I was really enjoying this game, up until the mountain level. I don't know if I'm just being stupid or what, but there just aren't ever enough trees to create all the flower fields required.
I struggled with this too! After only just beating it, vfqd told me about a strategy that makes it significantly easier. I don't want to spoil it for you if you want to figure it out for yourself though!
You only need a small piece of fynbos to start a fire, so if you plan your excavators so that they either just cut off one tree, or that a tree creates fynbos across a river, you can use that little piece as a firestarter for forests while keeping all of the rest of the fynbos for biodiversity.
This way you're not using up the existing trees for forests, and any new trees that you get from the Arboretum can also potentially be used for beehives.
Another possible approach I've found to work is to leave unscrubbed wasteland around the edge of the tiles that will become forest, then build new scrubbers/greenhouses on the margin around the forest after the placing the arboretums. You need to plan ahead a little to make sure you can actually get power to those parts but otherwise its quite simple and can give quite a lot of tiles for fynbos.
Found this while exploring itch.io, I love it, really calm an relaxing, ultra light and really adictive, beautifull pixelart an art style, i´m just on stage 2, but it really catched me up
The UI is broken on ultra-wide screen (3440x1440) for the panel where you choose terrain in main menu. Top bit of it is not visible as it is off screen. The "Welcome to Terra Nil" has the "0% of 50%" circle over the text, again probably cause of the alignment. Popup/tooltip for the bottom-left circle, again off-screen.
You need to test the game against ultra-wide. In Unity you can add new resolutions to test in the aspect ratio drop-down in game view.
More and more people have access to these kinds of resolutions so you need to either add support for it or you need to lock the game res to aspect ratios you designed for so that we have black borders on sides when game will not work well on ultra-wide.
Sorry we overlooked this! Until an update's released that has better resolution-independent support, you can run the game using command line parameters to force a 16:9 (windowed?) aspect ratio.
(Whenever I do this for something I might use often, I make a shortcut to the executable and the command line parameters to the shortcut's properties.)
e.g. TerraNil.exe -screen-height 1920 -screen-width 1080
think the game has softlocked because I'm at stage 3, and the game says I'm 65% of the way through recycling... but there's absolutely nothing left. At all.
Not sure if you're aware of this, but when you try to launch the game on Windows 10 it throws a Windows Smart Screen error and tries to prevent you from launching the game. I've done a bit of research after encountering this error before, and it's apparently a problem with Unity games that have a custom icon. For some reason Windows flags the icon as a security risk.
waterpumps are a bit glitchy when you use the undo button, i've watched my riverbeds fill up more than they ought to be after an undo before.
adore the game. i wish there was an option to start from latter stages of restoration when replaying a level - with like, maybe suboptimal map states for balance? i've been stuck on mountain for ages and am considering going back to floodplain baby land so that i can see all the charming animals again.
This is a wonderful game, the most incisive take on builder mechanics I've seen. A few bits of feedback, most of which echo things other players have said:
* Resource-based failure detection has a pretty reliable false positive when building a greenhouse near 0 that nets you enough to keep playing. See attached screenshot below.
* I'm finding I often run out of trees before I reach the pollination goal in phase 2, and the game doesn't offer any guidance as to how I can build in this or the prior phase to avoid this. All the other mechanics offer pretty clear built-in learning experiences like, "arrange your rivers and wetlands carefully to contain fires", whereas I don't really know what I can do to earn myself some breathing room for the tree+bees goal. It's possible I'm missing some point of strategy here though.
* The "continue" button on the game failure dialog doesn't seem to do anything.
* The "exit" button should ask for confirmation, and/or its caption should be amended to clarify that it means exiting the game entirely.
Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you're enjoying the game! I've interestingly found beehives to be the easiest in testing. Maybe for the purposes of your playthrough, try placing them before doing a burn or the hydroponiums. But in a more general sense, I'll think about your feedback and how I can incorporate it, thanks!
beautiful pixelart, relaxing music, and a surprisingly amount of strategy involved. overall a very nice experience. i also really like the emphasis on cleaning up after the restoration. great work, vfqd!
