Beecarbonize

I played Beecarbonize on a whim, because I was looking through my backlog, and it was short and free. (And I needed another review to write, because I just got a job and lost a lot of hours per day to play games.)
Apparently it's funded by the European Union in an effort to raise awareness for climate change. Seeing that well over a hundred thousand people played it, perhaps a worthwhile investment. I do like that it doesn't actually carry a strong political message, but takes quite a few creative liberties to make a more balanced and enjoyable game.

It's a strategy puzzle game where you collect money, people, and science while trying to avoid carbon emissions and climate disasters. You invest your resources as you see fit into 4 different branches of development, each with their own specialty. Get far enough in a development branch, and you win the game by solving the climate problem in one way or another. The main problem is that it's short, as could be expected from a free game, but also that it's mostly deterministic. Events are random, to a degree, and very few cards produce random cards, but for the most part, if you do the same actions, you will get the same result. This heavily hinders replayability once you've unlocked all the cards, as you can basically guess how the game will play out without actually playing it.
Perhaps hardcore mode would be more balanced and reliant on how events go, but I didn't care to try it.

Overall, worth the low price of free, and could provide some entertainment anywhere from an hour to 8 hours. I wouldn't say it's a good game, as I found little strategy behind my decisions, but it does make you think at least a bit, and other than its simplicity, it's well made.