The year is 2075. America is divided, fighting a war over the use of fossil fuels. While the country tears itself apart, climate change is also tearing the country apart. Rising sea levels have completely altered the geographic makeup of America and storms ravage the country's cities.
You are a government official and you must make a decision. Do you focus your efforts on the [[war]] or the [[water]].
(set: $budget to 1000)
You've chosen to focus your efforts and money on the war.
You have $budget dollars in your budget for the war efforts.
You must make choices wisely and keep in mind that once your money runs out, you will [[lose]].
(set: $budget to 1000)
You've chosen to focus your efforts and money on rising sea levels and mitigating flood impacts. You have $budget dollars in your governmental budget.
On the coast of South Carolina 1,000 residents are being threatened by constant flooding and storms and can no longer live with the government's help.
You can choose to [[relocate the residents]] to a climate refugee camp or focus on [[building flood protection]] for the city. But you haven't lost yet.
You have your troops stationed in the nation's capital, Washington D.C. The city has been flooding off and on for the past few months and is no longer a stable location for the government.
Controlling the capital would be a significant display of power in the war effort.
You have a choice. You can choose to [[keep your troops stationed]] in the city to retain power or [[move inland]], sacrificing the city but saving your troops. (set: $budget to $budget -300)
You've managed to push out the other troops from the capital, maintaining your stronghold.
While you can control the war effort, what you can't control is the quickly approaching storms and sea levels. Washington D.C. is sinking under your feet.
Your budget is now at $budget dollars.
You are now forced to make an emergency decision.
You can [[establish a new capital]] making your earlier efforts fruitless OR [[spend your budget on flood prevention and reinforcements]] to try to save the city. (set: $budget to $budget -400)
You've made a difficult, yet necessary decision. You've saved your troops, but lost the capital.
What your opponents didn't know is that D.C. was lost to begin with. The entire city is quickly sinking and the capital must be moved anyways. Good work.
Your budget is now at $budget dollars.
But your job isn't done. While D.C. may have sunk, the public's support for your effort is quickly dwindling. You can choose to [[establish a new capital]] as a display of strength in Columbus, OH. Or you can try to negotiate and [[make amends]] with the opposing government. (set: $budget to $budget -100)
You've extended the olive branch. Unfortunately, your efforts for reconciliation are unsuccessful.
You have no choice but to continue fighting the war but your resources are quickly depleting.
Your budget is now at $budget dollars.
The weeks pass slowly. Morale is low. Resources are being [[drained]]. (set: $budget to $budget -700)
(if: $budget <= 0) [(go-to: "dead end")]
(else:)[Reinforcements seemed to be working, until the last storm hit.
The water proved too powerful for your man-made protections and the city is starting to collapse under the continual barrage of water.
You have $budget dollars in your budget.
"It is therefore argued that in order to reduce flood risks we cannot focus solely on keeping water away from people" (Dieperink et al. 4468).
You've lost the citizens and your efforts proved fruitless. You have no more money and no way to protect the people who elected you.
Check out our [[sources]], [[start again]], or [[learn more about this game]].](set: $budget to $budget -600)
(if: $budget <= 0) [(go-to: "dead end")]
(else:)[Your attempt at a power grab was successful. You've established a new capital and won the war, but along the way you've run your budget into the ground.
Your budget is $budget dollars.
Now that you're establishing a united country, the money needed for combating rising sea levels, intense flooding, and storms is not enough.
You've united the country only to have it crumble because of climate change.]
(set: $budget to $budget -500)
Finally, you must surrender. Your budget is at $budget dollars.
Your money, resources, and troops are all gone. You are at the mercy of the opposing government.
Check out our [[sources]], [[start again]], or [[learn more about this game]].(set: $budget to $budget -500)
You've pulled all citizens out of danger and they are safely in the temporary settlements.
You have $budget dollars in your budget.
The trouble is not over yet. Fresh water is scarce and because of rising sea levels and salt water contamination, your ground water sources are undrinkable.
You can choose to [[import water]] which is expensive, but effective or [[move all the citizens to another camp]].(set: $budget to $budget -300)
(if: $budget <= 0) [(go-to: "dead end")]
(else:)
[Storms are coming more frequently than anticipated and they are stronger than ever.
You have $budget dollars left in your budget.
Your choice to barricade the city was ambitious, but it hasn't been enough. High wind speeds, flooding, and storm surges force you [[spend more money on flood infrastructure]] or rethink your entire decision and [[relocate the residents]].](set: $budget to $budget -400)
(if: $budget <= 0) [(go-to: "dead end")]
(else:)[While your choice solved the immediate water crisis, your budget is slowly draining.
You have $budget dollars left in your budget. This can't go on for much longer.
You are now forced to [[find the refugees permanent homes]].](set: $budget to $budget -500)
(if: $budget <= 0) [(go-to: "dead end")]
(else:)[Good choice. Importing water would have been expensive and unsustainable in the long run.
You have $budget dollars left.
While you've moved camps, the water levels are still encroaching and soon any refugee camp will not have any clean water. The citizens are becoming restless and angry.
The only way to solve this issue is to [[find the refugees permanent homes]].](if: $budget <= 0) [(go-to: "dead end")]
(else:)[This is a difficult job.