Hello there! Great game so far, however, I have trouble accessing the full UI. I'm on a 32:9 screen (bit niche, I know). Is there a way to start it in 16:9 windowed mode?
Haven't tested on any other operating systems, but as a workaround, the game respects the Unity standalone player command line arguments on Linux (I use them to launch in windowed mode) https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CommandLineArguments.html
The relevant arguments are -screen-fullscreen, -screen-height, -screen-width
Hello, devs! Are you planning to translate your beautiful game to different languages? If so, i'd like to help you with the translation to Russian language.
What a nice game! I like it. I'd been looking for something non-violent :^) I'm having trouble with saving, though :^( I can't click 'continue' after reloading the game, even after completing the first stage, and if I 'return to menu' and then re-enter a stage, all my progress is erased. Help??? Thanks!
No worries, thanks! Btw, in case any more info is helpful, I'm playing on Linux and basically just dumped the game files all in one place and am running the Terra_Nill.x86_64 executable directly in the terminal. Also, I think after playing a bit longer, the game is correct saving that I have completed level 1 even after I re-load the game, and while I'm playing the game, I can return to menu and then hit 'continue' to pick up where I left off. However, if I re-load the game before completing a level, that's where I seem to not be able to hit 'continue.' Best wishes with your game.
Oh hey, you used my friend's idea for different sets of Stage 2 biomes per map! Cool!
It's great to see the progress from version 0.3 to 0.4, kind of like the sense of growth while playing the game itself :)
A minor observation - on the earlier maps, once I get to Stage 3, if I have enough money I'll skip directly to fixing the weather and avoid all the cargo shipping. Which is a shame, I like the cargo boats and the stages of cleanup; I played a recent game and used them just for fun. That might be because there's too much money, but I'm not sure that should be reduced. Instead, maybe gate the weather systems behind 50% rocket completion? That makes them basically a separate stage, though. I dunno, just throwing an idea out there.
I saw a previous person request additional replayability of some kind. That seems like a sensible idea, although I don't know how you'll do it. But, hey, before playing this game I wouldn't have imagined an environmental city builder either. As a random idea, maybe on some levels you have to generate power in other ways from wind turbines? Solar panels? Geothermal vents? Water power? No idea if that's the right direction to expand towards, though, and I love the interactions already.
- Only one conveyance port can be connected to the rocket pad, which caught me by surprise once on the Peninsula map.
- For some reason, when undoing a move sometimes the water pumps will spread water out further than before undoing the move. Not sure why or how to reproduce it - might be related to putting water pumps on elevated ground?
- If you put a Dessicator on a single tile of fynbos, with no other fynbos within range, the Dessicator is destroyed and turned to ash, but no fire starts. Also, the nearby Solar Amplifier will leave a continuous ray of light pointing at where the Dessicator was.
Hey! As always, thanks for your wonderfully detailed comments :)
Yeah we found that changing the way the tier 2 biomes are introduced really helped the difficulty curve :)
It's not necessarily a problem if you can go straight to restoring the weather if you know what you're doing. It's not going to be that easy for first time players. But we'll think about alternative ways to gate it.
We're also interested in exploring other power options like you mentioned, more on that another time though.
As for the bugs, thanks for those!
Glad you've been enjoying the game and hope to see you around some more <3
First off, I have greatly enjoyed this game, and have but roughtly 6 hours in so far.
There is one thing that is slightly annoying, even though it is my fault - a few times now I have finished a map and hit "exit" which takes me back to the desktop, when I intended to go back to the menu. This is my mistake and a mild inconvenience, but I notice that my games do not save when I do this - the map is as if I never played it. I was somewhat surprised the game did not save your state when the requirements for the map were finished.
Great game! Makes you think while not being super stressful, and the visual/sound design is very good!
