A climate strategy game about growth, fossil lock-in, and the cost of waiting.
Playable prototype · 2025
About Overshoot
Overshoot is a strategy game about running a fossil-dependent economy and trying to grow it without overheating the planet. You build power, hold a coalition together, and race your own lock-in.
It exists to make one idea you can feel: cheap now is expensive later. The plant you build cheaply today is the one you can't afford to shut down tomorrow.
Built by Ted Shabecoff.
Playable prototype · Single file · Runs in any browser
Map tools — click the land to build
Pick a tool, click the land to build. Grow GDP to 280, hold warming under +2.0°, don't run out of support. Drag pans · wheel zooms.
Dashboard▲
OVERSHOOT
Year 2025
GDP
—
Global temp
—
Political capital
—
Capital / decade
—
Outlook — if nothing changes
historylocked-in risk if policy stops+2.0° limit
Planetary tipping points
The shaded zone is the published risk range. The real threshold hides inside it — you learn where it was by crossing it. Crossing is permanent.
Energy & emissions
Fossil capacity—
Clean capacity—
Energy demand—
Net emissions / decade—
Forests—
Clean tech level—
Oldest fossil plant—
The coalition
Political capital is the sum of these moods — one number, four reasons.
Policy decisions
Build plants and forests on the map. These are the policy levers.
The record
MONEY
—
Lock-in penalty ×1.00
SUPPORT
—
OVERSHOOT
INHERITED COAL ECONOMY — JANUARY 2025
You've just taken office. Five fossil plants power the economy. They're cheap, they're popular, and they belong to the people who built their lives around them.
You have three tools for the transition:
🏭 FOSSIL
Cheap (11). Grows the economy. Jobs boost support. But every decade it runs, retirement gets harder and costlier.
⚡ CLEAN
Better long-term, but starts at 26. Fund R&D to cut the price. Dispatches first — cuts emissions before you retire anything.
🌲 FOREST
Cheap mitigation (8). Absorbs 4 emissions per decade. But forests take land you can't use for anything else.
Mandate: triple GDP, stay under +2.0° warming, keep political support. You have 15 decades. The planet has tipping points — you'll find out where they are by crossing them.
Cheap now is expensive later.
ADVISOR NOTE
GRADE
WHAT HAPPENED?
Copied!
SCIENCE CODEX
What the game rules stand for. Entries unlock as you live them.