Half-Earth Socialism
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Half-Earth Socialism allows anyone to try their hand as a global planner of a future society. Consider it a sandbox where you can play with a wide range of technologies and policies spanning different fields and ideologies. The game simulates the impact of your decisions by calculating emissions and using a real climate model (HECTOR) to work out the climate effects, while also simulating impacts to the food system and biodiversity, among others.
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
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I am proud to say that i have completed all 60 years.
Hello!I want to ask, how to edit saves?
The game uses the browser's `localStorage` which I believe in theory can be edited by a user but I don't know how. This should also work for the itch version as it's still in a browser, just a packaged one, but may be more complicated.
Do you plan to update the game further?
I have discovered a bug, when you managed to get all the numbers to zero (extinction rate, temperature and CO2 emmission) at the end of the tenure, it doesn't count as win.
Hi, I'll try to update it when I have time but I have other work commitments so I can't guarantee any reasonable frequency. however if you run into bugs I'm more likely to see/address them if you can add them as issues on the github: https://github.com/frnsys/half_earth/issues
thanks!
Hi frnsys! Is there a update change log? I can't seem to view it on this page
If you want to do it the hard way you can go through the vision history: https://github.com/frnsys/half_earth
I completed this game in this game on the first try, and abused the game a bit later on.
I found out there are events and features that are rather unrealistic,
The rebels doesn't seem to be doing meaningful damage to political capital, rebel events should deal from -10 to -100 depending on hostility from each political nemesis.
The Authoritanian faction seems to be left aside, and the lack of political purges in the politburo made it seem unrealistic. For an example, should have an option to purge other factions like the consumerists and fanonists like for instance, by setting up concentration camps like in Xinjiang, and that way, rebel threats will go lower. It really worked in real life scenario, Uighur terrorism used to be very common in China before 2014, but after the concentration camps were set up, terrorism in China has plummeted to the ground.
My suggestion for Authoritanian faction would be, Hukou system, Mass Surveillance, Entertainment Sector Crackdown, Nationalize Social Media, Mass Political Purge, Anti Corruption Purge,Global Botnet, Global Security Act,Concentration Camps, Revolutionist Revisionism and Orwellian System.
Authoritanian policies should be able to increase public content and allows players to purge certain factions, and also greatly reduce the chances and severity of rebel event.
Meanwhile in order to balance the game, each of these authoritanian policies should slightly increase the net political capital cost for each card, for each unpurged political factions.
Its a fun game overall! I'm very glad I finished the game on the first try!
Play a dozen times or so - finally got an 'ironically' working play-through. All petrol, all industrial farms, and zero emissions. Massive political support and the people suffered under horrific policies, but I survived my entire life, and averted total disaster for the planet and it was even healing as I died. It's kind of a win.
A bit of fun, and few gripes to speak of, though the card selection via keyboard wasn't great. The mouse worked well enough, though I'd still look towards better supporting the keyboard. Good job!
Dear Game dev(s),
this game of yours is truly wonderful and as a revolutionary Marxist myself it made me even tear up a little because of its sheer revolutionary optimism and hope in general.
Though I do have a suggestion to make which is not about the game itself, but it's distribution and licensing.
In my opinion, your project would greatly benefit, both ideologically and in terms of quality, by making it free/libre software.
IIrc you already have your artwork licensed under the creative commons. Now, what would speak against taking the next step and publishing the game under something like the GNU General Public License (GPL for short)? It would greatly improve the community of the game by encouraging collaboration in terms of improving the code and guaranteeing the freedoms which come with the license:
(https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)
A game where this works particularly well imo is "Pixel Dungeon". It's free/libre nature has allowed the community to improve the game and shape alternative versions of it which improve upon the original in many ways or implement other changes wanted by the community.
(Another prominent example would be "Mindustry")
It would also allow the game to continue improving or at least keep it maintained if you (the original developers) would shift your focus towards something else. In addition, it would make community translations easier to implement, allowing for a wider audience of people to enjoy the game.
If I, in any capacity, can provide help to implement this change, I would be happy to oblige. Be it by answering questions, pointing to further sources/information on the topic or even setting up and/or contributing to the source code sharing instance (be it Github, Gitlab or something else entirely).
Best of Wishes
A comrade :3
PS: Since you are also making a web version of the game, I would suggest using the GNU AGPL (Affero General Public License) since it closes a loophole in the original GPL which allowed providing an online service to not be seen as a form of distribution of software.
There is an open-source repository with a copyleft license since about a month, so knock yourself out.
https://github.com/frnsys/half_earth
Do reply if you iterate on it, i'm curious.
Please let me manually enable the tutorial, I restarted halfway through adding my first card and now I am unable to view the tutorial for additional guidance. I've removed and redownloaded the game multiple times, it still is not showing up.
Also is there some sort of guide for this? I cannot decrease the FRIGGIN emissions without getting screwed over by my "neglect" of other stressors, or by losing political power.
I have to address all
of the problems being presented to me at once in order to succeed, but the game will not allow me to do that.Hi, thanks for trying the game, and sorry it's been a frustrating experience. I've just uploaded a new build that lets you repeat the tutorial in a new game. As for a guide, there isn't an official one, but people have posted their experiences on Twitter and on Steam. It usually takes people a couple of tries before winning.
Thank you for your reply. I apologize for my tone in the previous comment, as while I was frustrated I have no right to be short with someone providing a free service. It was very nice of you to add the option to repeat the tutorial.
Oh wow, this is amazing! I couldn't stop playing! :D I don't know how to contact you, but I would love to translate this game to (European) Portuguese! I don't need any payment, I just want to help my comrades in any way I can, and since I love translation and have been doing it for six years already, I thought I might as well help. If you are interested, could you give me your email so we can talk more about it? Great job to everyone involved!
Thank you! We have a Spanish translation in the works so a Portuguese one would be a nice addition. You can contact me at public (at) trashvoid.com.