However, I seem to have run into an issue on the 2nd stage, where the building that (I assume) would allow me to place/create an arid biome is just... Not appearing in the buildings tab? It's a very vexing problem, as I see it in others' screenshots.
10/10 in all other aspects though!
ETA: Closing and restarting the game knocked it out of it's mild fuge and allowed progression, so I'm left assuming the building was just not needed for that stage.
In version 0.4, the developer changed things such that different maps require different biomes. So, you might not see all buildings and all biomes during stage 2.
This game got me hooked for hours, and still counting! It is generally relaxing, the music and ambience. The changes in the environment as you do things is amazing. Tier 3 is gorgeous! Everything is beautiful, and I'm in love with this game!
However, I have found a bug where recycling drones do not return resources/currency from beacons when the delta of the beacon is less than or equal to zero. (The number shown above the beacon before placing it)
This has caused me to lose what was seemingly a winning round, because I did not get refunded the resources from recycled structures.
That being said, please keep up the good work!
Edit: Additionally, some hitboxes tend to get hidden behind cliffs; for example, I can't place a beehive on a tree that is right behind a cliff.
Managed to clear the game on Normal, with a final score of 25707. I might try Hard mode sometimes...
This game is stunning in its simplicity and (now) balance between relaxing and strategy. I also love that the maps are dynamically generated, which adds to replayability! This is honestly one of my favourite games on itch, and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.
Constructive Criticism:
I do second TemplarFreak's note about the fyrnbos, I've definitely had to restart a level because there weren't enough trees.
I also think that the green color for the outline of valid tiles and the text makes it blend in to the point of illegibility--maybe a yellow would be better?
Not sure if they're concerned about this, but yellows and reds should be avoided in a use-case like this because they're less colorblind accessible for such a vital feature. They also don't really satisfy as much as a green or blue. I don't totally subscribe to the theory that colors have a heavy impact on how you play and how you feel while playing a game but I think there is some merit to it.
Really enjoy this game, great vibe the later tier takes a little getting used too (get the weather system going asap or you'll go bankrupt) Feels a lot like 'islanders'. But I can't progress past the mountain as, my native resolution is not supported and the play button is off screen(ultra wide 3440x1440).
This game is really solid, but I think a few things are really holding it back. It could do with some speed controls and a bit more consistent world generation. The Fynbos biome is also tricky and a pain in the ass to work with. Some kind of automatic failure detection would also help a lot. A way to restart the map immediately would be a nice addition. I do have a few balance complaints with the game, as well.
At some points on that last level upwards of 40 to 50% of the land would be completely inaccessible. This is due to some of the land spawning as tiny islands. There is also a lot of water. That makes it EXTREMELY tight and a MASSIVE difficulty jump. Under some circumstances, this can also make it impossible if you make a single mistake. You won't be able to reclaim land from burnt buildings, so you won't be able to achieve the right biome balance.
Speed controls would also be nice for when you're waiting for the drone to move around or for rain to start. It takes quite a while for that drone to move around a big map, and rain seems to be on a reliable cycle but a long one. If you want to maximize points by relying on rain, it takes a long time. So if the game could speed up, that would help both of those a ton.
Next, the tree distribution is pretty unreliable. A good distribution would have most of the map covered. Most of the time, that's not the case. This makes working with the Fynbos Biome a lot more tricky than seems intended. It's such a vital and fundamental biome, it seems like it should be more accessible like Wetlands. You have to be very careful to create tiny forests by building an Arboretum while a fire is still burning. Due to that, it instead becomes the hardest ones to meet that coverage goal.
The failure conditions are a bit obnoxious. The game doesn't seem to have any way of detecting if you're in an unwinnable state. On top of this, with no easy and quick way to restart the map, this becomes tiresome pretty fast. There needs to be some way the game communicates to the player better about this. Or the game could have a handier restart function, that doesn't need exiting to the main menu.
