The Climate Trail: A Free Game Where You Must Survive Climate Change

Experts no longer know what to do to explain the effects of climate change. Protests at the UN by younger generations and marches around the world are just the beginning. Inevitably, climate change has made its way to Hollywood, and now it's video games' turn. Educating, warning, and entertaining are the three goals of The Climate Trail, a free title inspired by the classic The Oregon Trail, where players must survive the fury of heat waves and reach Canadian territory.

Turn on the tap and there's no water. Plant a seed and it doesn't grow. The wind is hot, even at night. The Sun is a disk of death. Exaggerated? Maybe not. This could be part of our future if the major powers do nothing about climate change. Some countries already apply brute force, such as Qatar with its outdoor air conditioners. Others try to be more efficient or reduce consumption of traditional fuels... but it's all useless if we also have to fight leaders who celebrate coal and burn the Amazon to plant soybeans.

Above all, The Climate Trail seeks to educate and inform.

Sorghum seeds are currency in the game. Will they save us in the future?

The Journey North

So... climate apocalypse. Without water, without food, and with temperatures that kill you even in the shade. The only option is to reach a region with extreme cold, transformed into the new 'temperate'. North or south? In The Climate Trail, the proposal is to go north, to Canadian territory. You are one of many refugees in the city of Atlanta, which is about to become uninhabitable due to heat waves. With wet-bulb temperatures near 35 degrees (that is, you die even naked and in the shade), you have no choice but to play your last card, gather supplies, and escape to Canada.

About 1,800 kilometers by bicycle await you.

Sorghum Seeds as Currency

This game adopts a mechanic very similar to that of the old The Oregon Trail, with the difference that there are no wagons or horses here, but rather the main character and his group travel by bicycle. The only currency in force is based on sorghum seeds, which grow optimally at high temperatures and are more drought-resistant than corn. The problem is that we cannot eat those seeds directly, so careful management of food is vital to reach the end.

Gain time and pay with your group's health, or wait and consume provisions...

An Educational Endeavor

Despite the desperate situation, another aspect this game seeks to imitate from The Oregon Trail is its educational profile. The characters explain how that climate collapse came about, what the secondary consequences were (e.g., diseases released with the loss of permafrost), and what can be expected if we continue like this. The 'climate route' begins in Atlanta and ends in Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario), almost 1,800 kilometers away. And once we get there, the ending is bittersweet. The measures taken by the residents of Sault Ste. Marie allowed them to survive, but if the world keeps deteriorating, they'll only have gained a couple of decades at most.

The ending is green... but for how long?

The Climate Trail is free, and I'm sure you'll finish it in a few minutes, but that's not the point. Climate change does not wait. Crops fail, summers are increasingly intense. If we don't change our lifestyle, the next generation could end up this way, pedaling northward...

Official site and download: Click here