Courtesy of Red Redemption Ltd.

Say goodbye to the walrus. You might be able to save the koala, but the eucalyptus trees will be gone soon, so why bother? Of course, the polar bear has been doomed for decades, but did you know you’ll find the African elephant in only zoos one day? By the way, don’t look up pictures of the arctic fox. It’s much easier to handle their extinction if you don’t know how darn cute they are.

I’m not soliciting donations for the World Wildlife Fund. I’ve just been playing “Fate of the World,” a global simulation game where you try to save Earth from certain destruction. Literally. There are no magic swords, no MacGuffins and no ancient races of advanced aliens who hold the secret to our salvation. As president of the world, your only tools are public policy and government projects.

“Fate” offers three scenarios: Fuel Crisis, where you need to survive until 2120 in the face of growing energy needs and a dwindling oil supply; Three Degrees, where you try to sustain life for 80 more years while slowing the rise of global temperature as much as possible; and Dr. Apocalypse, where you play a villain bent on destroying the world.

The rules of “Fate of the World” are not complicated. You recruit agents in different regions. The more agents you have in a region, the more cards you can play there. Cards represent policy and projects. They range from erecting flood defenses and rolling out electric cars, to deploying advanced biofuels and researching nuclear fusion.

It’s a good thing the mechanics are so easy to grasp because the game throws a lot of information at you. It’s well-organized, but the sheer amount of data is overwhelming for a new player. It’s not always easy to know what to do next.

It was actually a nice change of pace from most games, where you’re told exactly what you need to do at all times by big flashing icons. “Fate of the World” doesn’t offer any shortcuts. It’s up to you to analyze the situation and determine the best response.

The trick is knowing which policies will be most effective, as well as knowing how to balance regional disaster with global crisis. There’s no single weapon in your arsenal that will solve all your problems, but there’s also no single threat. Africa and the Middle East are highly unstable, whereas Russia suffers from unemployment and a shortage of health care. Plus, the rising sea level means there is a lot of flooding anywhere with a coastline. North America and Europe might be sitting high and dry at the beginning, but the economic recession caused by oil shortages will hit developed countries the hardest. You could focus solely on the needs of the planet, but if you don’t tend to local problems, a region might just refuse to work with you.

In my first game, I got climate change mostly under control, but Africa, Latin America and South Asia had all kicked me out. I made it to 2090 before the global human development index (HDI) fell below 0.5, and humanity just ran out of gas. By that time, global temperature had reached a plateau, but population was only 6.2 billion. With war and famine rampaging across the globe, population had been falling since 2050. Africa was dry while Oceania was practically underwater. Meanwhile, North American politicians were actively campaigning against me because they didn’t believe in climate change. Typical!

Don’t play “Fate of the World” if you want to turn off your brain. It’s a smart game that hammers home the multi-faceted challenges that humanity faces today. Even if we put one person in charge of it all, there are no simple solutions. “Fate” is tough. It has no clear path to success, but it is winnable. I wouldn’t know, however, but that’s at least what the Internet tells me.