The $200 Billion Video Game Industry Is a Climate Opportunity
"#TerraNil by Free Lives, a #gaming studio in South Africa, is a city-building strategy game. The studio first tried to make a fun game, and then they thought about how to make this relevant for #ClimateChange. That’s really smart. Especially for games, it has to be fun. Then you get people’s attention and can reach them and tell them about things that maybe they haven’t thought about."
[E] It's a great feeling to have restored the landscape in a concentrated effort and to have recycled the necessary tools. Floating over the rescued piece of nature in an airship, leaving only nature behind. Love this constructive game.
[D]Es ist ein tolles Gefühl, die Landschaft in konzentrierter Arbeit renaturiert und die dafür notwendigen Maschinen recycled zu haben. Im Luftschiff über das gerettete Stück Natur hinwegzuschweben, nur Natur bleibt zurück.
[€] #TerraNil is a strategy game in which the aim is to renaturalise poisoned wasteland and then withdraw from this region by airship after recycling the necessary infrastructure. Not easy!
[D] #TerraNil ist ein Strategiespiel, bei dem es darum geht, vergiftetes Ödland zu renaturieren und sich dann nach Recycling der dazu benötigten Infrastruktur per Luftschiff aus diesem Landstrich zurückzuziehen. Nicht einfach!
I played #Satisfactory recently. I really like it. And I like games like #Spacechem (haven't played #Factorio, but I think it is cool).
Many say it is essentially #programming. And since I'm a #programmer, I naturally love this kind of stuff.
But I can't play them for too long.
Why?
Because I develop software, it's my day job. And develop more as pet projects occasionally. Idea of sinking hundreds of hours more into a game like that repels me.
Since I've been rambling about time-wasters, particularly the factory builders, lately, I actually know a game in a similar genre that, despite being short and a bit buggy, actually feels fulfilling.
Terra Nil. It brings satisfaction in a sense that you apply your technological effort to transform a wasteland into a self-sustaining biological ecosystem.
I just discovered that if you have an active Netflix subscription you can install and play Terra Nil for no additional charge.
"Terra Nil is a game about transforming a barren, lifeless landscape into a thriving, vibrant ecosystem. Turn dead soil into fertile grassland, clean polluted oceans, plant sprawling forests, and create the ideal habitat for animals to call home."
Terra Nil is a game about transforming a barren, lifeless landscape into a thriving, vibrant ecosystem. Revitalize a barren wasteland. #TerraNil
If you play on #macOS with #ParallelsDesktop and the graphic is broken: Here is the fix.
Recently a friend pointed out that there is no #solarpunk#cityPlanning#game , as in: one which wouldn't give you urban areas to rewild ( #TerraNil ) or a build from scratch, but an existing, flawed human city which would need to be redesigned and reorganized for #sustainability and #climatechange .
I understand how hard it would be to create such #games , but I think it would be very inspirational, especially with multiple realistic scenarios.
I'm not one for "New Year's resolutions", but I am one for overly ambitious projects.
For 2023, Project365 is "One New Game Per Day".
Given that I have 634 unplayed games in my Steam account and {mumble} unredeemed bundle Steam keys, there's a reason my unplayed collection is tagged "Pile of Shame".
I'll pin this to my profile, and give a brief summary here each day (or x, if I miss x days due to work or stuff).
I'll play 15-30 minutes of (at least) one new game I've never played before (or played less than 15 minutes of). I'll give every game at least 15 minutes, even if I hate every minute of it.
I'm also open to suggestions; if you reply to this thread with a game, I'll schedule it, or tell you what I thought of it.
One of the things that's come up is that I have a bunch of games that I've played once, and not touched again.
Apr 8, 2023 - Day 98 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 105
Game: Terra Nil
Platform: Steam PC
Release Date: Mar 29, 2023
Library Date: Apr 7, 2023
Unplayed: 1d
Playtime: 3.3h
I first played the Terra Nil demo about 9 months ago during the Steam Next Fest.It had a lot of rough edges, but it was quite charming, and there was definitely something there.
It was released on the 29th of March; it then popped up as part of Fanatical's Easter sale.
Take a dash of ADHD, a touch of exhaustion, and a habit of buying new games as a coping mechanism; shake them all up, and I found myself the owner of both Dredge & Terra Nil (there went my savings towards a new motherboard).
Terra Nil is an "environmental strategy game". You find yourself in the middle of a wasteland, with the job of terraforming the land to restore the biomes and biodiversity that are long gone, and finally removing all traces of civilisation.
While Dredge is "cozy horror", Terra Nil is just cozy. There are challenges to achieve during the rewilding process, but there are no threats, no impending doom, just a delightful experience of watching a dead wasteland brought to glorious life, accompanied by a delightful soundtrack that seems to slowly fill in as you move towards the goal.
It did not feel like 3 hours had passed; Terra Nil is: