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Homes in Munich the capital city of Greenland are selling like hotcakes a recent article in The Wall Street Journal's real estate section explains the ins and outs of buying an apartment or a house in nuke where the average price paid for a property is no close to $450000.00 u.s. Dollars present some may have got the cold shoulder from Denmark's president met a Fredrickson when he expressed an interest in buying the world's largest island a still has a constant by the way but that hasn't stopped international investors from beating a path there all of which frenzy may have something to do with the retreat of the ice and the changing face of the law and that's where the author John Gartner comes it in 10 to 15 John paid one of his visits to Greenland to observe the collapsing I see for himself the result is his latest book The Ice at the end of the world what's begins with some astonishing numbers so how much ice and water is Greenland losing annually if we go back in time a little bit to say the 1990 s. And early 1990 s. There wasn't really any clarity on how much Greenland was losing in terms of ice you know there were all these questions among scientists is the ice sheet and Greenland getting smaller is it even getting bigger but what we did was we put up a bunch of satellites that started to measure it and really for the 1990 s. It started losing maybe on average about 100000000 tons of ice per year but that has accelerated over the last decade and a half. 2012 was a massive year for melting and also for losing icebergs because there are actually 2 ways that Greenland is ice it meant melts on top where you get these extraordinary blue lakes and rivers that Russia the ice sheet and also loses ice on the edges where these massive icebergs kava often float. Way in Mill but in 2012 there was a massive ice loss that was more than 400000000000 tons of ice and this summer especially it was as a warm front moved over Europe and sort of hovered over Greenland there were these 2 massive melting events the calculations aren't finally in yet on how much ice has been lost but it's probably somewhere in the realm of $300000000000.00 to $350000000000.00 tons of ice staggering and yet this is the core the really floored me and the other big gave the book you say that that means almost nothing in the vastness of the. Well and if you go up to Greenland ice sheet you know this is a remnant of the last ice age and it it covers almost all of the island about 80 percent of the island in Greenland is the world's largest island it's it's 5 times the size of California in the center of the ice sheet it's 2 miles thick so the actual amount of ISIS is somewhere in the quadrillions of tonnes which is like you know should teens here owes after after 3 quadrillion tons and and to lose these hundreds of billions of tons it's a massive amount it raises ocean levels by about a millimeter per year at this point and we can see that you know Greenland if it continued at this pace you know the ice sheet might last 1000 years or more but what we also know is that it's accelerating and we know the Earth is getting warmer and we know that. Well we actually don't know exactly how though destabilized because nobody's ever been around to watch the melting of a nation but we do know that it's accelerating and that it's losing more and more ice with every passing decade and so there is a lot more ice to melt and the notion that Greenland is in the midst of a meltdown isn't really quite correct it's just starting. And just to be clear I suppose is something that we all think we know but but why study the melting ice in Greenland What's what's the point of all that sure I mean hundreds of millions of people around the world live really just within you know a few feet of sea level and certainly you know London is incredibly vulnerable to floods. I live on the East Coast of the United States where we've had massive flooding at times you know there are cities all over the world Jakarta comes to mind mammie especially these are cities that really I think face an axis tensional threat as ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melt and it's not going to happen tomorrow but I think if we look a few decades ahead you know drip by drip year by year decade by decade you know the life of the city becomes threatened as these sea levels encroach So there might not be water up to everybody's knees right away but soon you know the infrastructure that's underground basic surfaces road flooding things that make city life untenable city life really begins to break down and then if we look even farther into the future we can see that you know this this flooding from a Sheetz you know it could effectively change the course of civilization as all of our cities around the world on the coast really become threatened by flooding and become in some ways possibly uninhabitable unless we change things around the book . Really divides into 2 on the one hand you've got the stories of exploration of Greenland the kind of exploration stories that we that with familiar with from other parts of the world other icy parts of the world anyway and then in the 2nd place part of the book you've got the advance of science and the science progresses so quickly so so let's for a few minutes just talk about the the exploration of space you know and the facts of it just being there that so attracted some of the the early explorers. Tell us a little bit for example about illicit Caden and Charles Hall and then there are their influence and Tyron on Commodore p.d. Who we've most of us have had a fight Yeah yeah I mean that you're exactly right I mean the book starts with that Age of Exploration in part because the work of later science was built on sort of some of the in rows that some of these folks made and you know a lot of those early explorations like Cain and they were some of them were looking for you know lost explorers who had perished in the Arctic or who had disappeared. You know others were trying to find a path to the North Pole so in this pre-modern ancient the 870 s. 880 s. 860 s. Even the idea. You know that you could you know certainly can take a plane you can take believing there is no way to get to the north pole it was unclear what it even looked at there and Cain and hall like a lot of these early Arctic