{"id":36409,"date":"2023-12-27T08:19:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T07:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/terra-nil-the-game-where-youre-responsible-for-restoring-nature-to-the-planet\/"},"modified":"2024-06-09T12:57:14","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T11:57:14","slug":"terra-nil-the-game-where-youre-responsible-for-restoring-nature-to-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/terra-nil-the-game-where-youre-responsible-for-restoring-nature-to-the-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Terra Nil, the game where you’re responsible for restoring nature to the planet"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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It was one of the pleasant surprises of 2023 in the world of video games. Instead of creating cities, Terra Nil players are responsible for re-establishing ecosystems and turning the land from gray and brown to green.<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Even if you’re not a video game fan, you may have heard of works like “Sim City” and its successors. The premise of these games is simple: plan a city and make it expand according to the resources available and the needs of the citizens.<\/p>\n

The most recent examples of this kind have placed an increasing emphasis on sustainability and the environment: bad practices result in poor well-being for the inhabitants and increased costs caused by climate change. Terra Nil takes these rules and throws them out the window.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Developed by Free Lives, a South African team based in Cape Town, this game is described by its creators as a “city builder in reverse”. However, this characterization \u2014 designed to promote Terra Nil to fans of the games described above \u2014 doesn’t live up to the premise.<\/p>\n

Despite the zen and colorful atmosphere, the players are in charge of recovering a destroyed ecosystem, having to plan their steps according to the tools at their disposal. For example, in one of the first levels, you have to transform a desolate and ecologically devastated land into a verdant valley. How? First, you have to install a wind turbine and toxin scrubbers to turn the desert soil into fertile land.<\/p>\n

As you install these tools, you’ll earn points for the next steps: these can include causing explosions to create streams that will give way to rivers, or even doing controlled burns in a savannah, for example, so that the ashes act as fertilizer to create a forest. The end result should be an unscathed ecosystem, with the animals as residents.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The critical reaction has been positive, but with a few caveats: some steps are linear and restrictive, meaning that if the player doesn’t make the right choice, they’ll have to backtrack in a logic of trial and error. This is where Terra Nil departs from the formula of traditional city builders, as there is not total freedom of choice. Perhaps that’s why it’s best to consider this a puzzle game.<\/p>\n

One of the most curious facets of Terra Nil is that the player is supposed to leave no human trace in the created landscape. Well, that would be impossible with all the machinery needed to achieve this result. That’s why the ultimate goal is to use drones to collect everything \u2014 it’s as if we’d never been there.<\/p>\n

“In many construction games, such as Factorio, the world is generated as you explore it and it’s infinite. It doesn’t matter how much you dig; as the game is about building factories, there will always be more minerals. Our game has a philosophy of limited resources. The map always stays the same size. The game requires you to balance the various types of flora, and you can’t win by creating only forests or swamps.” team leader Sam Alfred told<\/a> WIRED magazine.<\/p>\n

That’s why this is a game that, despite using the same formula, is the antithesis of games like Sim City: if in those instances, the aim is to expand the human on the natural landscape, here it’s to minimize it to the absolute.<\/strong> In fact, as The Escapist denotes<\/a> in their review of Terra Nil, there is a dark side to this game: in one of the maps you have to transform a devastated city into a natural landscape. In other words, it’s implicit in the game that the climate apocalypse has arrived and that what the player is doing is cleaning up the debris.<\/p>\n

Terra Nil doesn’t propose solutions to the climate crisis, it’s supposed to be a relaxing experience that allows “players to feel like gardeners, bringing life back to a dead place”, as Alfred tells WIRED. However, he also doesn’t deny the game’s purpose as a political statement, especially when this is an industry that depends on the extraction of rare metals \u2014 for consoles and computer graphics cards, for example \u2014 and given that many other games are already starting to address the issue, albeit timidly.<\/p>\n

“It’s impossible for a game to be truly apolitical. Presenting it as such is, in fact, a political position. I think the [de programa\u00e7\u00e3o] studios know this, but it’s much easier for an indie [est\u00fadio] to comment on issues like this,” he says.<\/p>\n

Sam Alfred, moreover, suggested to the same magazine ways in which games \u2014 especially construction games \u2014 should address the issues of climate change and sustainability. “Making the mechanics of exploiting the natural world much more punitive. For example, pollution causing a layer of smog that has intensely negative effects on citizens, unless they have gas masks, which are very expensive,” he pointed out. On the other hand, they can “reward players for having sustainable approaches. Punish intensive farming, reward soil maintenance. The best way to get players interested in these themes is to make the game mechanics reflect them,” he says.<\/p>\n

Off-screen, Terra Nil has also taken steps towards sustainability. Together with the Tree Nation project, the launch of the game resulted in the planting of<\/a> 48873 trees in South Africa, which was achieved with the collaboration of 50 streamers who donated part of their profits for this purpose<\/strong>. In addition, 8% of the profits from the sale of the game on the Steam platform went to<\/a> the Endangered Wildlife Trust, resulting in a total of 95 thousand dollars.<\/p>\n

The game is available to play on Windows and iOS operating systems and in mobile format, but you can also play it on the Nintendo Switch. What’s more, it’s available to download free of charge for Netflix subscribers.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Author: Ant\u00f3nio Moura dos Santos<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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His dream was to be a rock star, but journalism is just as fulfilling. He has knocked on restaurant doors for Zomato, worked in the newsrooms of SAPO24 and NiT and is now working freelance from the same Lisbon city that birthed him., He has a master's degree in History that has been left half-finished, just like the 20 books he's trying to read at the same time. He arrived at Peggada with the conviction that there is a lot we can do for the planet.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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You can see more of Ant\u00f3nio's writings here.<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t
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Related articles<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Sustainable Development Goals<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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This article addresses an action that promotes the adoption of urgent measures to fight climate change and its impacts<\/strong>. SDG 13 also aims to improve education on climate change mitigation and impact reduction.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"\u27a1\ufe0f\" To discover businesses that are actively working to contribute to this Sustainable Development Goal, click here<\/a>.<\/h5>\n
\"\u27a1\ufe0f\" To read news, interviews or tips related to this Goal, click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\u27a1\ufe0f Want to know more about the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals? Click here<\/a><\/h5>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tClick here<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was one of the pleasant surprises of 2023 in the world of video games. Instead of creating cities, Terra Nil players are responsible for re-establishing ecosystems and turning the land from gray and brown to green. Even if you’re not a video game fan, you may have heard of works like “Sim City” and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[540,2894],"tags":[3602,674,3008,3009,3660,3661],"class_list":["post-36409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-projects","tag-antonio-moura-dos-santos-en","tag-planet","tag-sdg-13","tag-sustainable-development-goal-13","tag-terra-nil-en","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peggada.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}