Session 7: Cost of Living

Cost of Living

Cost of Living is a role play game that really challenges the players thinking and reasoning ability and in my case can sometimes angers the player! At the beginning of the game you are introduced to the Guinard family who lives in Haiti, they have five members in their family and your goal as the player is to assign jobs and education to the family. At the very beginning of the game you are to select your goal for the game, the goals to choose from are education, money, happiness, or health and you strive to reach that goal throughout the game. As you assign the family to jobs and education your money fluctuates throughout the game, if you work your people to hard they will get sick and if your family is dead by the end of the game you lose. The game is set up to cover 4 years of the family’s life and each year is divided into seasons.

      I had a very challenging time completing this game. My family kept dying! I never made it past year two and tried a variety of strategies between job placement and education, at times I made risky decisions that paid off more than my logical decisions did! I even went back through each time and changed what my end goal of the game was. I found that when I had enough money and occasionally bought the family items their happiness would go up and I would make it further in the game. Overall, a very challenging game that really makes you think, evaluate, and then reevaluate your actions and choices. I can’t wait to use this in my classroom!

Below are my responses to how the components of flow were presented in this game.

o   Task that the learners can complete         

§  This component was definitely met in the way in which the game was set up. The player completed small sections of the game at a time in order to complete the entire game. For example, the player completed 4 seasons that made 1 year and then 16 seasons which equaled 4 years. The ability for this game to be broken into the previous small sections made small feats for the player to strive and win.

o   Ability to concentrate on task

§  I believe that this game was able to draw learners in. I especially believe this because of the many strategies that can be used to play this game. Thinking skills, math, problem solving, and reading skills are some of the many skills that learners need to use to achieve success in and throughout this game.

o   Task has clear goals

§  The goals of the game were clear. You wanted to earn money so that your family could survive and you could purchase things. Other things that you wanted to strive for throughout the game were happiness, education, and health. The game had many graph-like components as well as the expression on the characters faces to let the player know where they were at in each of the categories throughout the play of the game.

o   Task provides immediate feedback

§  I really enjoyed this component of the game because the feedback was both instant and delayed. For example instant feedback came when you placed your family members at either education or a job and once you did you were able to see the money start coming in as your financial amount grew. You were able to experience delayed feedback through the fact that if you worked your family to hard and had money to show for it they eventually got sick and tired and had to either rest for an entire season or you had to spend money on medical care.

o   Deep but effortless involvement

§  This game presents something that not a lot of its players are familiar with living like. The involvement is effortless in a way because it opens a situation that the players are unfamiliar with. The game is also effortless because the player has the ability to quit and start over.

o   Exercising a sense of control over their actions

§  The player of the game has full control over the decisions and actions of the game. The fate of the family is left to the player and the decisions that they make for the family. Some of these decisions work and some do not. The player has control over large decisions like schooling and work and medical treatment but the game does not allow control for things like eating and sleeping. Also, if you do not have enough money for certain things the game keeps you from getting those instead of making you go further in debt.

o   Concern for self disappears during flow

§  The game does present the “life & death” scenario as the decisions that are made for the family throughout the game determine if they are happy and continue living or if they are worked to hard and die.

o   Sense of duration of time is altered

§  This game makes learners lose track of time very easily as the game presents a 4 year time span broken down into years, and then broken down into seasons in only a matter of a few minutes to be played. The game can be delayed based on the decisions that the player makes or the other actions that are chosen throughout the game. A sense of time can also be lost because of the players ability to begin the game again and again many cycles of the game can be played.