Ayiti: The Cost of Life. An example of Rhetoric of Failure

A Time Magazine article from August 2006 mentions a game called “Ayiti: The Cost of Life” which is designed to make the player understand how difficult it is to live in poverty. The game takes place in the island nation of Haiti where you attempt to live as a Haitian family, decide who has to go work, who gets to go to school, who gets to go to the doctor when their sick, and all that while still potentially succumbing to natural disasters which can ruin your livelihood if you don’t prepare for them.

I read the instructions and felt prepared to play as well as I can, in my mind I was optimistic about my strategy to make the family succeed and be able to buy some nice things for the family to enjoy. I figured I would make some of the family work while letting two of the children go to school so they can get better jobs after a few turns. This plan quickly failed when I could no longer pay for their education because some of the family I assigned to work were getting sick and needed to see a doctor. I quickly fell into debt and was unable to send anyone to school or to the hospital because I couldn’t afford it. Trying to make people work to get some money back, simply made them sicker and eventually they all died of cholera, tuberculosis, etc. I gave it another try and played a bit smarter having had some experience, but soon enough a hurricane destroyed my house because I didn’t have money to put up preparations.

I’m not sure if this is an unwinnable game like some of the games described by Bogost, but based on my experience and the message the game is intended to spread I’m going to assume this is so (the site claims it is winnable, but they could be lying to make me keep trying! A very difficult game can feel like an unwinnable game either way.) The reason this is an effective tool for this particular game is because it makes the player feel like their actions are futile. They can play the game as well or as poorly as they want to and the end result is the same, failure. This is truer than the games Bogost mentions because in those games you can at least get a sense of pride with how long you last or how far you get before you fail, but in this game there is no sense of accomplishment unless you end up victorious. The game actually has you pick a goal at the beginning. You can choose happiness, money, education, or health. It doesn’t seem to matter which one you pick because no matter how hard you try you end up unhappy, poor, uneducated and sick or dead. In games where the developers intend to show struggle, the Rhetoric of Failure is a great tool.

Experience failure for yourself here (if anyone manages to "win" let me know how!)