What buildings are available can also be a tad strange. Like, Conveyor Ports and Deconstruction Pylons. Why do these need to exist? They seem to only kind of pad the game. If Steam Plants, Hangers, Beacons, and Seed Launchers were cheaper, there'd be no point to them. They seem to only provide you with a way to build money back up in the event you exit Tier 2 with only a few hundred points. This would not be necessary if these other Tier 3 buildings were cheaper.
As for as bugs go, the game is pretty solid. I only found a few. One is due to the isometry of the game. Trying to place things behind cliffs, for instance. The only other issue I found is that sometimes fields will regenerate themselves. Using undo after you've placed a Toxin Scrubber, the fields it cleaned sometimes stay cleaned. I definitely abused this on occasion, it was rarely handy but it did help once or twice. There was very minor UI problems too, but they were very few and far between and not very problematic. They may not even be worth mentioning, as I kind of only stumbled across them by accident.
All that said, those are pretty much my ONLY complaints with this game. There is a lot of clever ideas in here. For instance, with how biomes appear naturally distributed. Simply due to the game's mechanics. Fynbos on the outskirts of forests, wetlands that cluster around rivers. The base generated world having rivers that usually flow from high elevations. Rocks that tend to coalesce around the riverbeds due to your water wheels. It all looks pretty right. The only weird thing is arid plateaus. There should instead be proper rain shadows. I guess that would be too time consuming and resource intensive for the goals of this game, though.
It is also very mechanically satisfying. Other than the few problems I've mentioned, this is a very refined and robust city builder, with a very neat twist. One that I haven't seen exactly before. If this were made into a fuller game or had a more realized sequel, I would definitely buy it. Especially if it had a more roguelike stylization to the gameplay. Where there would be a reason to play it over and over again, because I kind of already want to. There isn't good enough reasons as it stands to do that, though, which is disappointing. I hope this game sees a lot of success. It definitely deserves it!
I've been a bit intimidated about the length of your comment so I haven't replyed to it for a while, sorry about that :D
I agree that the top end of the maps are probably too difficult, and that simply having less available space is not the best way to tweak difficulty, it's something we're aware of.
There is an automatic failure detection system but it's been overly enthusiastic in the past so I've dialed it back, maybe too much.
Speed controls are a fair point as well.
It's interesting to me that you have struggled with the fynbos boime, maybe it's something we need to look into. With our playtesting, the starting trees are almost always enough to get you most of the way there to completing fynbos. I can also look at tree distribution.
The earlier tier 3 buildings are supposed to introduce the idea of recycling and allow a more gradual understanding for new players (they only have to deal with a few buildings once they reach tier 3). Tier 3 is kind of trivial though so it might be something we look into.
I'm really pleased to hear you found the game so mechanically and visually pleasing. We've really put a lot of time and love into those parts of the game, so hearing that players can see it is awesome.
Thanks so much for your feedback, I hope you continue to enjoy the game and I see you around in future <3
Sorry for such a long post, but I just had a lot to say.
At some points, it almost kind of feels more like a classical RTS with a city builder twist just because of how satisfying the "sprawling out" nature of the game is kind of reminiscent of Zerg Creep or Command & Conquer. You odn't normally see this kind of restricted land usage in a City Builder, they usually just let you go full nuts with it and expect you to know where to place things. I think that also makes this game pretty accessible but with a lot of room for players to make their own decisions on the fly.
For Fynbos I don't think it's necessarily that there aren't enough trees, its the distribution can be wacky sometimes. On pretty much all the times on that last level that there were tiny inaccessible islands, there was at least a tree on one of them that could have been on the mainland. Sometimes, trees will also get a bit clustered instead of spread out across the map. Those tend to be the biggest problems, and a few times it made one or two whole corners of that map completely inaccessible normally without tricky and clever timing with arboretums.
You could literally only have like, 4, or 5, trees on the entire map and as long as they are all in the right positions that's more then enough. That could also provide another way people could make a different kind of pleasant-looking reclaimed wastelands, by having a thin stretch of forest that goes everywhere instead of one big cluster.
