Before being released, the game was tested with groups of farmers.
Manitoba resident, Trevor Lehmann, has created a game based on the realities of farming, inspired by his childhood summers spent on his grandfather’s small grain farm. His card-based game, Crop Cycle, provides a fun and fast-paced experience and an opportunity to learn about agriculture and the importance of bio-diversity.
“When I was growing up, I spent my summers a lot of times with my family on my grandfather’s farm,” says Lehmann. “My grandpa really liked his job. There’s not a lot of people who wander through their office on their off time just looking at the stationary, right? In his spare time, he wandered through fields, looking at the grain and the soil. I don’t have a background in farming, but I understood what they meant about having a connection to the land. It’s something I always saw embodied in him.”
With the inspiration embedded in his heart from a young age, the idea for the game came about when Lehmann was teaching Grade 10 geography as part of the practicum for his education degree. In a unit on farming, Lehmann decided there had to be a better way to teach students about farming than the standard practice of showing a documentary and having the students write an essay. He began developing Crop Cycle soon after.
Each player in the game acts as a farmer. Moving through the four seasons, players are tasked with planting, protecting and harvesting crops. The game ends when all of the cards in the deck have been played or when a player earns a predetermined amount of points. The challenge of the game comes from event cards.
“Event cards represent nature at its best or its worst — mostly its worst, because that makes for an interesting game,” says Lehmann. “They affect everybody, but you’re trying to pick cards that mess up another player’s crops while not damaging your own as much. For example, there’s a fungi card in there what will affect grassy crops but not broadleaf. That gets across the idea that you want to have a variety of crops so you don’t get everything wiped out at once. It’s easier to play multiple cards of the same type of crop, but then you’re at greater risk if something comes along.”
After playtesting it with people from both the gaming and farming communities, Lehmann says the game has been well received by all. He was especially interested in getting feedback from the farmers in terms of the game’s representation of their livelihood.
“That was one thing I thought was sort of the acid test,” says Lehmann. “I’m sitting there playing with these career farmers. But they all really enjoyed it and they said it kind of felt right. Especially the pay off when you get a successful harvest and the really frustrating moments, like when a frost comes and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Crop Cycle is currently available at a variety of gaming shops in Manitoba or at www.convergentgames.com