HECK, OUR OLDEST WOULD PLAY IT FOR TEN YEARS IN THE SAME PAIR OD UNDERWEAR:

Sid Meier, the creator of the Civilization game franchise, tells Mashable there was no way for his team to test a game that spanned 10 years -- a scenario that Reddit user Lycerius posted about on Tuesday.

"I can't say that we ever thought anyone would play a game of Civ for that long," Meier says.

Lycerius posted earlier this week that he had been working on the same Civilization II game gradually for a decade. While the game ends at year 2020 A.D., Lycerius continued playing to 3991 A.D. He described the resulting world as a "hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation," where nuclear war between three superpowers had wiped out most of humanity.

The post was simple, but the response was explosive on Reddit. The subforum created just for this saved game now has hundreds of posts as Redditors create fiction, songs and interpretive dances. It's also inspired many to fire up the 16-year-old game and try to solve Lycerius's post-apocalyptic situation -- or recreate their own.

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