Have You Played… Fate of the World?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

Would you like to learn about the Human Development Index and global fuel policy? No, I suppose not. What about playing a videogame where all your decisions lead to the entire earth becoming a slowly decaying barrel of human sadness? I thought so. Here’s Fate of the World.

Ha ha, tricked you. They're the same thing! Yes, this is a game about learning. You’ll learn about climate change statistics and endangered species and where the Maldives is. But you’ll also be trying to wrestle the global community into shape and avoid the slow-burning trash fire that we are all sure to become. You'll use cards and clicks and turns. Many people will die.

It’s a strategy game, with plenty of nit-picky UI ugliness and the accompanying learning curve. It might take a couple of games to understand how all the various systems and decisions you make interact, but learning is half the journey. The other half of the journey is spent piling corpses in Barcelona. It’s up there with the Democracy series – a game of balancing priorities, making compromises on your principles, and trying not to ruin everyone’s lives in the process.