Release Date: 1964 - 66
Platform: IBM 360/40
Genre: Resource Management, Educational
Developer(s): Walter Goodman
Publisher(s): BOCES
This is the type of game I dream of running into. Completely off-grid, unknown to even the most comprehensive online databases - this isn't on MobyGames or Arcade-History. The Sierra Leone Game was, until the 2.0 update of Haresoft's The Sumerian Game collection in 2025, lost media.
Naturally, this puts my excitement levels at fever pitch.
To get some background on The Sierra Leone Game, we need to go to the extra documentation provided by Haresoft upon purchase of The Sumerian Game. There are two documents provided, both written by Andrea Contato, but the one we're interested in is entitled The Sumerian Game: A Digital Resurrection. This work goes into great detail about development of The Sumerian Game, and the other projects being worked on by that team, of which The Sierra Leone Game is one.
It was created by Walter Goodman, under the supervision of BOCES (Boards of Cooperative Educational Services.) Goodman intended it as a sort of complementary game to The Sumerian Game, feeling that fledgling African economies were important for American school students to understand in the mid 1960s. Sierra Leone was a convenient choice, as he had access to one of their United Nations staffers for consultation.
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| Prepare your reading glasses. |
Like The Sumerian Game, The Sierra Leone Game underwent much development over the course of several years, primarily from 1964 - 1966. During that time, both games received supporting multimedia in the forms of projector slides and audio samples.
Loading into the game, we're initially met with a very, very lengthy introduction / tutorial. I suppose one could consider this the first tutorial in gaming - but it doesn't strictly teach you how to play the game. Sure, it introduces the game's keyword system - where you can type in any word written in red, and the game will give you an explanation of that word. Except for "diminishing returns." That one's too big to type in, so no explanation of that for you. Why do I have a feeling that's going to be important later?
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| The introductory text dump. |
But, good grief, it's a lot of reading. I spent a good 20 minutes reading it all out aloud for the video. After that, I could finally begin actually playing the stinking game.
And the game really does stink... because you have to manage an onion plantation. No doubt many tears will be shed during my tenure. This is just the type of thing everyone dreams about doing in a video game - growing your own onions. However, Stardew Valley this ain't.
The Sierra Leone Game really shows its similarities to The Sumerian Game when it comes to the actual gameplay. Conceptually, they're almost identical. Although, the former is simultaneously simpler and more complex.
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| They didn't tell me there would be a pop quiz at the end of this. |
The numbers are much lower, and what's expected of the player in managing the plantation is much simpler compared to the managing of grain stores and field planting in The Sumerian Game. You're only given one job at a time, and the first task is to decide how many acres of land to plant. When you arrive on site, 50 of a possible 100 acres have been planted. All you have to do is figure out how many acres to plant to get the best returns in crop yield.
It almost devolves into a sequence of trial and error at this stage, however the chief mechanic of diminishing returns encourages the player to go hard early. I didn't figure this out until the third stage.
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| Now, after all that, I can finally play the game. |
Yes - I just said third stage. This game has levels - the very first to do so! Once you have success with planting the fields, stage two has you deciding how much money to borrow for equipment purchase and upkeep. You can borrow a maximum of 1,500 leones (a creatively named currency if there ever was one.) Again, I think the game wants to encourage you to invest hard early, but I hadn't figured that out yet. Still, I passed this round the same as the first - although it took much longer - 31 seasons vs. a mere 11 seasons for stage one.
The third and final stage is actually the easiest of the three. This one has you choosing how many workers to hire per season - up to three per season. I clocked into the game's mechanics, and hired as many as I could straight away. This part caps you at 16 workers; if you try to hire more after this point, the game will complain that you're spending too much money on workers, and tells you to sack some of them (this doesn't actually happen.) Pushing straight to the cap got me to the crop yield cap of 10,000 onions per season, which the game told me about in stage two. Would've been nice to know that from the start.
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| Tens of thousands of onions later, I have saved the economy of Sierra Leone. |
Once enough seasons pass here, the game's over. A note is given at the end by the Haresoft developers explaining that this is only the first third of the game, and that the rest hasn't been restored yet. They also remind you that this game was designed for 11-year-olds in the 1950s (should say 1960s in actual fact), when computers were all new and mysterious contraptions, and that's why it's so easy.
The developer has confirmed that they're working on finishing the rest of the game for a future update, so I'll revisit this once that update arrives.
Scores
Time Played: 45 minutes
Difficulty: 1 (Brain-dead)
The game admits to being easy, but even then, it's still much to easy when you can be totally ignorant of the guiding gameplay principle and still win.
Gameplay: 2
I'm only basing this score on what's playable at the moment. What gameplay is there is like a dumbed-down version of The Sumerian Game. Only the most base form of resource management - one resource at a time. The Sierra Leone Game* gets some credit in that it's significantly innovative in its design, being the first game we've seen to include levels, player ranks, and an attempt at a difficulty curve. All of these things become standard game design principles eventually. Whether that curve actually goes up in the latter part of the game remains to be seen.
Controls: 5
Slightly more interesting in that you get to type in keywords, but those don't strictly add to the gameplay. It's not enough for me to move this above the standard text-based score.
Sound: N/A
Sure, it plays a short rendition of what I'm assuming is Sierra Leone's national anthem, but that's not even part of the game!
Visual: 2
I'm willing to give it an extra point for the addition of the accompanying slides, which do add some flavour to an otherwise unremarkable text-based game.
Story: N/A
Like the other games in this collection, one could argue that there's technically a story here. Also like the others, I don't think it's sufficient to constitute a video game story, however.
Functionality: 4
I suppose, technically, this is an unfinished game. What's there works, except for the diminishing returns* keyword (and a couple of typos.) One point off, but open to review once the entire game is completely restored.
Accessibility: 2
Way too much reading. I spent far more time overall reading what could've been a geography textbook than playing a game. Zork this ain't.
Fun Factor: 1
A point for novelty. No points for actual enjoyment. You can tell this was made for a school environment.
Overall: 16
The Sierra Leone Game just barely scrapes into the E tier with a weighted score of 20. Historically, it's probably one of the most interesting games I've played, but interesting does not equal good. Again, this is all subject to change once the full game is completely restored.
Video:
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