I must say this is one of the most gorgeous and peaceful games I've played. Thank you for making it! You might consider distributing this on GOG once it is done, I believe the people there are going to love it. (I will also gladly pay for it on GOG, you deserve it).
Saw it on YT and I love it, thanks for that really nice experience. I especially love the rain and the way you end up with a fully green map once all the human clutter is reclaimed at the end!
Now stuck on the island trying to green it again :'D Hope you have as much fun developing it as I enjoyed playing it. Awesome job, get on with it! (Sent a little incentive to you ;) )
Love this game! Already spent a good few hours of concentration working through the first two maps! Very good and fun! Thank you so much for making this game, in all it’s relaxation.
I have been having trouble with the third map, stuck on tier II and unable to move past. It says I need wetlands but there are no structures available to make any? There also appears to be empty text-boxes, so it may be my computer having an issue, and not the game itself.
I hope this is visible! From the bottom corner it looks like I still need something to move forward, but I have green checkmarks under all the structures I have. (Also I'm not sure if there are supposed to be visible titles in the empty boxes)
Hi, I wanted first of all to thank you for this game! Very nice and relaxing, reclaiming the wasteland with an atmospheric music background is truly a zen experience.
Secondly, I wanted to report a small bug in the 0.40 version, where undoing an action causes a reload of the map (this is probably WAI, though a bit annoying), after which "DEBUG TEXT" is visible in the top right corner.
I tried grabbing a screenshot for posterity but it came up blank. It should be easy to reproduce anyway.
I noticed the same "DEBUG TEXT" message in the top right corner right after launching a new game for the third map. I don't remember seeing it on previous levels, so perhaps it's something to do with the third map.
Speaking of which, I'm a bit stuck on the third map. A frustrating element IMHO is the need for greenery to plant beehives: trees seem to spawn at random around farmland, so you can't plan around that, and arboretums require fynbos flowers to already be present so it can turn into a bit of circular dependency.
Hey! Thanks for the feedback. The circular dependency is definitely on purpose :) maybe try burning an adjacent area to the starting forest (for a new forest) and using the starting trees for fynbos
I was curious because I saw the fire in the picture. I wonder how that came about? This is a simple strategy game. I like pixel style games. It's good to play games with music in the background. The only pity for me was that there was so little to play with.
Same issue. I get a dialog that just says "The application "Terra Nil.app" can't be opened. I think it is related to system lockdowns introduced in this version of macos, but also could be if it's 32bit app for some reason. Suspect answer will be very similar to https://itch.io/post/1666042. Edit: tried it and it was the same.
A great game and a fresh update giving the players some sense of completion. However, I would like to report a bug. On the OSX version I do not see the amount of money I am having (the number is not displayed at all). Also, when running the game my laptop enters the cooking mode (ventilators at max and the temperature still increases).
And a feature request: there should be some information about the key mappings. Ideally, it should be possible to change the keybindings. I had to press all the keys until I found that R rotates the area of the greenhouse. Also, on a German keyboard (qwertz) the keys for zoom in and out (Z and X) are not next to each other.
Hey, just tried the new version 0.4, again on MacOS 10.14.6 and I still have problems with seeing the amount of currency I have (see screenshot). Otherwise, I LOVE the direction that this game is going. It was a great relaxing game and it gets better. Keep up the good work!
This game is incredible. Fresh and truly unique. Beautiful theme and colourful graphics make it really relaxing. Great job! One thing to consider during development is the difficulty curve. Tier I is most difficult, and then II and especially III is a formality - hard to mess up. Secondly, once I mastered tier I in the first and second map, all other maps proven to be easy. The first 2 maps I had to restart many times, second two - did it first go. The last one will most likely be similar. The game needs something to flatten the difficulty spike at the beginning and provide extra challenge in the end game. My gut feeling would be providing more undo levels, and adding more complexity to tier II and III requirements.
Thank you! It's really interesting that you found tier 2 so easy, I agree that tier 3 is easy but most players struggle with tier 2. Why did you have such difficulty on tier 1?
