The second step sees you creating a balance of different biomes: in the temperate region, you’ll need to cultivate grasslands, forests, and marshlands, while the tropical region you’ll need beaches and mangrove forests. The first phase of reclamation involves restoring life to the soil and/or the ocean by utilizing toxin scrubbers and irrigators, until you’ve got enough of the place back to a pleasant green and blue. When you complete a step, you unlock a new tier of building that allows you to proceed with the next tier of habitat reconstuction. There’s something very satisfying about seeing the plants and animals return to what was a dull, dead landscape 10 minutes priorĮach new randomly generated wasteland you set out to restore starts barren and polluted, and you go through three distinct steps to “reclaim” the wasteland.

It’s a clever subversion of the standard city building gameplay loop, since instead of planning for growth, you instead must plan for the eventual recycling of every structure you place. It’s not just in-game that you’ll be helping out cute little deer, however - Free Lives is donating 8% of the profits from Terra Nil Steam sales to another South African org, the Endangered Wildlife Trust charity.ĭespite initially looking like another city builder, Terra Nil is anything but - it’s really more of a puzzle game, and the final win condition of each map is removing everything you’ve built so that only the newly restored natural ecosystem remains. Terra Nil sees you turning a wasteland into a lush, verdant paradise by plunking down devices to detoxify and irrigate the soil, carve new rivers, and otherwise restore the planet for a wide variety of plant and animal life. Fortunately, there’s a way you can both pretend to clean up the planet and also actually help endangered species, in Terra Nil.ĭeveloped by South African developer Free Lives, their latest game is something of a departure from previous titles like Genital Jousting and Broforce, both in gameplay and in tone. The garbage patch in the Pacific, disappearing pollinators, the huge blob of seaweed approaching the coast of Florida - it’s looking rough for the flora and fauna on planet Earth, and it’s frustrating to feel helpless about it. Following current ecological developments can be pretty depressing.

Terra nil gameplay