explorations just ended in kind of complete utter tragedy Hala specially you know their ships would get locked in ice almost like Shackleton's down in Antarctica which that story we all know so well to where they can actually get anywhere get out or get far enough north. You know in Leader years. These became kind of inspirational to Piri to other explorers who were both looking from the North Pole but also exploring Greenland because they were trying to understand mistakes that had been made by previous explorers thinking Ok well we won't do it what hauled it or what came did our boat won't become our ship won't become locked in ice in the harbor so that we can't leave we will follow the seasons and we will succeed in finding a path to the north. You know it seems to me from you know really spending several years reading Arctic explorers diaries and memoirs that everything always kind of goes wrong in the Arctic you know and it's so rare to go right and and Piri really you know taking a cue from these early explorers had some absolute miserable crossings where he really barely made it across he was crossing the Greenland ice sheet and trying to get back and of course later in his career he tried to reach the North Pole and what was a what was the. That's a lovely name isn't it that lingers in the memory it is that and that was his 1st crossing of the Greenland ice sheet Piri was not actually the 1st person to cross it you have to go a few years earlier to free Josh Nansen a Norwegian who really was the 1st person to ever cross the Greenland ice sheet again in this era before technology when you couldn't fly over it there was no sense of what was in the middle and Manson recruited a small group of men and they actually climbed up half of the ice sheet because it's more like a dome than it is like a flat sheet and then they ski down the other half and this was in the late eighty's Peri's white March happened a few years later Nansen had already crossed the southern part of the ice sheet so for Pirie the white March was about crossing the northern part of the ice sheet it was a more ambitious crossing and he actually succeeded he crossed the northern part of the ice sheet which is actually wider and and made it back again just just barely almost almost out of food and out. Resources but with a dog team just barely bring him home and he actually did it twice and this was again early in his career before he started to try to get in or capturing the flagship North Pole the idea though of skiing. Part of Greenland you know for days and days days I mean that's hardly a ski able Sophos or is it. Yeah it in the center of the a sheet it can actually be pretty smooth I mean I think my you know I travel to Greenland 6 times for this book and in you know my conception of the ice sheet before it actually gone on to the center because you can actually fly to the center now if you have some scientists I sort of imagine the whole thing would be you know flatter like a skating rink somehow and it's not like that at all especially on the edges it's filled with crevices and it's quite dangerous and hills and something called Sister b. Which are these kind of rolling has shaped sort of wedges in the ice sheet but in the center of the ice it can actually be quite smooth and you can be a smooth hell that sort of heads down towards the coast so for Nansen skiing at least for part of his endeavor his mission it worked and he also you snowshoes but when he got closer to the coast when he hit all these dangerous curve asses they had to stop and they had to be to much more careful and in trying to actually get to the actual coastline and I've observed how many people wanted to live you know on the ice or even under the ice and in a later case you know you've got these these guys that you're honest Jordi and their nests arge make an ice bunker for themselves in 1930 that they very important doesn't it for future applications Yeah I mean at some point I'd say in the 1930 s. This kind of Age of Exploration changed into an age of science and there is a German expert. The that you mentioned and these 2 scientists I think it's pronounced and sorghum got to the center of the ice and they were waiting on the delivery of that never arrived and so what they did was they actually dug into the ice and created an under ice bunker and they weren't there for you know to sort of thump their chests and say you know we have lived under the ice what they were really there for was to collect data Joerg he was going to collect meteorological data temperatures and wind in all sorts of conditions and in sort of I was going to dig into the a sense trying to understand these layers of snow that build up into ice over you know what turns out to be hundreds of thousands of years but they lived in this bunker under the ice really all winter and they were the 1st 2 to ever winter over on the Greenland ice sheet and again it was it was an absolutely miserable experience but it became quite legendary and I think I might add that you know as a writer it was quite exciting to write about because really it became a matter of life and death trying to survive that winter for sure that and what they did allowed the u.s. Military to to get some kind of an idea of ice with actually behave if if it was dug into and it was sort of overhead Yeah I mean in later years were not that long after probably just after World War 2 So in the 1950 s. The United States military began to look to Greenland as sort of the next frontier in the Cold War and the idea kind of came it seems a little bit preposterous now going back. That maybe the u.s. Military could build an under ice bunker like a vast camp of people who had lived there and the idea was also kind of joined to this other notion that maybe they could have nuclear weapons that they could kind of deploy towards the Soviet Union you know the great thing. At the cross the Arctic circle if necessary and they ended up building you know what I mean very very large camp under the ice that was called Camp Century you know the reason that's in my book is that yes it's a good story but and yes it was this military endeavor but what I also happened was a lot of scientists kind of piggybacked on the u.s. Army's expend you know they they were in that era of the Cold War you know there was there was a lot of money there was a lot of resources