Navigating the game is fairly easy. There’s a series of coloured squares that can be used to hold crops, tools, livestock and buildings. These can be bought via a pull out menu on the left. Beware however as everything costs money. You’ll be able to gain money by successfully managing the farm. Keep in mind however that it takes money to make money and you won’t always be successful.

Getting into the game is fairly simple, you start with a small amount of cash available and a lot of choices – do you plant corn, wheat or go for the gold with peanuts – it’s all up to you. If farming becomes boring, after you’ve saved up enough money you can start to enter the livestock trade and buy tools to help you increase your production. One thing though, don’t ignore your workers while doing this – you have several choices with them to keep the money flowing – both in and out. You can send them to school, give them medication or have them leave the farm for a job in the city. In time, you can also arrange marriages for your children, or have them continue to work the farm as a regular worker.

Advancement in the games comes via turns; each turn is roughly one year or one growing season during which time an event will happen. It can be a good event, but this being the 3rd world, so it tends to be bad. At the end of this season you can see how you’ve done. You can increase your harvest and livestock yields by buying improvements such as barns, tools, and tractors.

You can also add location improvements that help you negate some of the bad things that can happen each and every year. In addition, location improvements count towards winning the game. If you manage to get all 6 (Radio, Roads, School, Clinic, Representative and Insurance) you’ll win the game and receive your score.

There’s a high score table available for those who want to try and really have a good game – Keep in mind, however, it will take a lot of playing. A typical game runs for about Ѕ hour, so to be able to reach the lofty score’s you’ll have to have some very long games.

Personally I thought that 3rd World Farmer was a cute little game that I could plug into during the very small amounts of time that I often have available. It’s intuitive, easy to learn and actually looks decent graphically – I’m sure it will run as easily on almost any system these days.

also liked the fact that the game was quite simple to learn but had enough complexity in it that it didn’t become repetitive game play after the first few games. There’s quite a lot to do and see in the game and I’m sure that each and every game you try will be different.

And before I end this, a couple of hints:
Have babies, lots of babies.
Also, Tractors can really increase your crop yield but are expensive to run.