Climate Control

Summary

Climate Control is a card game for 3-5 players. In in, players to try get sets of resource cards (such as Oil, Gas and Uranium) in order to build power plants that can be used to generate energy. Whoever produces the most energy by the time the draw pile runs out wins the game. However, fossil-fuel burning power plants (oil, gas & coal) also produce pollution when used. If at any time the global pollution level rises beyond a certain threshold, a climate catastrophe occurs and all players lose the game. Thus, players must weigh the allure of cheap energy against the health of the planet, a balance that shifts throughout the game.

Game Components

• 100 resource cards, in the following denominations -- 24 Oil -- 20 Coal -- 16 Gas -- 16 Wind -- 16 Sun -- 8 Nuclear
• 50 energy resource tokens
• 1 pollution tracker (card & marker)

Game Setup

Deal each player 5 cards from the resource deck. Set the pollution tracker to 0.

Turn Structure

1. Draw a card.
2. Trade up to 1 card with another player (optional).
3. If you have a set of 4 resource cards, you may build a power plant. Place one of the cards face-down in front of you to represent the plant, and move the other three to the discard pile face-down.

Once all players have taken a turn, each player has the opportunity to produce energy from their power plants. Plants produce the following amounts of energy: - Oil: 3 - Coal: 2 - Gas: 2 - Wind: 1 - Sun: 1 - Nuclear: 3

However, some plants also produce pollution in the following amounts: - Oil: 2 - Coal: 3 - Gas: 1 - Wind: 0 - Sun: 0 - Nuclear: 0

Players choose which plants to use by turning them face-up. A countdown from 10 is instigated, after which players must stop touching their cards.

Then, energy and pollution is generated simultaneously from face-up cards. If this production pushes the pollution tracker above 40, all energy is discarded and all players lose.

Game End

The game stops at the end of the round when the last card is drawn from the resource deck. All players have a chance to produce energy one last time, and then each players totals their energy. The winner is the player with the most energy.

Thoughts & Aims

I want to try and encompass many aspects of the energy debate into a card game simple enough to be played by a wide range of people. Early in the game players will hopefully feel the allure of bountiful fossil-fuels, but later they become a burden as players argue over who uses their polluting plants. More sustainable energy sources start the game as near-worthless, but as that pollution tracker creeps forward their guilt-free energy makes more and more sense. I hope you enjoyed reading my entry!

Frack

This is a general feel of the game rather than a ruleset:

This is a game that takes place in “small town USA” as depicted on a board. The board shows a central town, and outlying farms, which the players control. Each farm has a few land spaces around it that will be put to use during game play for crops and livestock or various energy production means.

The center of town is where event cards are played, events that represent the kinds of things that happen to small towns that end up putting pressure on it like drops in crop prices, factories closing down, natural disasters, mega-stores opening, etc.

As these events occur each round the players, as members of the town’s community, will vote on one of the options presented by the event. Options are influenced by Tragedy of the Commons type decisions - communalizing costs while privatizing profits. Since all players are part of the “community” their decisions will have social ramifications if votes (which are secret) lean towards private profit at the degradation of the land.

The events are one of the driving factors of this game, since it is a simulation of the social and economic pressures living in small-town-USA.

Events

Along with a decision point, the events also determine crop/herd prices and and a modifier to crop harvests for each plot of land.

Economically, players will contribute to the town coffers (used to deal with community effects) as well as develop their own land to support their families. This income is affected by how they use the land surrounding their farm. As the game goes and pressures mount, players will need likely need more money than they can produce with crops and livestock.

There will be a side market where players can sell plots of their land to energy companies so they can drill (frack) for fuel or build solar/wind farms. Fracking pays A LOT, wind and solar don’t. The Fracking market price goes up as more land is sold, but the wind and solar payout stays flat. This is to encourage players to Frack as the game goes on.

However, during each event, the more Fracking locations there are, the higher the chance for accidents or polluted groundwater. These effects do things like:

• cost the town money
• ruin surrounding land for crops
• reduce crop production.
• cause costly health issues for a player’s “family” they need to pay for

Game end

The game will end when the town goes bankrupt (everyone loses), or if a player’s family dies due to poor health caused by pollution. At that point the game is scored according to:

• How much money the player can produce from crops/livestock each turn.
• Farm improvements (they all score points, except for selling land for Fracking - that’s just lots of money)
• Family Health level
• Minus the amount of pollution accumulated
• The amount of actual money they have doesn’t matter. That’s used to improve things.

Nuclear Meltdown

The use of nuclear energy was once seen as the solution to the energy crisis. But when something goes wrong, it really goes wrong. The use of nuclear energy is a hot topic following Fukushima. This game takes a look at nuclear energy through the eyes of the worst nuclear accidents in history (including Chernobyl, Fukushima, 3 Mile Island, etc.) Players will be faced with situations similar to the ones that lead to these famous catastrophes. Players will also see how greed can make a safe energy, unsafe.