and some scientists use that opportunity to actually study the ice sheet in a way that had never been studied the core so that really the were were the military using science as a cover or was it the other way or as you said. It's a really interesting question and I think that it worked a little bit of both ways I mean when the scientists were there the military was saying we're here to investigate you know how to how how to really to kind of outfit and position an army in the Arctic because we think it's vital for national defense and we need to understand the science of the Arctic to actually do that and it was a cover for sort of you know deploying or at least investigating how to really kind of deploy missiles and bombs and tactical defenses in those areas. You know but I think you know for for real that they it was also the case that they used the science that came out of there such as how to build buildings on an icy literally or how to travel over an ice sheet so it did end up having some military value but it for the scientists at least it had some lingering value at least for us today in a way that it had helped us understand how the ice sheet is and how it worked. And going back from it to the to the German throughout a saga he actually did some really important science didn't he what what what did he do I mean his science was all about the ice how did the study it sure so there are these 2 guys stuck under the ice for an entire winter with no radio no television barely any she will and what they could do is they could sort of do their scientific experiments so sort of decided to dig a hole literally to just dig down into the ice they dug a staircase into the ice they went about 50 feet down and what he started to study was how the layers in the ice sheet build up over time and he measured different kinds of density to these sort of stripes in the ice because really what in a sheet is is is this kind of. You know cruel of snow cover that year by year kind of pushes down on what came before and what sort of work eventually led to was this idea that you could not just dig a hole into the ice and out to stick a staircase but you could you drill down into the Yanks and extract what we now call an ice core and that you could go down way deeper than 50 feet which is what sort of did and go to the very bottom which would be really you know 2 miles down and you could use this ancient ice to reconstruct ancient temperatures maybe even to reconstruct what the ancient atmosphere was like because there are bubbles sealed in the ice that capture the air at the time it was sealed off and that of course brings us really to to drilling ice cores I mean we've we've all seen Well some of us least have seen the day after tomorrow you know what starts for the team drilling on ice core and that seems to be kind of a mandatory if you're going to do a science now doesn't it to the delight the ice cores who who took the 1st one yeah I mean I guess the very 1st one really was or the 1st important one was Camp Century that army base wheat. About that was under the ice in the early 1960 s. And some scientists again using the u.s. Military's resources set up a drilling rig in this camp under the ice and they just kind of drilled through the floor because the floor was from Chris really made of ice and they went down to the bottom it took them a few years they were only drilling during the summer and it wasn't really the center of the a she so it wasn't fully 2 miles down but it was I think was about a mile and some and they they brought up the 1st continuous Peace Corps to the bedrock of Greenland and what you do is you don't pull out that core all at once of course you take it out and sort of income and so you would get these you know 3 meter or 5 meter sort of blanks of ice and then kind of label them and bag them and keep them cold so they can be studied but then I still exists it's in lie i slime berries in Copenhagen and in the United States and it really was the 1st time that we had this sort of long continuous record from Greenland ice she has got a base insatiable of voluble know hasn't it that ice core Yeah I mean in in truth there are been sort of more valuable ones from a science perspective ones that are more Christine ones that capture a longer record and those have been done both in the center Greenland and they've been done in Antarctica and an article actually even goes back farther than Greenland's ice you know the different the different ice cores have different you know the pluses and minuses and they they have different virtues to scientists but but but a lot of that ice exists in these ice libraries for my own research for my book I traveled to Colorado and to Copenhagen where they keep a lot of these important ice cores and they're still there and they're still studied and scientists come from all around the world to take a cut of this ice and look at it under microscopes and do all sorts of chemical analysis to make sure to really look at trace elements and chemicals that sort of. Help them a lot riddles of ancient climates So let's let's go to the ninety's and a young climate scientists called right to dally who makes pretty astonishing the sky every. About climate variation. So yeah there had been some ice cores that had come up by some Danish teams especially and Americans that had suggested that there were these greater variations in climate this notion that you know our climate kind of changes very slowly over time you know whether it's based on you know increasing c o 2 levels or some other sort of forcing element that climate doesn't jump from one state to another but. Several of the ice cores coming out of this coring experiment and the center Greenland in the early 1990 s. Showed that really climate can jump dramatically and in fact there was one of that 11700 years ago where you know the temperatures in in and around Greenland probably went you know changed you know more than 10 about 10 degrees centigrade I think within you know or a degree centigrade just within a decade or so with became known I think is as abrupt climate change was was given a kind of very real proof by this ice core that this can't happen the reasons it happened are still sort of a matter of debate but the fact that the climate doesn't necessarily behave as we might think it does I think sort of sends a note of caution