Beecarbonize Review – Exciting fight against climate change

The Czech development studio Charles Games is one of the few companies that constantly produces educational games focused on education. For a long time the main sphere of this society was history. So, first of all, the interwar and post-war period. Now he’s stepped into a slightly different space with the free-to-play card game Beecarbonize, made with European funds. You can read about how they managed to enter a different genre in our review.

• Platform: PC, Android, iOS
• Publication date: 01/03/2023
• Manufacturer: Charles Games
• Genre: Card game
• Czech localization: Yes
• Multiplayer: No
• Data to download: GB
• Game time: 15 minute game
• Price: Free (Charles Games)

With Beecarbonize you are in the fight against global change

Although winters are shorter and snowless, and summers are full of wild rains and extreme temperatures, there are still a number of experts who can argue that global warming does not exist or that it is just a fabrication of attention-seeking environmental activists. . However, most have already realized that something is going on, and so most of the world is trying to find a solution to avoid the worst. Charles Games puts you in the role of the person in Beecarbonize who has the chance to change the direction society is heading in and thus prevent the worst or not. It really depends on you and the cards you play in this game.

This card gives you four sectors in which you can invest finance, human resources, or science points. As Egyptologist Miroslav Barta shows in most of his lectures, the rapid development of human society is based on available energy. So, the first nest includes industry and, above all, various forms of energy production. At the very beginning, Beecarbonize only has a card representing the industry as a whole. You can then generate targeting for renewable energy, nuclear energy, or coal from this part. Some options are available, while others you can only afford at a later stage. The whole produces the energy necessary to feed the people who, in the event of a short-term shortage within the cycle, face starvation.

Human resources are, to a certain extent, a transfer of responsibility to society, so the cards associated with this are to introduce laws to restrict consumption, internal combustion engines, or tax those who release toxic substances into the air and water. Another component in which the funds received or human efforts can be invested in Beecarbonize is nature. Conservation is one of the ways and I must say for myself that some of the projects presented in this category are very good, so I really want to implement them. However, you always need industry funding, social support, and don’t forget science points. Research is the fourth and final component within which you have the opportunity to introduce robotization, create scientists and, above all, reduce the emissions produced by almost every item presented to a certain extent.

Emissions will bring you to your knees more than once

At the beginning of Beecarbonize, you have a huge streak full of milestones that pollution can cross on your way to saving or, conversely, destroying humanity. For myself, I would compare it to a slide on which you ride on a sled. With a full start, you start slowly and everything can be controlled to a certain extent. But as emissions rise, you suddenly find that the brakes are gone and in front of you is not a snow-covered valley, but a five-lane highway that is simply impossible to drive along, and if you survive, then certainly not without physical consequences.

Purchased cards often increase not only the generation of this raw material, but also emissions, so sometimes you don’t even expect it and have already passed the milestone, which almost represents the end of the world. And it all starts with a slight rise in temperature. Luckily, the cards in Beecarbonize are not permanent. There is always the option of throwing them away and letting them “burn” which will get rid of them and maybe even help the world. Simply defining a package and dealing with outliers slowly is one way to win. However, in order to succeed, you will have to sacrifice something in the beginning, and above all, do not ignore the constantly appearing disaster cards, because ignoring them often leads to the rapid end of a civilization.

There are many alternative destinations. An interesting option in Beecarbonize was, for example, the ability to bid on coal. Yes to the damned coal. One of its main advantages was that it could be implemented simply and cheaply. But after its introduction, I immediately stopped the map of the 20th century industry and tried to introduce more and more emissions and gas-fired power plants into production, which I’m not entirely sure if this is the right way, but damn it. Eventually I got to the core, and then there was a phase of peace and quiet, ending with saving the world. However, this was only one of five possible options that I came up with after a number of attempts.

In most cases, I ended my journey ingloriously, and not in such a way that I was really proud of my achievements. Sometimes I failed due to insufficient investment in science. In other cases, civilization fell due to lack of support from society or lack of funding due to the fact that I paid too much attention to renewable energy sources, which was a mistake. There have always been many directions, and often so little time to make the wrong choice. A large percentage of Beecarbonize games took about 5-10 minutes depending on how much I speeded up or stopped time, which was fine in the end. In fact, I could imagine that the game could possibly be integrated into environmentally oriented teaching, where it could become a worthy educational tool.

Bicarbonation is a discreet treat

I have to admit that when I first saw the Beecarbonize card game, I didn’t think much about it. I would even say that I did not expect anything good from her. In the end, however, I was very pleasantly surprised. Instead of a bland project, I got my hands on a kind of card strategy that forces me to relentlessly make difficult decisions, at least for the first few hours. More precisely, before I found the first of the keys to how to most effectively counter climate change and, above all, human technology, leading to the true end of the world as we know it. At first, I really struggled with resources. He faced one disaster after another, sometimes patching up the hole until the dam broke and I fell.

Of course, after some time, minor flaws and some stereotyping appear in Beecarbonize. I’m not saying that the developers have fully mastered it, but with five alternate endings, you only really encounter it after several hours of intense gameplay, during which you are followed by one misfortune after another, often regardless of what resources you bet on. , or what technologies are available to you. As soon as you step over certain milestones, salvation becomes unrealistic, which is really great, because each unsuccessful attempt really makes you think and maybe even the subsequent desire to participate in solving the problem. What’s great about all of this is the fact that it’s completely free, making it easy for anyone to try it out, which is definitely a plus.