Materials:

Board game -has a picture of a nuclear power plant with three silos (representing reactors) and three concentric circles around the power plant (representing radiation contamination). The silos also have a meter for danger level.

Cards are split into two parts (top half / bottom half), one for each phase of the game. In the first phase, players can play cards to gain victory points (which also raise the danger level). In the second phase of the game, players can use cards to contain radiation after a nuclear meltdown (which costs victory points). Finally, there are also maintenance cards that can be played during the first phase. These cards do not gain victory points, but will lower the danger level on one silo.

Game Play:

Players start by secretly selecting a silo that they are invested in. (If this survives, they will receive extra victory points). Players also will take 5 cards from the draw pile.

Phase 1: Operations

Players will choose a card from their hand and place it face down on one of the silos. When all the players have chosen a card and silo, the cards are revealed and the affects are applied. Players will take victory points, and increase / decrease danger levels according to the cards played. Players will also take one new card before the next round.

The cards are balanced - cards that are worth more victory points also increase the danger level more. They are also better cards for clean up. So players need to make decisions on how to use the cards (reflecting factors leading to famous nuclear disasters).

If players complete the deck without a meltdown, the player with the most victory points wins.

Phase 2: Meltdown

When one of the silos reaches 100% danger level, it goes into meltdown.

At this point, all players must reveal their hands and play with their cards face-up. In each round, players can use a card from any other player to contain and clean up the mess (simulating how governments and foreign agencies step in during disasters). For each card played, the level of radiation is reduced and victory points are taken from the owner of the card played. When radiation levels reach the safe zone, the game is over.

Players tally up their remaining victory points and the player with the highest score wins.

Note: This game can also take on the theme of offshore drilling and oil spills.

Power the Galaxy

You are one of many space colonists sent out to secure goods for planet earth. As Chief Power Advisor to the newly formed planetary colony you must manage resources to meet the power needs of the colony. Each planet has a distinct set of resources available that must be utilized efficiently to maximize the colonies production of goods for earth.

Components

1. Planetary colony keys which are literally a base of operations and have several areas:

   • A depiction of the planet with name and flavor text describing it
   • An image of the colony for meeples to live in
   • List of starting resources, goods, and a PMD
   • Icons of available renewable power resources
   • A limited number of spaces for installed PMDs.

2. Event cards are helpful or hurtful depending on your luck.

3. Meeples, all of one color

4. Resource Tokens

   • Nonrenewable power sources
   • Fossil Fuels, black oil barrel
   • Nuclear Fuels, green radioactive symbol
   • Chemical Fuels, orange flask
   • Renewable power sources
   • Biomass Fuels, brown log pile
   • Hydro, blue meeple tear
   • Solar, yellow sun icon on planetary colony keys
   • Wind, white swirl icon on planetary colony keys
   • Geothermal, red flame icon on planetary colony keys

5. Goods tokens, tan crate

6. Power module design (PMD) cards have:

   • A rendering of the module
   • A cost to build
   • An upkeep cost of resources and/or goods
   • A decommissioning cost or bonus

Setup

Each player takes a single random planet key and then the listed starting resources, goods & PMD listed on their planetary colony key.

How to Play

The game is composed of multiple stages with multiple rounds. Each stage uses a different set of event and PMD cards. Every round consists of several phases as follows:

1. Events

Players draw and then play an event card.

2. Population & Resource Growth

Every colony population increases by adding meeples and certain renewable resources grow.

3. Research

Players draw three of the appropriate PMDs.

4. Action

Players are free to build or decommission PMDs and trade resources, goods, meeples, and/or PMDs.

5. Score

The round ends and each player’s power generation and needs are tallied to producing goods.

1. Upkeep costs on each built PMD must be paid in order for it to produce power
2. The total power from each PMD is distributed to the colony population (through various sound effects)
3. Goods are produced by each meeple, with a bonus for satisfying the whole colony population.

End of the Game

When the last round ends the player with the most goods wins.

Strategy

Each player will have a unique situation and benefit from trading to maximize efficiency. Ultimately the nonrenewable resources will run out must be replaced by renewable resources. Renewable power sources are cost prohibitive in the beginning but pay off in the long run.

MINES A WASTING

Mine resources and produce clean energy while avoiding pollution.

GOAL

The objects is to score 100 production points first by offsetting pollution with good choices.

COMPONENTS:

Deck of Power Cards containing worker cards, production cards (elevator, oil well, gas pump), transportation cards (railroad for coal, oil tanker truck for oil, pipeline for gas), action cards (allow player to enhance scoring or sabotage opponent’s play)

• The worker cards have a mining number 0, 1 or 2.
• The production cards also have a mining number ½, 1 or 2
• The transportation cards number 1, 2,3 or 4 on them.
• Action cards are modifiers that affect how much can be produced or scored (ie Breaker Modernization adds one extra resource to produce each turn, Pollution cards reduce number of points scored by transporting resources,etc)
• Deck of resource cards contains dirt, coal, oil and natural gas.
• Set of bid cards 1,2,3,4 for each player
• Scoreboard with 100 spaces and pawn for each board.
• Twenty colored markers, three for each player up to five players.