There are thousands of refugees and only so many safe places in the US nowadays.
You manage to provide some of them with homes, but not all. The war you've back burner is still raging, even though you
ve chosen not to engage. This affects your ability to relocate and travel.
Although it's not a perfect solution, you've found some people new homes. The others wait there, hoping to return to normal life. If life can ever be normal again.
Check out our [[sources]], [[start again]], or [[learn more about this game]].](set: $budget to $budget -700)
(if: $budget <= 0) [(go-to: "dead end")]
(else:)
[Reinforcements seemed to be working, until the last storm hit.
The water proved too powerful for your man-made protections and the city is starting to collapse under the continual barrage of water.
You have $budget dollars in your budget.
"It is therefore argued that in order to reduce flood risks we cannot focus solely on keeping water away from people" (Dieperink et al. 4468).
You've lost the citizens and your efforts proved fruitless. You have no more money and no way to protect the people who elected you.
Check out our [[sources]], [[start again]], or [[learn more about this game]].]
Thanks for playing our game! A little bit about us: we’re two college students from Davidson College in North Carolina in an upper level English class studying Omar El Akkad's speculative novel, American War. El Akkad explores a fictional future where the United States collapses into a second civil war over fossil fuel usage. The war influences every plot point and character in the book, but we also noticed the underlying theme of the geographical and social destruction caused by rising sea levels and excessive flooding.
Benjamin, the primary narrator in El Akkad’s work, addresses how climate change has become an integral part of American life and how it has led to the second Civil War: “my favorite postcards are from the 2030s and the 2040s, the last decades before the planet turned on the country and the country turned on itself” (El Akkad 3). The war destroys the social and political unity of the nation, while rising sea levels geographically alter the country forever.
We wanted to create this game to highlight how easy it is to ignore or cover up real and pressing issues, like climate change, with anthropogenic issues, like war; this happens in our world everyday. We focus on issues like abortion and controlling women’s bodies in order to avoid addressing the most time-sensitive issues: the effects of climate change. El Akkad makes the choice in his novel that the characters are going to ignore sea levels, so we wanted to give players that choice. They can choose to focus on rising sea levels immediately or have to deal with the fall out of ignoring the problem later.
In her book The Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel: Critical Temporalities and the End Times, Diletta De Cristofaro argues that El Akkad underscores the pressing nature of climate change even though the novel is centered on the civil war. She writes, “the cause of this war is fossil fuels: in a world ravaged by global warming, where entire areas of America are under water ... this novel is not only concerned with the fictional Second Civil War” (De Cristofaro 63-4). We can see the geographical changes De Cristofaro discusses in her book in the maps El Akkad includes at the beginning of his novel.
<img text-align="center" src="https://i.redd.it/0t3h9o4xe15z.jpg" width="400" height="650">
These visual speculations may feel dramatic, but as Joseph Donoghue points out in his article, “even at the current relatively slow rates of sea level rise, U.S. shorelines are retreating at an average of 1 m/yr, with northern Gulf of Mexico shorelines exceeding the average, at 1.8 m/year, and exhibiting some of the more extreme local erosion rates.” El Akkad just fast forwards the effects of the problems we are currently ignoring and predicts how we’ll ignore them even when they are immediately threatening our world.
Outside of the maps, El Akkad includes subtle references about how rising sea levels affect and complicate daily life. “Well, don’t you know, he’s running off last season’s map, and he guides them too far south. First damn ship of the month, and he runs them aground into the Hutchinson Reef” (El Akkad 262). In this instance, Southern traders are complaining about contraband ships getting stuck on sandbars because the captains aren’t using updated maps. The oceans and land are changing so quickly that maps have to be updated month to month in order for barges to accurately navigate trade routes. The characters focus on “the Blues tightening up inspections,” blaming the war for these mishaps, but as readers, we can see the bigger issue of rising sea levels (262).
By providing rising sea levels as a backdrop to the second Civil War, El Akkad illustrates how easy it is to overlook climate change and the dangers it poses to our world. As society avoids addressing climate change issues for so long, life in American War is only getting harder, and the increasing climatic changes will continue to put more pressure on their fragile society. Now that you have learned more about the role of rising sea levels in American War, would you change your choices in our game?
[[start again]] or check out our [[sources]]De Cristofaro, Diletta. //The Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel, Critical Temporalities and the End Times.// Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.
Dieperink, C., et al. "Recurrent Governance Challenges in the Implementation and Alignment of Flood Risk Management Strategies: A Review." Water Resources Management 30.13 (2016): 4467-81. ProQuest. Web. 10 Nov. 2021.
Donoghue, Joseph. F. (2011). "Sea level history of the northern Gulf of Mexico coast and sea level rise scenarios for the near future." Climatic Change, 107(17), 17-33. https://doi-org.proxy048.nclive.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0077-x.
El Akkad, Omar. //American War.// Penguin Random House LLC, 2017.
Harlowe 2.1.0 Manual. 11 April 2018, https://twine2.neocities.org/2.html.
[[start again]] or [[learn more about this game]]You've run your budget into the ground. The country is collapsing and you have no power to stop it.
Check out our [[sources]], [[start again]], or [[learn more about this game]].