Terra Nil is the breath of cool, fresh air that the city-building genre needs

[ad_1]

So much of the traditional city-builder template revolves around you taking from the land: set up your base, engineer machines to extract resources from the ground, and pave over everything within sight in order to build up your industrial compound. You take from the land, but never give anything back – maybe you’ll sketch out some neatly manicured lawns or public green spaces, but you’re doing it for amenity, not for sustainability. You’re doing it for a better rating, or a happier population, not because you’re trying to give back to the planet that’s supported you and acted as the foundation for all your ambition.

Terra Nil rejects the notion of the city-builder wholeheartedly. Instead, it asks you to do the complete opposite of what you may be used to in genre rivals; rejuvenate, reinvigorate, revive. You land on a dead planet – a place withered and dried and poisoned by the short-sighted industrialisation of a population long since lost – and get to work on making it right again. Whether it’s the tundra, tropical islands, or a dilapidated city, Terra Nil gives you an area of dead earth and says “save it,” no questions asked.

From here, a pattern begins to emerge. You need to breathe life back into your struggling ecosystem in three stages. The first stage always involves you eking some power from the landscape – but there are no fossil fuel-burning factories here, no cooling towers within sight. Instead, you need to figure out what this environment is better at generating for you – are you going to be able to power your toxic scrubbers with wind turbines or geothermal plants, for example?

[ad_2]

Source link