Terra Nil Review (M4F10S0)
Earth Restoration
Earth is destroyed, it’s full of toxins, and all life disappears. You are sent here to return everything back and make Earth green again. First things first, you need electricity to power up a Toxin Scrubber that clears soil and prepares it for an Irrigator that creates grass. The game offers four regions: Temperate, Tropical, Polar and Continental. Each of them has different starting conditions. For example, while in the Temperate region, you can easily build wind turbines on rocks, in the Polar you will have to blow up fissures to create magma, and then you will be able to build a power plant. The game has a nice guide which will teach you everything you need to know.
So when you successfully finish the first phase you can move to the second – create biomes. Again, each region is specific and has its own biomes to make a perfect biodiversity. You will be creating forests, tundras, tropical rainforests, beaches, swamps, corals and more. To achieve perfect conditions in a biome, it is a good idea to complete optional tasks that tell you how high or low the air temperature should be, how much humidity you should have, or how many toxins you should remove. Completing them will give you more leaves, which can be used as currency to build more buildings, or you can summon rain or snow, which will clean every tile on a map and give you a huge amount of leaves. I recommend you complete the optional tasks as they will help you complete your restoration mission.
Once you have created biomes, you can move on to the final stage - life and recycling. Each biome hides animals that you can discover using the Animal Observatory. Most animals require two or more types of biome to be discovered successfully. So, if you build biomes in the wrong places, you won't be able to find them all in one playthrough. It’s ok, you can replay the region, but keep in mind that it will be a little bit different because each map is randomly generated. It won’t be completely different, but some small changes can appear, like repositioned rocks or river bands. To complete your mission you have to find only three species of animals. After that, you can finally build an airship by recycling buildings. You can achieve it by boat, monorail train or later you will unlock a flying drone as well.
After clearing your traces, you can enjoy a nice view of how beautiful the region you created. The game doesn’t have ultra-modern graphics with raytracing, but it has a nice colourful palette and an awesome drawn environment that fits the game perfectly. I call it eye candy visuals. Only one thing can ruin immersion. It's an outline created by Animal Observatory that won’t disappear after closing a popup of a scanned location. It happens only on water, but it’s a little bit distracting when you want to create a nice screenshot or just watch what you have created. I also run into two bugs. First was when I wasn’t able to recycle a building, but returning to main main fixed it and sometimes movement around the map was lagging.
Conclusion
Terra Nill is a perfect candidate for the Sit Back and Relax category at Steam Awards 2023. So to answer the question, if I would recommend the game to you, I can say yes. It’s a nice indie game from Devolver Digital publisher and Free Lives devs. You will get a nice eye candy game that can also teach you something about how climates work. I would like to see some sandbox editor where you will be able to create your own scenery, but I think this is a very good game that will clear your mind.
Terra Nil 8.5/10
🟢 Eye candy visuals
🟢 Sit back and relax
🔴 Some bugs