Beecarbonize is a Strategy Deckbuilding Game developed and published by Charles Games and funded by the European Union. It was released on August 1, 2023 for free on Steam, itch.io, the iOS App Store, and Google Play.
Your goal is to find the ultimate solution to climate change by carefully managing the four sectors: Industry, Ecosystems, People, and Science. Each of them produces resources after a set amount of time per cycle, which are mainly spent on making new cards that increase production speed, upgrading the playmat to hold more of them, and mitigating environmental issues. However, some of these cards produce greenhouse emissions along with a random chance of other problems associated with climate change, and too much Global Warming triggers various natural disasters stronger than they usually are. You must spend more resources to mitigate these calamities before they cause catastrophic destruction of the Earth, so you're encouraged to upgrade your cards and find a way to reduce emissions and the likelihood of disasters while speeding up production. You win the game when you make one of the six golden cards, each hypothesizing on the most ideal solutions to save the planet.
Tropecarbonize:
- Anti-Frustration Features: The cards that lead to the winning golden card are marked with a star on the lower-right corner, so you won't have to guess which cards will produce it.
- Bicep-Polishing Gesture: As a nod to Rosie the Riveter, the woman on the Societal Changes card rubs her right bicep and poses like her.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Industry Sector is red, the Ecosystems Sector is green, the People Sector is yellow, and the Science Sector is blue.
- Designer Babies: One of the cards is this, which has medium production speed for the Science Sector and emits 1 greenhouse emission per production cycle. However, the card description points out the risks of genetic defects in future generations and the rise of social inequalities due to genetics-based discrimination. The game will even call you out if you win it while having this card on the playmat.
- Global Warming: Your long-term goal is to mitigate the effects of this by reducing the amount of greenhouse emissions produced by the four sectors. Failing to do so will make the Emissions Bar pass Tipping Points, which are natural disasters you have to spend resources on to mitigate them. Failing to resolve them in time will penalize you by depleting your resources, removing your cards, or adding more emissions or event cards after their timers run out. If you reach the final Tipping Point, the game ends due to the catastrophic environmental destruction the Earth has suffered due to global warming.
- Gold-Colored Superiority: Your end goal is to find the golden winning card by upgrading your cards with stars on them, all while reducing carbon emissions to mitigate natural disasters.
- Green Aesop: This card game teaches you how to control the amount of greenhouse emissions until you can achieve carbon neutrality, in more ways than one. Some environmental choices generate resources fast but emit a lot of greenhouse gases, while others are slow but emit fewer greenhouse gases. If you accumulate too much emissions, natural disasters worsen due to climate change until they become unmanageable, resulting in a game over.
- Hint System: On a loss, Tips are provided if you wait long enough after the Win Streak displays, possibly based on how the loss occurred:
- People Starving:Tip: Some cards give you bonus resources, when they are created.
- People Starving:
- Inventory Management Puzzle: Each sector can be upgraded three times to hold up to a maximum of 12 cards each. Any excess card is placed outside the playmat, and they're destroyed after a certain amount of time. In Hardcore Mode, some cards have negative environmental consequences when destroyed, so you have to manage your card inventory carefully.
- No Antagonist: The game's conflict is about trying to mitigate the effects of climate change before it irreversibly destroys Earth. While there are various smaller conflicts caused by certain groups, they're not presented as villains, but rather as careless or ignorant people, who don't realize that their actions are causing or contributing to environmental destruction.
- Random Event: Most cards have a random chance to trigger climate change issues at the end of each round. You need to spend your resources on them to mitigate them before they penalize you after their timers run out.
- Resources Management Gameplay: Each of the four sectors produces resources needed to make new cards that speed up production and reduce greenhouse emissions to save the planet. Also, 1 Industry token is spent for every People token produced to feed the population, and running out of Industry tokens leads to starvation. You must spend 2 People tokens to mitigate this or else you'll lose the game.
- Shout-Out: The callout message for building a VR utopia remarks that there's a movie about the consequences of using it to distract people from a post-apocalyptic reality.
- Visual Pun: The Doughnut Economy card is represented by a frosted donut.
- What the Hell, Player?: At the end of the game, you're called out on some of the less-than-ideal choices you made on your quest to find the ultimate environmental solution, such as making Designer Babies or a VR utopia.