to everybody thinks things will happen slowly or on a plan. When when these numbers started to be No I mean what was the sort of level of scientific shock. Yeah I wondered too if the ideas of abrupt climate change I mean they in the stuff of like sort of sensational movies or hysteria has its ideas but have they sort of permeated this sort of larger kind of culture of understanding that really I don't really think they have either that we've been sufficiently shocked by this I don't and I think I mean I should add some caution that we there's no indication that that will happen again but what we know is it could happen again I think what what it tells me as somebody spent a lot of years doing this is that is that not just temperatures but natural systems can change it up properly and that doesn't just mean that the world's all of sudden going to jump in temperature what it means I think for a good example is entire systems like the sea ice that's covering the Arctic Ocean which I think we see now is just diminishing at an astonishing pace and scientists who study that are just are just shocked by its decrease and of course as the Arctic sea ice cover shrinks they create a sort of follow on effect that's very very m detrimental to the Arctic warms up because the darker sea water is exposed and can absorb more energy in the Arctic warms even more so we can see systems we can see glaciers for instance that can pass a point of no return instantly and start to collapse so this idea that systems can change abruptly it's something I think that I always take away from this research that it's important not to go by our sort of assumptions that things will be gradual. And and being there with the glaciers and so on you are feeling the war so you're hearing the water rushing by I mean what else are people finding it about that that I smell what's going on deep underneath the you know for example Yeah I asked Philip you know we camped out by a very large place here in Greenland called the Aqua Shaaban right at the edge and it's true you sort of feel like you're sort of you know there's there's water rushing all around us that the ice sheet sort of goes through it's summertime melt and then you know when you if you're lucky you can catch kind of massive calving of them where math huge you know iceberg breaks off. You know it does seem that every mother to get a new study there was a recent study that came out for instance that I think is very timely what it suggests is that because Greenland is melting so much usually the snow cover would absorb some of the water but it's actually getting ice here so there are these kinds of ice slabs that build up on the Greenland ice sheet so instead of the water just sort of getting reabsorbed it's just sort of sliding off and running off and that means more water is lost and it means that sea levels are rising we also find it is getting darker that there are these algae blooms that kind of grow on the western edge of the ice sheet every summer and those to absorb more sunlight and make it warmer and they melt the ice sheet more so there are a lot of systems that seem to be kind of caught or at least taking us in there in direction of a kind of feedback loop where the more Greenland melts the more Greenland melts and it seems that we're in a kind of very dangerous moment now where it in truth the ice sheet could in fact pass a point of no return where it becomes much more difficult to stop any of this. Do you tell people the north I mean those people listen to you and say oh you know I take that with a pinch of salt or a white faced you know it's a it's a hard thing to sort of get our minds around we all have so many things going on in there our lives I mean I think I think it's true that Greenland is a distant island and it's not just distant geographically it's distant and our magination is and I had the very good fortune to travel there several times with scientists who really really had been spending their wife you know working to understand this place and really to understand the potential for melting and sea level rise and so when I do say that or when I've written a book about that you know and it's hard I think we have to be open to these messages I don't think that we necessarily are without hope I think you know we're very resourceful bunch I also write about technology quite a bit and I think we have a lot of tools at our disposal and if we choose to act if we choose to sort of change sort of the direction we're on in terms of sort of putting to you so much c o 2 in the air I think we can really make a difference and of are some of the worst impacts so I don't think we have to be nihilistic about it I think there's there's plenty of work to be done that can make a difference but I think if we don't. Look pretty dire. John Gardner's book is called the ice at the end of the world and it's just after half past 3. On digital b.b.c. Silence Slosberg among the various b.b.c. Radio 5 Live George Clarkson has the b.b.c. News Thank you Rod further details have emerged of the objections to the latest British proposals for changes to the Irish backstop in the BRICs a deal European Commission said to be worried about the idea of ruling out border checks indefinitely because of the veto that would be given to storm and President Trump has warned Turkey he'll obliterate its economy if it takes advantage of his decision to pull u.s. Forces out of northeastern Syria the withdrawal leaves Kurdish fighters in the region open to attack from Turkey a woman's been taken to hospital with serious injuries after falling from a ride at whole fair Police think she fell on to a teenage boy who then suffered minor injuries the former Conservative m.p. Heidi Allen has become the latest to join the Liberal Democrats she'd previously been with the change you k. Group in the Commons which she led for 2 months in the summer with all the support this morning his battle over Tottenham will be without their captain for the rest of the year Hugo to reste dislocated his elbow during Saturday's defeat at Brighton Spurs say the goalkeeper doesn't require surgery Phil Neville says he does not feel vulnerable as in the women's manager despite the fact his side of failed to win any of their last 5 games the most recent defeat was on Saturday when they lost to one to Brazil in their friendly than ss play Portugal