Excellent and informative. I had tears in my eyes. "The question is, is this the end of history or its start?" Half-Earth Socialism expands our notions of what is possible and reminds us that there is no fate but what we make.

Most flaws are actually features - it's hard (impossible?) to win without veganism, some ideas barely do anything (sorry, rotational grazing), and the people will kill you even if you're on a path to a no-warming utopia because they don't like their present conditions.

The biggest actual flaw is lack of polish, but the game is incredibly polished. There are some quirks and possible outright bugs (production shortages appeared to be *adding* satisfaction). But it's extremely playable.

I wish it had mod support to add new solutions. I also want to tweak the beliefs feeding into the model. That speaks to another issue - the game is very entertaining, but at times I wish it was just a flowchart + spreadsheet, with all the mystery removed. It can be hard to juggle the 6 resources and the 4 currencies, and the game doesn't always show a clear cause and effect, though it does admirably most of the time. Apparently it makes green hydrogen look on par with the less-clean grey and blue hydrogen, when the game and scientists agree that it's better.

It was hard learning the game at the start. I didn't understand how political capital related to contentedness. These are two discrete currencies, though contentedness earns political capital. Basically, completed projects gain some political capital but might cost contentedness if they are unpopular (vegan mandate, ban cars). Until they are completed, you don't get anything - so if you overspend early, the people may assassinate you before your utopia is reached and they see the benefits. You have to keep contentedness constant or rising to earn a political capital bonus on it.

You spend political capital on initiatives, ranging from technology, infrastructure, and social projects. The social projects cost the most capital, with highly contentious projects like a 1-child policy or adding iron to the oceans costing more than a vegan curriculum or composting. The game takes place in a post-revolution socialist world, but I still feel the cheap cost of the curricula might be too optimistic. Although you have to admit that educating children the right way is much easier than teaching old dogs new tricks. (If we all got vegan propaganda from birth, we would not eat as much meat.)

The developers are more fair to their ideological opponents than most. I think they give most ideas about 80% of their best-faith projections for their success. I.e., there's no world where rotational grazing stops climate change, but a 1-child policy and keeping the Global South poor might actually reduce consumption at the expense of morality. The authors don't agree with these policies but they've included them as real, fair options in their game.

At worst though, you can feel railroaded. I can only ever win with veganism, but I eat meat in real life. It's hard for me to imagine a vegan world without artificial substitutes. I would have liked to see an option between "flexitarian" (cut animal calories by 20%) and "vegetarian" (cut animal calories by 60-70%). Also, I don't agree with a 1-child mandate for the world, but I'm open to it in areas with high consumption (USA, Europe, developed parts of Asia). The authors stake a moral claim in favor of veganism and non-human animals (and they make it known several times in the game), but don't seem to care much about the children born today into awful lives. Half-Earth Socialism takes place post-revolution in what appears to be a transitional state from capitalism into an equal communist society, as Marx predicted. From events in the game and context (wildfires, flooding) it seems that a child born in today's poorest areas will still suffer even in the game's post-revolution world... until the player cleans up 10-40 years after 2022.

I don't want to run down my list of how I'd achieve utopia, but another example is a transition to pedestrian-friendly cities and mass transit. This costs a lot of political capital and provides only twice the contentedness as better recycling and litter control. I would have liked to see this come in stages to provide partial emissions benefits every 5 years (20 -> 60 -> 90% emissions reduction).

I did a casual run of the game and got shot in 2035. My next run was nearly a win, getting to +1.1C by 2080. But at the end of my tenure I had not gotten the temperature below 1.0C. This was frustrating, especially my end message being "failed to make the world a better place in time". But I finally got down to +0.9C with negative 60 Gigatons of Carbon per year and a mass utopia. Unsurprisingly, successes and failures compound - you want to invest early in preventing consumption and green energy. It's impossible to catch up if you're only getting serious in 2050. You win in the game by doing what we need to do in real life.

The aesthetic is awesome. The graphics have a dithered early-90s computer / zine look. The political parties are represented by genderless sleek human faces, with touches evocative of the party. (I.e. the Global South-loving Fanonist wears a hat reminiscent of Fidel Castro). You select policies by dragging cards to a scanner. The music is good too, though I turned it off after an hour or two because there's only 2ish tracks in the main gameplay (possibly a third at the ending).

I wish there was a paid DLC or something (possibly with an e-book) so they could give you Steam backgrounds to evangelize the game.

Overall, it's addictive and starts a conversation. I'm going to get the companion book from my local library, where I assume the arguments of the game are fleshed out with citations. The left does not have a vision of utopia, but the right does. The game and book aim to correct that balance, and they have succeeded beyond anyone's expectations.