Sometimes, this game seems frighteningly close to home.

Today's post is from one of the games designers on Fate of the World, Matt Myles Griffiths. As gameplay designer on Fate Of The World, a lot of my day is spent looking into the future, using the latest scientific models and predictions to simulate the various disasters and pitfalls that are likely to await humanity over the next two centuries... Floods and famines, wars and wildfires, droughts and deforestation; these are the sombre topics that occupy me, and the various horrors they entail. So, when I turn on the news and see the Greenland Ice Sheet starting to collapse, or the devastating floods that have rendered millions homeless in Pakistan, or the massive peat fires shrouding Moscow in choking fumes, it all seems depressingly familiar.

For both Pakistan and Russia, what we are seeing are the first ominous signs of what is to come... Global weather patterns will become more extreme, as more and more of the Sun's energy is trapped within our atmosphere by increasing quantities of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Rainy seasons become much wetter, droughts are more intense. While the actual loss of life due to the current disasters is relatively low, the impact both on human societies and the world's ecology is massive. 12 million people have lost their homes and livelihoods in Pakistan, a fact which will cost that nation billions of dollars in lost crops, resettlement and aid provision. The smouldering peat fires in Russia are potentially a massive contributor to global carbon emissions (in 1997, the Indonesian wildfires contributed almost half as much again as all the human-related carbon emissions in the World), as well as a serious health risk for all those in the vicinity.

In years ahead, it is likely the current Pakistan floods will seem like a cruel joke. Asia is the part of the World where population stress on fresh water supply is the highest by far. Already, the fresh-water aquifers that supply crops with irrigation and people with drinking water are dangerously depleted, and will take hundreds of years to recover. At the same time, the Himalayan meltwaters that feed the mighty rivers like the Ganges and the Indus are beginning to suffer from global warming. Less snow falls in the winter, meaning that less water flows in the summer. Nowadays, the Indus river that runs through Sindh province often doesn't even reach the sea, so great are the demands upon it. With the inimical (and nuclear-armed) nations of India and Pakistan both highly dependent on the same shrinking water supply, it is horrible to speculate what might happen.... sadly, though, that's exactly what I'm paid to do.