at 7 pm a Neville says it's a must win game managing director of England men's cricket Ashley Giles as the new head coach Chris Silverwood has a clear understanding of how both red and white ball teams need to evolve flanker James Davis says he was shocked to be naming the wild side to face Fiji on Wednesday Davis makes his tournament debut as Justin Tipperary is rested Andy Murray says his fitness levels are improving with each match will continue to make progress with his comeback from injury when he plays Fabio. Nini in the 2nd round of the Shanghai monsters later this morning Britain's men's gymnastics team secured their place at next year's lympics by qualifying for the final of the wild championships. For new. Music as a. Person who represents a call in sick sick sick sick sick I think it's really difficult and sometimes I call my friend sometimes just on the breakdown a limited time was telling our minister he's not the we like to feel like so complex. Because I follow his news listen to the Rangers he takes a practice practice practice nothing is truly on the table something that's been around this all day every day coverage of this case I fussed for news and the Basque law school this is b.b.c. 5 live up to it with talk shop. Well who hasn't sat in a traffic jam and cursed the traffic planners of all of this traffic light at a left turn lane Why isn't there a fly over here the new game from New Zealand based dinosaur Polo Club many motorways leverage is exactly that impulse here is game on and I don't rush. Hello and welcome to game on and I'm Adam rasa it is funny how things come in threes isn't it there is actually a mathematical reason why buses do it but I don't think there's one for games why am I speaking about 3 well a fortnight ago I was sitting down with Chris Cox who asked 2 games to talk about their new experience assemble with care last week I was in a hotel for you with you know the Chen to talk about that game company's latest project sky children of the light and just a few days ago I was on the phone with Robert carried the co-founder with his brother Peter of dinosaur Polo Club to talk about mini motorways their new release . This dinosaur polo club your company is something which you run with your brother Peter is that right there is correct and is it still a 2 man band because it was at the outset it wasn't a demo it was just the 2 of us what we had as we made many Mitrovica and so in 2013 we did away as. An audio diary early on they were they worked with us on the game when they saw in our studio. And point is. Now at so. Many Metro is a game that I've had on my telephone for quite some time. Beguiling it's it's simple it's complex it's. Frustrating and when you win when you get things going the proper way it feels like you've achieved something for a very small team making what is effectively quite a simple game and that is no disrespect to you or to the guy that's according to me had to have all of those responses to one piece of software isn't it yes you know I do understand that you can look to a. Year. And call I suppose. Yeah you can wonder how our continued will actually work. In a way as we said we're going to. Play last year so we went ahead people on earth for . 18 months or so years I think if we if you gave us the game right now in c. Could you don't they wouldn't take us there well that complexity is just having to work out what is what we're trying to build in the 1st place so we didn't actually arrive on that at the design there were and there are. So about 6 months ago let me let's go back to the beginning alist starts from an earlier point the game that I 1st played of yours which was complex and yet simple elegant refined. Challenging all of those things was Mini Metro. Which I've had on the phone for some time now what we were doing there and was there a conscious process of keeping it small and simple and light because you were very small team year there was pretty much what we thought about from the outset was how do we make a game that my brother and I can actually manage because we were being enter now to game development for over 10 years at that point and we always sort of had very and . Yes God's about producing you know big sprawling. Or or just just this kind of things which we really did understand you know in our heart of hearts that we would never have really done it because you know you very very small team you can't complain again like like bass in your spare time so we we set down at least and we were like right how do we actually produce the thing how can we scope again that we can get. That we can actually read us and so afterward sort of had that discussion we had a. Danger in which with which we ended live and director would already pitched ideas around which. I personally are about a that an interactive map which you would never get around on and then it will have it will just have one when you actually build it and stayed and then so I think having met having that scope and mind we just said well what's the smallest thing we can do that is actually like an interactive experience and then we just we just broke that and it didn't take us long to actually get to an interesting study when we finished the game in 2 and a half days and it's pretty much the same game that we release I mean we obviously edit and habits are things we didn't characters locos weekly upgrades that kind of thing but it was pretty much the same game that we just got done and here couple of theirs but also it all came from us just having to think how can we actually finish but there is a virtue in that I think you see a lot of games that come out AAA titles and topple a tonsils and you get the feeling the leverage will spark the idea is been lost this is the actual the classical India approach is needed to be aware of your limitations and yet develop something which is flexible inside those limitations as a player I can return to many men trying again and again and again because this is the ideal game play chess is simple but it's complex in its in its longer game it's not terrible phrase of easy to learn hard to. And you really did hit that with Mini Metro didn't you know when the year was short Dennett's it feels like a thing that we discovered rather than does sign the ending we did then that all our job has been is just to sort of build a civil civil garden for