Geoengineering 101 development thread

Will do. Got a first set of cards and mechanics worked out and will be testing later this week.

Changed the rules a bit so that players can't just "write off" weaker regions. Almost ready for public beta testing.

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Geoengineering 101:
A 30-minute pre-apocalyptic card game for 2-4 Players

Carbon emissions are finally being reduced, but it's already too late. In the rush to turn back the clock on global warming, make clouds, spray dust, sink tankers, maybe even set off a few volcanos. But beware – once set in motion, geoengineering is hard to stop, and can have side effects!

Objective
Remove all the carbon in the world, while having the least amount of hardship in your regions.

Game Contents
1 Game Board
8 Temperature and Rainfall markers (includes 2 extras)
18 Carbon Tokens (includes 2 extras)
12 Region Cards (4 per Hemisphere)
24 Program Cards
36 Hardship Cards (20x 1's and 16x 5's, 100 points total)

Regions
Each region represents roughly 1/12 of the world's population.

Habitability: If temperatures or rainfall go outside a region's Habitability Zone, it becomes Uninhabitable. People will still be stuck there but they'll suffer. You take one hardship point every turn a region is Uninhabitable.

Going off the charts: If Temperature or Rainfall in a Hemisphere goes off the charts (below 0 or above 8), even for a moment, all regions in that Hemisphere become Permanently Destroyed as the ecosystem irreversibly collapses. You take two hardship points every turn for those regions the rest of the game. When this happens, rotate the cards so they are upside down and remove all carbon tokens.

Carbon Tokens
Some regions start with Carbon Tokens. These are good and bad. Bad, in that the game can only be “won” if there are no Carbon Tokens left in any region. Good, in that the energy the Tokens represent allows a region to adapt to conditions outside their Habitability Zone and avoid hardship.

Action Cards

Blue cards decrease temperature and increase rain by creating more clouds. If they come up after another blue card, they also cause global rain patterns to shift.

Brown cards decrease temperature and decrease rain by adding sulfur particles to the air. If they come up after another brown card, their drought-inducing effects can multiply.

Light Green cards help regions reduce their carbon footprint in an economically painless way.

Deep Green cards reduce carbon footprints rapidly, but the chaos they cause can cause hardship in carbon-addicted regions.
Game Setup
1. Divide up the region cards. Randomly? Select them one at a time? Decide among yourselves.
2. Players put Regions face up in front of them. Place Carbon Tokens on Regions as labeled.
3. Place Temperature and Rainfall markers on the board on the rows labeled “Start”.
4. The player with the most feelings of ecological guilt goes first.
5. Shuffle the Action Cards and place face down. First player draws five cards, and places one face down next to Upcoming Plans, place the rest in Discard Pile.
6. Second player draws five cards and inserts one face down underneath the first player's card. Subsequent players do the same, inserting their cards at the bottom of Upcoming Plans. There should now be as many cards in Upcoming Plans as there are players.
7. In a two player game, repeat steps 4 and 5 so that there are 4 cards in Upcoming Plans.

On Each Player's Subsequent Turns
1. Temperatures Rise: Raise the Temperature by 1 in All Hemispheres.
2. Execute Plan: Draw top card on Upcoming Plans. This is the Current Card. Carry out the Effects on it.
At his point, all players gain one Hardship point for every region without Carbon that is Uninhabitable, and two for every region that is Permanently Destroyed.
Once Effects are done, Current Card becomes Previous Card and Previous Card is discarded face down.
3. Insert Future Plan: Player draws 5 new Action Cards and inserts one at the bottom of Upcoming Plans. Discard the rest. If draw pile is empty, shuffle discard pile.

Notes:
- If a card says “Rotate rainfall”, swap the rainfall levels of all three hemispheres as shown. For example, if Rainfall is rotating clockwise, whatever rainfall level the Eastern Hemisphere had is now the rainfall level that the Southern Hemisphere has, and so on.
- Players continue to take turns even if they have no regions left.

Game Ends when either:
No Carbon Tokens are left in any region. Players with least hardship “win”.
All hardship cards have been acquired. Everyone loses.

Did some more playtests at the local game night. One game came out with a close call aided by massive floods wiping out several carbon intense regions, while the other came up one turn short when the last hardship card was taken before the last carbon token could be removed. It feels ready to go, so it's onto publishing! Working on a kickstarter page now, here's a preview link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1700980409/1995740904?token=eeff3559

6 more days to back the game!