Tier 1 has this "do it right or die" situation. One misplaced river or calcifier and you run out of money. You have some, but not nearly enough to correct your mistake, and a single undo does you no good. You are stuck and need to restart. Before you learn to be efficient you fail several times. On the other hand, once you literally lay the ground work and cover a decent chunk of the land with reclaimed area it is cash out time. You can start with placing bee hives for a big chunk of money for example. You also get the lab, that enables cheap tools to fix small issues. At tier 3 you are even less locked in because you get the ability to recycle buildings... and so on. :) The game gets more forgiving the later it gets so I guess it is "hard to learn easy to master" :D Anyway it is great fun and thank you again for creating it. Pledged 5$ :)
I've been a fan since the Jam version. Having played the current version 0.31 from the previous version, I'm astounded at the transformation of the game's purpose into a system that is more geared towards completion! I like terraforming games like Sim-Earth where you can make lush, green, life inhabitable from barren land.
I've played through the entire MAP. The only change seemed to be in how efficiently you can produce in a small area of land, as what you can do with these things remains the same on every map. If you plan to add new MAPs, I'm hoping for ideas that will change the play style, such as environments with limited natural energy available.
I am reporting a bug that disrupts the game balance. Keys 1-3 are convenient shortcuts to each tier facility selection, and this operation can be used in any development stage. The image shows a rocket silo built and rained on, which is now environment complete.
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*reverse factorio*
Android version?
Not at the moment!
is it planned
Not right now but that could change in the future
I was really enjoying this game, up until the mountain level. I don't know if I'm just being stupid or what, but there just aren't ever enough trees to create all the flower fields required.
I struggled with this too! After only just beating it, vfqd told me about a strategy that makes it significantly easier. I don't want to spoil it for you if you want to figure it out for yourself though!
Please do tell, I have absolutely no interest in slamming my head against this wall anymore.
You only need a small piece of fynbos to start a fire, so if you plan your excavators so that they either just cut off one tree, or that a tree creates fynbos across a river, you can use that little piece as a firestarter for forests while keeping all of the rest of the fynbos for biodiversity.
This way you're not using up the existing trees for forests, and any new trees that you get from the Arboretum can also potentially be used for beehives.
Another possible approach I've found to work is to leave unscrubbed wasteland around the edge of the tiles that will become forest, then build new scrubbers/greenhouses on the margin around the forest after the placing the arboretums. You need to plan ahead a little to make sure you can actually get power to those parts but otherwise its quite simple and can give quite a lot of tiles for fynbos.
I really love this game. It is clam, relaxing & addictive.
Thank you!
Found this while exploring itch.io, I love it, really calm an relaxing, ultra light and really adictive, beautifull pixelart an art style, i´m just on stage 2, but it really catched me up
Thank you :)
The UI is broken on ultra-wide screen (3440x1440) for the panel where you choose terrain in main menu. Top bit of it is not visible as it is off screen. The "Welcome to Terra Nil" has the "0% of 50%" circle over the text, again probably cause of the alignment. Popup/tooltip for the bottom-left circle, again off-screen.
You need to test the game against ultra-wide. In Unity you can add new resolutions to test in the aspect ratio drop-down in game view.
More and more people have access to these kinds of resolutions so you need to either add support for it or you need to lock the game res to aspect ratios you designed for so that we have black borders on sides when game will not work well on ultra-wide.
You misspelled "could" a few times. Other than that, pretty legit.
Seconded! I would love to fully explore this game but cannot
Sorry we overlooked this! Until an update's released that has better resolution-independent support, you can run the game using command line parameters to force a 16:9 (windowed?) aspect ratio.
(Whenever I do this for something I might use often, I make a shortcut to the executable and the command line parameters to the shortcut's properties.)
e.g. TerraNil.exe -screen-height 1920 -screen-width 1080
Hi. I'm trying to play on OSX, but the downloaded version says it can't be opened. Can you help me with this?