it so it can kind of just do what it does best which which . I guess has been a humbling experience especially with the motorways because what we've found as we've developed that is that we've really discovered a lot more about what makes many midterm a good game because it's almost like we don't actually understand it completely selves which is it's kind of always nice to be minded that we're not they sort of sort of genius or to who just know what we're doing all the time. We kind of have to discover things about our work. So we have a mental note of that both games in and having to develop to see what the followers should say do you feel like you're in a dialogue with your players are year for short because I think they know they see our game in a different way than what we did and they see things and they understand it in ways that we we won so I think you really have to listen to what people because like we don't know it we don't see what is fun I don't I think it's very difficult for people that work on game to really see it in and joyous and in the wind in the other way and in the years it does because they just they don't know all the what's going into it they can see all of decisions behind I mean all of the reasons behind the decisions that you've made so if you don't listen to the people actually actually enjoy my game then you just don't know what like what they find interesting what they've done and what they find frustrating or because we can we can often spank that an element is bad or good and we just get it completely wrong because we're looking at us or a lens of of game design or. Sort of Nixon it's like we want to things to be elegant and neat and and often people just don't care about just they just want if they just want it to give them a feeling in and that can be have for us to sort of penned in and let it clean without just talking with people that's interesting it's the new game the next evolution of the mini franchise mini mo to what he said when you came to that was it's simple to say we we've done drawings were done the underground systems let's look at Cannes was that the straight forward thought I don't know if and I know from the outside it probably looks that way but we spent a long time wishing out what was going to be the next the next kind of thing that we were going to minimalize I suppose so when we looked it was early as January last year we we began to actually think about Ok what's the next thing we're going to bring into the into that many of us as we as we call it here so we were looking at what do we look at Museum eps we looked at Ski field and let architectural drawings just kind of things like that which is what people see in recognize but so haven't seen interactively after we look at it just it was all all kinds of things we spent probably about 3 or 4 on months just so ideas against the wall and seeing what seeing what would step in the end actually it was the game freeway which we got got into a lot and I thought you know we can we kids this feels like it could have been designed by a lot like in the same in the in the same kind of ethos as a Mini Metro so we just began experiment it was Ok well what what if we actually did road maps I mean I was that Iran knows Google Maps and their stuff just like actual old school maps in a book so we thought we thought we kids make and make those Internet. And that leaves a very very long prototyping here it. Was probably. 6 to 9 months. Of just trying. Different things about drawing big road small roads tower based ones what's what switch we ended up with spines all kinds of things yeah and to with the other thing which was both and both interesting. And also easy to get into. I have a dim memory that I saw the team behind City skyline is when they were basically making a travel simulator in the city thing came later I think you were side meeting I had a game to come good long time ago there is something about cancer and roots and rose to the really old round business why do you feel that is what is it about that the we why do we keep coming to the I think I think it because a it's a thing that everyone understand well I mean most people you know understand cars roads everything like that so it's a thing which we don't have to explain. I think I think games can often forgets that most people don't know what or like an orbit as or anything and then he and so so you have to you don't have to explain all that all that over here. And I just think they're they're just interesting systems to what's like you just like seeing cars moving around giving way to each other driving around from a debate I think it's just can be quite amusing arising and just I think people are going from place to place that place is just that. It feels like things are happening at school like there it's kind of been dusty Yes I suppose so it kind of feels nice to just see see that happen yeah and occur makes things feel like I have an interesting year but it has very much been a thing that you. To get a great deal of mileage out of that thing I don't think that that was going to go back to. That. Kind of quality isn't there this is I didn't use is things inside your fund or your computer they're doing stuff and you have the power to influence them it is kind of like a in a weird way as bit of a god game isn't it drawing drawing some of these metro systems drawing somebodies road system it puts you in it gives you a lot of power does it also play into this idea of the you could do it better than the urban planners we we didn't get there a lot yeah parents kind of say that they they they thought I guess they don't they have to think that they think they can they'll get a job at being there and that's why the difficulties that. Have been transported and also works I think is really going to think that we're sort of helping both in the 3 I suppose but yeah and I think I think just just now to what there's Enos is a very very interesting thing is that there is they are a German word that we use out here versus back to which is just a kind of. Thing of just hits of things happening and it's just interesting to watch that that kind of when it's busy ness and it's kind of gotten over it you hear about and then in organizing it I should tell you that I should share something with you because I was a seller played many metro a fair bit there's a quality about