****TEXT WALL INCOMING****
I just had a couple points about the value of this game and how beautiful it actually is. I think the use of time travel actually betrays some creative ideas about climate change, more than what the fantasy-like elements of the game would lead you to believe.
Firstly, I don't think we should judge the game based on its educational value. The game seems to be aimed at a primarily German but also international audience that already understands the nuances of climate change. The plot elements don’t need to make real-world or educational sense because the game isn't trying to educate their already literate players. The fantastic aspects like the solar flare and magical continent-destroying nuclear reactors actually improve the game by contributing to a surreal atmosphere, where things seem to work as they do in the real world but don't. Yes, it is a little illogical but I don’t think that ruins the game, see Star Trek’s inconsistent yet thought-provoking Prime Directive. The real-but-not-realness of the game actually makes the game more interesting to me than if it were just an accurate portrayal of climate change.
The bigger value of the game is in reminding the player that their actions in the real world have consequences. The beautiful bit is how it does that through the medium of time travel. People can understand abstracts like how consumerism contributes to climate change but they don’t *change*. By travelling through the future, the game makes climate change more viscerally meaningful by showing an abandoned San Francisco, a flooded London, a burning Sydney. Yes, it is a little dramatic, but the game should be, it means for us to take our time now on Earth seriously.
What’s iconic is how the time travelers travel *back* through time. It's telling that the future humans with all their technology can't stop the Mobius loop of ice-cap loss and sea level rise; falling albedo and rising temperatures. The future humans are reliant on primitive humans from the 1970's because by 2500 AD, it’s far too late to save the ice caps and stop albedo induced climate change. It reminds us that we can slow the speeding snowball of climate change more than anyone in the future will be able to.
Even the fact that the time travelers cyclically fail and come back again and again has meaning. No matter what we do now, the snowball of climate change has already gotten too big. The time travelers fail again and again to stop climate change because they can't stop it. Even by the 1970’s it was too late to reverse climate change in its entirety.
The game isn’t without its flaws, but the combination of engaging fantasy, imaginative use of time travel, and underlying themes about climate change serve as a powerful reminder of how devastating the effects of climate change may be for humanity’s future. Today it is far too late to stop climate change from having *some* impact, but just as generations of time travelers do in the game, so too must we fight valiantly to stop what cannot be stopped.
****TEXT WALL END****
I’m not sure what inspired me to write this up, but I totally got what Ross was saying when he gave the game the “Somebody Cared” award. It reminds me of other series like RWBY where the content leaves you feeling like there were some truly superb ideas below the surface, just not *quite* there. Overall, I liked the game and its unique ideas, I just find it tragic the execution wasn’t there to make it good enough for people to enjoy it.