It seems that global warming worries many developers because we have had several games in which you have to restore the natural cycle or preserve nature. Terra Nil, developed by Free Lives (Broforce) and published by Devolver Digital, goes further than all the others. The game claims to be an inverted city-builder. No, the buildings are not on the roof. The game begins at the end, ie after industrialization, and the player's objective is to return to virgin territory.
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Initially, we are left with an arid land, randomly generated, deserted by all forms of life.
A few tools are at our disposal to start recreating a virtuous circle. The first step is to use the mountains to put wind turbines on them. The electricity generated operates toxin suppressors, which purify the earth. It is in these clean areas that the irrigators settle, which brings back the vegetation. The proximity of wind turbines is also necessary for irrigators, who bring water into the canyons. The streams are essential and can be redirected to new channels created with an excavator. Rivers that are used to create mountains thanks to the calcifier. Mountains that welcome new wind turbines, to cover new areas, and bring purification and vegetation... I think you can see the cycle taking shape!
Everything can seem very simple said like that. Perhaps borderline off-putting. But it is nothing. Okay, the concept is simple, but using each tool costs a special currency, which is earned for each terrain tile assigned a positive action. The objective is therefore to maximize the impact of each machine through optimal placement. Which is far from being so obvious as it seems.
Then, once a certain percentage of land has come back to life, the second stage is unlocked, with new machines, for even more interactions. From there, the fields become forests, in which the bees flourish, which make the fields bloom. Except that it is necessary beforehand to fertilize the ground by fire, bringing to install a solar amplifier. From there it's all about balance, you need a certain amount of each biome to be able to move on to the next stage (field, forest and water, as can be seen on the screenshot interface above) . Also involved is a research center, which around it reduces the size of the excavator (which is convenient because, by default, it is not very beautiful, and above all very large) and the costs of certain machines.
Ultra simple in its mechanisms, Terra Nil reveals a rare ingenuity. I don't know if he will be able to convince in the long term and constantly renew the means of acting on the flora, but the start is very promising. And, rather than continuing to write, I invite you to test the game for yourself thanks to its free demo offered on Steam. You will be able to better appreciate the simple difficulty of Terra Nil. No release date for the moment, however, so we will have to be content with it and wait...
