AN OXFORD firm has designed a £1m computer game where players can decide the future of planet Earth.

Red Redemption, a Cowley-based firm set up by Gobion Rowlands nine years ago, specialises in games based on climate change.

He and his team are putting the finishing touches to their latest game, Climate Challenge 2010, which puts the world’s power and science into the hands of the player.

The company raised cash through investors for the game, which follows the 2007 Climate Challenge sponsored by the BBC, played by almost a million people online.

Chairman and founder Mr Rowlands, is married to Hannah Rowlands, the company’s in-house climate scientist, said: “The new game mirrors the challenges that face the planet as we struggle to combat and reverse the potentially cataclysmic effects of climate change.

“The game is set over the next 200 years and the gamer can decide how to tackle things.

“The player has to pick their dreams and goals and then they see a beautiful globe, and everything happens in the globe.

“The player is in charge of the World Climate Change organisation and they have to set policies for the world and decide whether to invest in things like renewable technologies, healthcare and space missions.”

Mr Rowlands, 35, said previous testing showed gamers enjoyed testing the game’s boundaries and causing havoc with the planet.

He said: “We don’t force them to be good or bad; they could be virtuous or a tyrant.

“There is a certain macabre fascination and they want to know what is the worst that can happen.

“We are not making educational games, we are making fun games.”

The firm has worked in partnership with Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and top climate scientist Myles Allen, an Oxford University lecturer, who has provided the climate model for the virtual planet.

Mr Rowlands added: “Climate change needs to be tackled but it’s not our job to do that, we just want to show people the options.”

eallen@oxfordmail.co.uk