Half-Earth Socialism
Francis Tseng · 2022 · Simulation, Strategy, Card Game, Education, Grand Strategy
PC
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →
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About Half-Earth Socialism
If you've enjoyed the book or the game Half-Earth Socialism, then join the HES discord server where you can chat with gamers, readers, and the authors. There you can chat about strategies for the game, organize with fellow ecosocialists, and learn more about history, theory, and utopia! To get an invitation to the channel email: [email protected]
SET THE PLANETARY PLAN: Half-Earth Socialism allows anyone to try their hand as a global planner of a future society. Starting in the year 2023, you must make decisions about what projects the world will pursue--new research like alternative energy sources, or massive infrastructure projects like mass electrification or space travel, or one of over one hundred other possibilities. Decide how energy and food is produced across the world. Should we immediately halt all fossil fuel usage, or should we swap to a "transition" fuel source first?
WORK WITH PARLIAMENT: At the same time you must juggle relationships with competing political factions in global parliament and improve the quality of life for everyone on the planet. Will you be able to guide the world into a better future amidst differing interests and visions?
IMPACT THE WORLD: Half-Earth Socialism features a simple model of the world: the impact of your decisions are simulated using the HECTOR climate model and a model of planetary production and demand. See how the world changes according to your actions--perhaps new culinary trends around eating invasive species, or the emergence of eco-terrorists if your plans fail to improve planetary health and human well-being.
This game, based on the book Half-Earth Socialism (Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese, Verso 2022), is the fruit of the labour of many designers, researchers, and artists (full credits below). Francis Tseng (Jain Family Institute) is the game developer and Son La Pham (TRUST) is the designer.
Concept: Arthur Röing Baer, Chiara Di Leone, Drew Pendergrass, Son La Pham, Francis Tseng, Gregory Vettese, Troy Vettese
Design: Son La Pham, Francis Tseng
Development: Francis Tseng, Son La Pham
Research and Writing: Lucy Chinen, Drew Pendergrass, Son La Pham, Spencer Roberts, Francis Tseng, Troy Vettese
Music: PRINCE SHIMA
Playtesting: Spencer Roberts, Dargan Frierson, Sean Raspet, Sarah Friend, Filip Mesko, Wassim Alsindi, Bradley K, Julia, Grace Van de Pas, Michael Vettese, Xinyue, Lukas Eigler-Harding, Adrian Dinh, Aural Ephem, Nick Houde, Simon Zhang, Paul Turberg, Jan Philipp Dapprich, Matt Goerzen, Neilson Koerner-Safrata, Kira Simon-Kennedy, Nicholas Carter
SET THE PLANETARY PLAN: Half-Earth Socialism allows anyone to try their hand as a global planner of a future society. Starting in the year 2023, you must make decisions about what projects the world will pursue--new research like alternative energy sources, or massive infrastructure projects like mass electrification or space travel, or one of over one hundred other possibilities. Decide how energy and food is produced across the world. Should we immediately halt all fossil fuel usage, or should we swap to a "transition" fuel source first?
WORK WITH PARLIAMENT: At the same time you must juggle relationships with competing political factions in global parliament and improve the quality of life for everyone on the planet. Will you be able to guide the world into a better future amidst differing interests and visions?
IMPACT THE WORLD: Half-Earth Socialism features a simple model of the world: the impact of your decisions are simulated using the HECTOR climate model and a model of planetary production and demand. See how the world changes according to your actions--perhaps new culinary trends around eating invasive species, or the emergence of eco-terrorists if your plans fail to improve planetary health and human well-being.
This game, based on the book Half-Earth Socialism (Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese, Verso 2022), is the fruit of the labour of many designers, researchers, and artists (full credits below). Francis Tseng (Jain Family Institute) is the game developer and Son La Pham (TRUST) is the designer.
Concept: Arthur Röing Baer, Chiara Di Leone, Drew Pendergrass, Son La Pham, Francis Tseng, Gregory Vettese, Troy Vettese
Design: Son La Pham, Francis Tseng
Development: Francis Tseng, Son La Pham
Research and Writing: Lucy Chinen, Drew Pendergrass, Son La Pham, Spencer Roberts, Francis Tseng, Troy Vettese
Music: PRINCE SHIMA
Playtesting: Spencer Roberts, Dargan Frierson, Sean Raspet, Sarah Friend, Filip Mesko, Wassim Alsindi, Bradley K, Julia, Grace Van de Pas, Michael Vettese, Xinyue, Lukas Eigler-Harding, Adrian Dinh, Aural Ephem, Nick Houde, Simon Zhang, Paul Turberg, Jan Philipp Dapprich, Matt Goerzen, Neilson Koerner-Safrata, Kira Simon-Kennedy, Nicholas Carter
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
this game is simultaneously extremely good and interesting, and also so cryptic that it is driving me mad. It actively feels like the game is fighting against me, random events will trigger when i'm not using the processes they are tied to, i cant get into the puzzle because i cant even know what something i do is going to actually do. the game will say i'm decreasing emissions with every action i take, the game will give me a pretty little graph that says "hey look you picked good options" and then with no explanation emissions shoot through the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ roof with no way of fixing it nuclear power just isn't an option for some reason, despite real life nuclear being like the only viable way to solve the brownout issues the game seems to also care about outside of magically inventing a super-battery i wanted a cool puzzle, and the game failed to deliver. this isn't a fun puzzle, its a weird cryptic puzzle with a solution you need to either brute force or look up, that hides most of what you actually gain from any technology or political alliance it feels like they sacrificed the actual gameplay for the sake of promoting political ideals. which pisses me off because i agree wit…4 found this helpful
LibSoc slop with a weird hate-boner against nuclear energy for no reason3 found this helpful
Before playing this game I saw a review which said that this game was the epitome of champagne socialism and dismissed it as an overreaction after playing this game I would like to apologise to this person. Somehow every single resource including ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ water somehow goes extinct the moment the world began warming, there are no viable alternatives to fosil fules and the moment you agree with an accelarationist an eco-terrorist is going to come into your room and rape you over the desk. 5/103 found this helpful
this game is communists saying "agree with me completely or I will break into your house and beat you to death." my best playthrough im pretty sure 90% of humanity died and thats the only reason they didnt mob me, its slow, its repetitive, its a blatant lie, i cant transition to regenerative agriculture in any timely matter, bio dome 3 has no worthwhile continuing tech tree, algae bio reactors are evil, all fossil fuels are evil, making people hate you is meta, if you arnt a vegan misandrist and antinatalist the game dev wants you dead. its not just blatant propaganda its counterproductive blatant propaganda.1 found this helpful
I like that everything is clickable so if you have questions, it's easy to find the answers. Overall, the game is educational in that there is a lot of reading involved as well as resource management and diplomacy. The drawback is that once you figure out how to play the game, there are no updates or other courses to take so it's "game over." Still worth a try.
actually really cool and i wish this genre had more games...
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