Image: Gaming African Catchment game, Turku 2008. 

Two weeks ago I had a nice opportunity to participate African Catchment Game session in Turku. The teachers or managars of that game came all the way from South Africa to teach our group how people are surviving in the rural area in African villages. In the beginning of the game all the participants were given a role in the game. I wanted to be a refugee, which was the poorest position one can get, but unfortunately in this game there was not enough people for that (usually there is). So my role was a peasent farmer. Me and my friend Maria formed a farm together and the manager of the game gave us so and so many people to be fed and to work in the farm. What we learned after the first round (year) of playing, the most important part in the game is water. Water was needed (as in ordinary life too) for drinking, and farming. Other wise you start to loose your family.

The game consisted of three type of actors: the city people (industrialists, government people, trader etc.) the middle men (sales person and buyer) and the rural area people (which I belonged to).  We were trading stuff with city people- of course they needed food which we produced. We, the farmers, needed water, which could be bought from the government people (we had awful drought in the villages all the time). We also bought pestisides and fertilizers from the industrialists and cows (mainly imported to the country). Simulation game appeared to be very interesting and educational way of learning. It was so interesting that I would have like to spend another day gaming too.  

 Here are some images of the game session.

Image: My farm

Image: Tokens

As a futurist I follow very much blogs to find out new things and emerging issues in life. I do not follow blogs that are mainly focused on personal experiences of life (diary type of blogs), but I do follow blogs that are focused on new gadgets, trends in technology, environment, society etc. Also, there are some blogs that I  follow because the writers of them are just so brilliant, and it is kind of necessity to read them. One of my favourite blogs is www.pinktentacle.com that collects interesting news about Japan- practically in all areas of life. Here is one of my favourite stories:

New Japanese mobile phone game combines virtual gaming and reality. The game — called “Ippon Zuri” (which means “pole-and-line fishing”) — was created by FIT, a Fukuoka-based system development company. The idea of the game is simple: just virtually catch a fish with your mobile phone and if you manage to get one, a real fish is delivered behind your door.  Read more here.