Fate of the World: Tipping Point review
During development most teams will research into subjects that surround the game’s premise, and that’s exactly what Red Redemption, the team behind global warming game Fate of the World: Tipping Point have done. With the game featuring several scenarios, all of which are based on actual scientific research and real-world climate data gathered by Dr. Myles Allen of the University of Oxford, it makes for a very interesting “save the world” title.
The basic concept of the game is to save the Earth between 2020 to 2200 and stopping 50 signature species from going extinct, as well as avoiding tipping points occurring that will affect the Earth’s atmosphere, such as the total collapse of the Amazon. Put in charge of a fictional international organisation which manages social, technological and environmental policies, the goal of the scenarios range from improving living conditions in Africa, preventing catastrophic climate change, to even exacerbating it. During this turn-based game, with each turn representing five years, the player will chose policies which are represented by cards.
The first thing you’ll notice in the game when you load it up is that it has achievements. If there’s one thing that I like in a game its trophies and achievements! However these aren’t available to unlock when playing a scenario in easy mode.
When you begin the game will ask you how you wish to be addressed with options like Ma’am and Learned One. I thought it was a bit presumptuous of me to go with “Learned One”, so I went with the more subtle approach. You can now address me as “My Lady!” Once you’ve made your selection, cue the inspirational music and dramatisations of what could actually happen in years to come due to climate change. And that’s where you come in as GEO President in 2020.
The games tutorial will teach you the basics, but it really doesn’t guide you around the controls as well as it should or could. As the controls are all mouse driven, you’ll soon get the hang of it and find the system fluid and easy to use.
When you select a region to play in, your view is focused there. You can read local news for that region, find out what the people need or want and you can also play your policy cards. Cards are arranged in categories and colour. Green is for agriculture, blue for technology, yellow for energy, red for social and grey for political. Before any cards of importance can be used or made available you have to play an opening card. As mentioned at the beginning of this review, the cards are policies allowing you to research new sources of energy, or maybe even defences against wind and water damage.
Like any other game in this genre the learning is all in the mistake making. Choosing your policies at the beginning can easily come down to what looks good, which really isn’t the way to go forward as the wrong choices can have catastrophic consequences in the future.
When you have chosen the policies that you wish to have implemented, you click forward a certain number of years to see how your region is getting along. In my case, it was never very well. There was always something that needed fixing but I never had enough money to do it. I would have everyone paying attention to the fact that we need to take care of the environment, only to have them all complain next turn that the people needed more education, more jobs and less babies. This is the hardest part of the game as a happy balance is needed between all the various options such as getting emission levels at the correct level, population happiness, as well as energy and research criteria needing to be fulfilled. To help you achieve some of these objectives, there are “special power” cards which bring a bit of a darker side to the game. Have a problem with too many babies being born? Why not contaminate the water supply with contraceptives so the population can be controlled?
The opening campaign is based in Africa, and after an hour of replaying the campaign over and over I finally completed it. But things only get more difficult from now on. The “Oil Fix It” level brings another challenge as you are required to control more than one country. I tried a few variations in the setup of the scenario such as having fewer countries to look after and more focus on certain aspects, but I still kept losing. But this is where one of the games major strengths lies. It will make you want to go back to the beginning to try various different options and strategies, but not once will you find a particular option which will allow you to win the level easily.
Fate of the World: Tipping Point really impressed me as a whole. The gameplay is simple, but the deeper you delve, the more complex and challenging it becomes. You will be forced to consider each card that you play and how it will affect your campaign. Even if you ignore the global warming aspect of it, the actual premise of cutting down on using non renewable resources is an interesting one. The challenge of trying not to destroy the world is fun, and the cards help tease your brain into thinking ahead. It isn’t a game for everyone, given the theme surrounding it, but I would recommend it as it is an interesting title to play and you never know; it might give you something to think about afterwards.
