Niahak's Place

Lately I was looking for a good simulation game to play. Although Koei’s various sims usually fill that niche pretty well, there’s nothing like a good solid computer-y sim game.

Fate of the World is an indie global warming management simulator. Now, in the United States, that in itself is controversial, which in my opinion is totally stupid – but the rejection of science by half of the political spectrum aside, it’s a game that challenging, interesting and depressing.Your strategy is to play cards that influence your client countries in certain directions. For example, starting out, China has heavy coal usage which is driving up emissions quite a bit. You might attempt to drive that down specifically, but that often causes increased oil consumption which will drive up demand for an already scarce resource.

The game is at its best when you are able to drive long-term policy to a degree, but often countries will lash out at you for no reason (like the USA, because they might think global warming’s a hoax). Much of your time thus has to be spent garnering goodwill – saving countries from otherwise dangerous storms, wildfires, and so on, as well as putting on advertising campaigns to drive countries away from endless waste.

The worst part is that strikes and riots will often occur for no discernible reason. While it makes sense for countries like Africa or India, which often start out in a bad place, but North America and even Europe will riot at the drop of a pin – when there is no real shortage and their development index hasn’t even decreased any.

All this only serves to make the game more realistic, to a degree. Saving the world is hard.

Fate of the World is temporarily on sale on Steam – its $10 price further decreased, and some recent tweaks (and numerous mods to inject more beatability into the game) make it more enjoyable.