one that instantly crushes the most prominent strategy and one that gives a little breathing room, interests me. Why was the updated version changed? Was the failure too excessive that it became harmful?

Looking at the procedural rhetoric of the earlier version, it performs two-fold. First, it truly emphasizes the utter misery that these farmers are going through by crushing the player before they even have a leg up, something that, for many, is a reality. Second, it provides a warning message to the “easy path,” the perhaps “logical” choice of using “safe” corn to pad your wallet. Instead, one must rely on some luck and risk to pick a less assured alternative. After playing this earlier version a few rounds, one might say “things are bad for third world farmers and one must take risks in order get out of the situation.”

I believe the game was updated because this second factor was too prominent and too misleading. Beating down the player is one thing (even having bad corn be the start once is an interesting shock), but the constant restriction to corn in the first round was providing a bad rhetoric. In reality, if you have a family to feed, you can’t blindly take risks in order to reach some far off win state. You can’t restart your family or remain uncaring as they die off. Third World Farmer is not about taking extraordinary risk to get lucky and win. It’s end message is about working long, hard, and smart to improve ones community to the point that the constant atrocities and impoverished lifestyle are, somewhat, overcome (of course, I’m not dismissing the over-arching message of failure and difficulty for those in poverty, as that is a good and strong part of the rhetoric).

Do you agree with why I think they updated to game? Do you think perhaps the rhetoric is different? Comment, Like, and Subscribe.