Opening the Family Overview

The family overview screen is opened by clicking any member of the farmer family. The family overview displays stats to describe the family member and buttons that allow them to perform various actions.

All stats and actions displayed for Makena – note that the Marriage-button is missing in this screenshot, because Makena is already married.

In-game Instructions

Clicking the question mark button in the upper right corner of the Family Overview, will open up the in-game instructions

Screenshot of the in-game instructions in 3rd World Farmer.

The instructions are available in full text below, since they offer a good introduction and a brief overview of stats and actions. Some of the concepts are covered in greater detail in this online manual, so some links to those pages are included below where relevant.

Family Overview

Here’s a brief description of the different stats, and the actions that are available for members of the family.

Stats

Name

You can change the names of any family member by typing a new name directly in the highlighted name label.

Gender

Family members may be either male or female.

Age

The age of the person is one of the factors that determine the possible actions available to the character. For instance, only kids and young adults are allowed in school, while only adults can get married and have children.

Title

Title can be either ‘Head of Family’, ‘Spouse’ (of the head of the family) or ‘Family Member’.

Education

The amount of years each family member has spent in school is displayed here. Higher education means a better job offers and marriage proposals if the person leaves the farm, but also increases farm work efficiency.

Fertile

Once family members reach maturity, they become fertile. Fertility may be lost due to natural ageing, or if health drops very low.

Workload

A number indicating the family member’s capacity for and efficiency at farm work. The higher the number, the more will be earned on crops and livestock. Workload is affected both by the family member’s age, health and educational level, as well as by what other activites the person has chosen for the year, such as going to school or becoming pregnant. Infants have negative workload scores, because they require attention more than they contribute to farm work. Sending kids to school early on is a good way of raising their work proficiency above the default value of 75 held by adults at full health.

Health

The persons health, ranging from 0 to 100. If health drops to 0, the person dies. Each year, there’s a risk that each person loses a little health due to common diseases and accidents. Years of drought and famine are especially dangerous to family health in this respect. Health levels can be restored by paying for medical treatment.

Married to

If the family member is married, the name of the spouse is displayed here.

Actions

Give Medicine

This option will be available for family members whose health has dropped below 100, if there’s enough money for treatment. Medical treatment and medicine can be purchased

  1. For the entire family at once,
  2. To fully restore the health of the selected family member, or
  3. One health-point at a time for the selected family member. Prices are halved if the Clinic improvement has been built.

Have Baby

Option available to fertile women who are either the head of the family, or spouse to the head of the family. A pregnancy lowers the woman’s work efficiency that year.

Marriage

Marriage becomes available as an option when family members reach the age of 18. If a spouse is found, a bride gift is estimated depending on various factors, such as health, age and educational level of the family member to be wed. Proposals can then be accepted or rejected. If the head of the family marries, the new spouse moves to the farm and becomes a member of the family. When anybody else marries, they leave the farm to go and live with the new spouse elsewhere.

Go To School

Sending kids to school is the best way to prepare them for life. For a fee, each kid can be sent to school every turn. While in school, they cannot contribute much to farmwork, but they will learn skills that make them more efficient later in life. Building the School improvement makes fees cheaper, and allows kids to contribute more to work at the farm since they don’t have to travel very far to school every day.

Family Head

The button labeled Family Head allows the player to appoint a new head of the family. Both men and women can be heads of the family. The title has no real meaning in terms of game mechanics, except that only the current female head of the family, or a spouse to the male head of the family may get new children.

Leave Farm

A family member may decide to leave the farm at any time. Depending on health, education and age, there may be jobs available when someone decides to leave, and a small advance payment to be earned. Family members who leave the farm, will not return later. If the head of the family leaves, a new one is appointed automatically.If the last family member leaves the farm, the game ends. Also, young children cannot run the farm on their own, there must be at least one family member who is 8 or older, or the game will end.

Good luck!