it when it all starts to go wrong and you find yourself chasing the era and then sitting back and reflecting on what went wrong and trying to perfect it and try and approaching it again and thinking I will avoid that bottleneck I will avoid that overload in a station I can I can get this traffic right so I can utilize the truck the the trains I have better I can do better without it feeding the game is working against you by something like a shooter like cold or destiny 2 and there's too many variables that are the people and our systems trying to. Have a go at you there is that reflection that moment's reflection is something that happens in these kinds of games isn't and that's quite important why they're successful isn't yes I always think that this puzzle game is the one in which in which you are your own worst enemy so I think anytime that again you. Make your past self put roadblocks in the way of your future self I think that's the best type of game because if that means that the blame and I sense a bit o. Blame falls on you completely so therefore you you have to think Ok How am I I got to improve again and I think it encourages people to. Yeah to like think about that about how they're playing and come come back again and try again so yeah and I think our game our games they do there is of I mean honestly the way that you will lose the game is all the games fault like like the game spawns new new things to have to get from a to b. If the game stopped stop doing that it'd be fun but yeah I think it does it does for mostly on you for not building a network that was good in the year but I think we helped enough and randomness in there I think people came because I guess there's enough to blame the game for so that it's not always just your fault like that perhaps you don't you don't get a motorway until wait 5 and you're thinking after I had one of 4 it would have been fine but yeah so when did you decide that you were going to start torturing people you've never met with deal with your games how do we get to that place Robert you see markets. I like to think so thank you. Yeah it's it's funny I mean we don't we get people yeah like hate the game but in a nice way like hey they like playing it but being. That person's going Ok. As I said before we didn't so sit it out. With like a feeling in mind when we bought the game the game just sort of fell to gear in the way that it ends Yeah I don't know what about it just makes it seems very calm and peaceful at the start but then it just kind of at some point is kind of like sent to this very panicked. Frenzied in the game so yeah I can't say I did it deliberately. Overall we're all still friends I think of even by the end of it there's definitely something I can completely relate to that sense of panic to that want to hit the pause button and knowing that that isn't the answer but that's the only thing I have because if I'm reading you in that connection between those 2 stations it's going to take moments minutes time inside the game for people to get from a to b. They still want to get from a to b. I can't stop that all I can do so maybe change the way they travel and that that may not be enough Yeah yeah it's honestly it's it has been a hard game for us to really give that give that given up heeds up that something's going wrong and also sort of suggest that that what people might want to but also bringing the game to an end as well is quite a difficult line for us to to balance I think just because. But if we give the player too many tolls it becomes just a bit too easy but then at the same time we'd like don't want them to feel that they have no power to fix anything that's wrong. Bedspring the thing which I think there's been sort of the most back and forth about it in that terms of game balance definitely walking that tightrope many metro was yes yes when you were true was very well regarded the new game many motor White is now behind all inside Apple's arcade Now why did you make that choice and was it what was it then coming to you as you going to them how did it work yeah what Apple approached us awhile ago about it's like a you know because as you said it has it has been highly successful on the App Store so. Yeah they just said what they were hoping to. Achieve with their black Kate and it's like a pretty compelling idea because what I think the thing that we always have when it so I thought here in studio with we've released one was there are now 2 games but at that point when it's one game it's been highly 6 spoke. It completely. Front of the studio and so from our estimates the expo was spent testing but from talking with with many other friends and in again on the community we were the very much the extreme outlier and most paid app developers it wasn't seen as a very sort of breakthrough a viable future so so Apple of course behaves they have seen this and act caters was was was their answer for how to keep the store with what's very interesting at full vibrant games without having to sort of lean into the free to play model and that's not saying and I think for players like Battle wrong I think like like like anything there are very very good information but they're also very. Exploitative about the big games that Apple could see not getting made again so it's thought some of them just don't really support free to play and so they didn't want these to go and so thought hey if we just if we have a subscription thing we can we can have good pictures there and deers then we can actually keep the this kind of games things around so I think in the bigger picture of the industry it seemed like a very good idea that we want to be on board if we could so yeah just pretty much seems seem like wins all around for us really but it was an email from Apple to just sign post the games that I thought were of the quality that people should be looking to buy for the most they believe that they had to to make that step and to be able to get these things that you have to play a full year well I think that had been their strategy for pretty much since it again was was to highlight and the 2 games in vets' I think that did work to some degree but I mean as I said like it it's I think. The Free to Play games had sort of educated as most. Users about how the new games and how to think about games and. It I think paid game game developers were finding it very