This machine fills areas of dry riverbeds with clean water, and in doing so adds greenery tiles on either side of the riverbed. Once we have spread out from our starting point, converting enough soil to greenery, we unlock the next machine we can utilise, the water pump. We need to add power via wind turbines that can only be placed on rock tiles and then get to work cleaning the soil using toxin scrubbers, followed by irrigators to water the land and convert soil to greenery. In Terra Nil, we start with a tile-based arid landscape in a river valley.

In Cloud Gardens you start with a post-apocalyptic scene, and you plant seeds to have greenery grow over the wasteland objects like signs, a bus, decrepit buildings and so on. The last game that I played where nature restoration was the goal was a 2020 indie title called Cloud Gardens. It becomes more about solving the biome’s requirements like completing a puzzle as opposed to city building, especially because we ultimately need to recycle the buildings we create.

Where normal city builders have you raising cities, this has you purifying the soil, cleaning rivers and oceans, plant forests and balance the climate to reintroduce wildlife and restore one of four biomes back to the way nature intended. It launched on March 28, 2023, on PC and Netflix and is a fascinating and beautiful game that had me lose hours each play session without realising the time. Terra Nil is an eco-conscious city builder developed by Free Lives and published by Devolver Digital.

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