PLAY

Each player takes gets a scoreboard, pawn starting on the 0, three matching markers and set of bid cards. Resource cards are shuffled and dealt into eighteen piles by alternately dealing 1, 2 and 3 cards onto the piles so that each ends up with a different number of cards. These represent unexplored mines. Action Cards are shuffled and five cards are dealt face down to each player with remaining pack placed face down where all can reach.

Basic turn each player does this:

1. Draws one card.

2. May perform up to two actions per turn.

   a. Actions include:

   1. Winning an auction on mine to secure rights
   2. Play 1 action card
   3. Mining 1 or more resource cards from a resource pile based on abilities
   4. Releasing a mine

3. Scoring energy output

4. Discards back down to five cards.

General Play is that players begin by bidding on mines to secure them. Once they secure the mine by winning an auction using the bidding cards, the mine is available for development. The player through subsequent actions can add workers to speculate (preview the cards in the mine to know what production equipment are needed to mine the resources), production cards (to actually use the resources) and transportation cards to secure the points to win the game.

Cards are mined based on abilities of equipment and modifiers created by action cards (ie cards can enhance production or may be played by other players to hamper production such as pollution cards). These are also played as actions. A player can also release a mine if they don't have the right equipment to mine it to save time since equipment and production cards are drawn from the action deck.

Scoring is done by adding up points of transported materials subtracting pollution modifiers, etc.

The winner is the one who reaches 100 points of resources.

Parallel U - Fossil Fuels

Parallel U is a game system of competing alternate histories. Each player takes control of pivotal nodes in history to guide their version of Earth to a more ideal outcome than the other players. Each game is rich in historical detail that allow weaving how the world is where it is and what might be changed.

In Fossil Fuels players take control of their alternate Earths at 1850 and guide it through to 2050. The winner is determined by victory points through a combination of best carbon load, population, control of key moments, wealth, and other bonuses.

The Play

The game consists of a deck of historically relevant nodes which are historical figures, big events, and political decisions. Each round (decade) players bid on historically available nodes with the winner having the option of putting it into play or in some cases removing it from the multiverse. Nodes not purchased will be available for their default enabling.

Historical figures have default discoveries available to each alternate history with additional or alternative discoveries available to the controller. They also contribute to resources available for purchasing changes. Historical figures are buried when they reach the decade of their death.

Changes are available through technology trees with different dependencies. Some have environmental impacts but generate wealth or population, e.g. coal powered factories enable much wealth but generates bad carbon load.

If a decade goes poorly for a player, they have the option of losing access to a future decade to redo the full decade with them as first player.

Resource include wealth, science, humanity, and productivity.

May the deftest hand's universe prosper.

Peak Oil is an economic resource management game for 4-5 players where the choices that players make permanently impact the availability of resources in later games. Players invest in infrastructure, compete for resources, and attempt to predict an ever-changing supply of natural resources to try to fulfill unpredictable power demand. At the end of the ten rounds, the player with the most money wins, but the choices she made might leave her stuck the next time she plays!

Peak Oil employs a unique drafting mechanic: each round, players have three chances to draft from a single pool of roles, resources, and technology. Roles affect the choices players make later in the round, but selecting them early means giving up other choices. Additionally, legacy mechanics ensure that the players’ choices dramatically change the landscape of future games. Players who provide power via consumable resources must permanently rip up the cards they use. At the end of the game each player signs one of her power plants - she’ll start with it next game.

What’s in the Box?
The resource deck has only 5 types of cards — sun, wind, coal, oil, and nuclear material.

The tech deck is composed of power plants of the same 5 types. Each plant is unique, and has 4 levels of upgrade. During the game, players upgrade plants they own by crossing off the current upgrade level with a marker, permanently changing the card. Early upgrade levels require small amounts of fuel to produce power, and higher levels require more fuel to produce larger amounts of power. High-level plants can result in not being able to provide the minimum required fuel. Each level also displays the number of consumed fuel resources that are destroyed when used.

The five role cards are special actions that the players can draft instead of tech or resources. They are: “Batteries - save your unused wind and sun resources for next round,” (which cannot otherwise be saved) “Surplus - take 3 resources for your next action,” “Efficiency - provide Blue Die fewer power to meet demand this round,” and two copies of “Upgrade - cross off the current level on any of your plants.”

The 3 different dice are used in specific combinations to semi-randomly determine the power demand at the end of each round.

Money is given out for being able to provide power that meets the demand. Players who meet the round’s demand receive one token for each power supplied.

Values
Peak Oil is named for the widely supported theory that civilization has already harvested the majority of the Earth’s oil reserves, and that the year of peak oil production already occurred in 2000. Each year sees fewer barrels of produced oil, due to decreased natural availability. Through its permanently decreasing reserves of consumable fuel cards, Peak Oil conveys the value that consumption of fossil fuels is economically and socially unsustainable; but the solution isn’t an immediate switch: sustainable energy technologies must be developed to shoulder the burden.