hard to picture the kind of alternate of you know you can just buy a game and then you don't have any ads or anything and so yeah I do think that they behead experiment with that for you know what's it been 10 years and just found that. I guess in this this obviously was the best option as I'm speaking to you it's 11 o'clock on a Thursday night here in the u.k. And it's 10 o'clock all nearly 1030 years as we're recording this out there New Zealand. New Zealand feels like a long way away but is it a good price to be making games is there a good creative community out there are you are you flying the flag for New Zealand or must Yeah yeah it is I think. Replicating we want to we have 4 games from here and the line up so yeah it is a very. Yes we have got a very loud scandal like an industry so eyes were about the same size as a stray as even though the 5 times as big as we are I think yeah we've got console developers and my brother Gallop is in the. Days of 150 so yeah you're there's a very vibrant vibrant and supportive community here yet but so I think in the last 3 or 4 years we we have seen a bit of the resurgence here as well which has been has been groped the game again . Ali bridge that game was was released that the same the same time many mature wise and Texan made its way by a friend of mine about an hour north of here and so I think that and then our game kind of spilled on a bit of. I guess interest and like the 6 sister Indies came on the world stage and what's the next thing I should look for from a New Zealand developer then when we would you send me next. We've got the game. By a studio up and then called flight Les they're releasing an doomsday bolt on. I don't know when that stuper release but us think it's recently. But still anyone I think that Spain announced we've got a few things in the works but you probably expect a couple of game in that sense for us and mention. Pickpocket as the day they release mini games a yes that's that's always good and you can always expect a new update for. Every 6 months or so I think they're released and. This is studio down and then even then we good friends with runaway play they've got a couple of games coming out in the next 6 to 12 months as well so lots of good stuff on the horizon keep us busy Oh yes. 'd 'd That was Robert curry for Donna so Polo Club and mini motorways is available as part of the app like I did now and will be coming to other formats soon thanks for listening. This. Is 4 o'clock am here with b.b.c. News our top story more details emerge of the reservations about Boris Johnson's price at once and in Smalltalk the captain and goalkeeper he's going to race will be out of action for the rest of the. B.b.c. . Break said talks continue later with European leaders came to reach a final deal by the end of the week the European Commission has concerns about Boris Johnson's proposed changes to the backstop designed to present prevent a hard border between northern Ireland and the Republic as a Brussels correspondent Adam Fleming it would commit both sides to never introduced checks on the Irish border on the surface difficult to argue with but if the storm and assembly is given a veto over the new backstop coming into force and there were no guarantees of what checks the u.k. Would carry out on goods heading to r. And then it's an intolerable loss of control as far as the e.u. Is concerned the Institute for Fiscal Studies says if the leaves the without a deal then government debts will rise to levels not seen since the 1960 s. They are fast as boring could reach almost 100000000000 pounds President Trump has defended his decision to abandon Kurdish forces in northern Syria and withdraw u.s. Troops but says he'll destroy Turkey's economy if Ankara doesn't does anything inhumane Turkey's defense ministry says it's completed preparations for a possible military operation Amanda Sloth's is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution there are American forces operating in a number of places within Syria and so bad things are right there. This is not going to be a total withdrawal of American forces but it is an effort to pull out u.s. Special forces primarily that have been working with the Syrian Kurds to ensure that they are not you know harm's way if the Turkish military does come across the border after that a woman's been taken to hospital with serious injuries after falling from a ride a whole fare on the side Police think she fell from one ride on to the base of another colliding with a teenage boy the woman isn't thought to be in a life threatening condition children being let down by the government's failure to tackle air pollution according to a former chief scientific adviser Professor David King's comments come as new research suggests some kids inhale the equivalent of nearly a packet of cigarettes each week because of pollution Professor Jonathan Greg is from Queen Mary University in London it suppresses the normal growth of lung function it increases the risk of developing severe pneumonia and increases the risk for developing in the fame way as we're concerned about exposing children to passionate direct smoke in cars we should be equally concerned about exposing children to air pollution and girls and Heidi Allen says only the Liberal Democrats now represent the liberal center ground of British politics she's been explaining her decision to join the party which now has 19 M.P.'s at Westminster Alan quit the conservatives earlier this year to become one of the founders of change you can get the sports headlines here is Betty Glover Tottenham will be without their captain for the rest of the year Hugo to reste dislocated his elbow during Saturday's defeat at Brighton suppose say the goalkeeper doesn't require surgery Phil Neville says he does not feel vulnerable as in the women's manager despite the fact his side of failed to win any of their last 5 games the most recent defeat was on Saturday when they lost to want to Brazil in their friendly that on s.s. Play Portugal at 7 pm in Neville says it's a must win game managing director of England men's cricket Ashley Giles says the new head coach Chris Silverwood has a clear understanding of both red and white ball teams need to evolve flanker James Davis says he was shocked to be named in the wild side to face Fiji on Wednesday Davis makes his tournament debut as Joe.