Ditto. I copied Terra Nil into applications, and double finger-clicked to open the menu, went to "open", and a "can't be opened" dialog appeared.
From what I understand, catalina has some weird permissions issues running unity games.
If you change the permissions it should work. Try running this command in the terminal in the parent directory of the app
sudo chmod a+x "Terra Nil.app"/Contents/MacOS/*
I'm have the same issue and fix said that's the files not found
Hi mac folks, finally got a mac to test on today. I got the command a bit wrong before, it's actually:
sudo chmod a+x "Terra Nil.app"/Contents/MacOS/*
Make sure to run this in the same directory as Terra Nil
I'll edit my previous post to be correct as well :)
When I run the command it says "no such file or directory," what do I do
think the game has softlocked because I'm at stage 3, and the game says I'm 65% of the way through recycling... but there's absolutely nothing left. At all.
Damn, sorry about that! That definitely seems like a bug. I'll check it out. You might need to restart the map, sorry!! :(
fair enough, thanks for the quick reply! game is otherwise perfect lol
Beautiful, relaxing, and with a surprising amount of depth. Absolutely love it.
Thank you!
Not sure if you're aware of this, but when you try to launch the game on Windows 10 it throws a Windows Smart Screen error and tries to prevent you from launching the game. I've done a bit of research after encountering this error before, and it's apparently a problem with Unity games that have a custom icon. For some reason Windows flags the icon as a security risk.
EDIT: This Unity forum post describes the issue. https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-5-the-digital-signature-is-not-valid-when-...
Thanks, I'll check it out
waterpumps are a bit glitchy when you use the undo button, i've watched my riverbeds fill up more than they ought to be after an undo before.
adore the game. i wish there was an option to start from latter stages of restoration when replaying a level - with like, maybe suboptimal map states for balance? i've been stuck on mountain for ages and am considering going back to floodplain baby land so that i can see all the charming animals again.
Glad you like it, and thanks for the feedback!
This is a wonderful game, the most incisive take on builder mechanics I've seen. A few bits of feedback, most of which echo things other players have said:
* Resource-based failure detection has a pretty reliable false positive when building a greenhouse near 0 that nets you enough to keep playing. See attached screenshot below.
* I'm finding I often run out of trees before I reach the pollination goal in phase 2, and the game doesn't offer any guidance as to how I can build in this or the prior phase to avoid this. All the other mechanics offer pretty clear built-in learning experiences like, "arrange your rivers and wetlands carefully to contain fires", whereas I don't really know what I can do to earn myself some breathing room for the tree+bees goal. It's possible I'm missing some point of strategy here though.
* The "continue" button on the game failure dialog doesn't seem to do anything.
* The "exit" button should ask for confirmation, and/or its caption should be amended to clarify that it means exiting the game entirely.
Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you're enjoying the game! I've interestingly found beehives to be the easiest in testing. Maybe for the purposes of your playthrough, try placing them before doing a burn or the hydroponiums. But in a more general sense, I'll think about your feedback and how I can incorporate it, thanks!
can't run in linux, why?
Hi there, what error are you getting?
The game doesn't work even though I set the permission,didn't popup anything
Hey, try installing the game through itch.io app. I'm using Manjaro KDE, the game is running fine.
This is such a beautiful concept for a game and you've executed on that concept wonderfully.
Thank you :D
beautiful pixelart, relaxing music, and a surprisingly amount of strategy involved. overall a very nice experience. i also really like the emphasis on cleaning up after the restoration. great work, vfqd!
Thank you so much <3
Hello there! Great game so far, however, I have trouble accessing the full UI. I'm on a 32:9 screen (bit niche, I know). Is there a way to start it in 16:9 windowed mode?
Haven't tested on any other operating systems, but as a workaround, the game respects the Unity standalone player command line arguments on Linux (I use them to launch in windowed mode) https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CommandLineArguments.html
The relevant arguments are -screen-fullscreen, -screen-height, -screen-widthAh thanks for pointing that out! Can that work for you @secretstage?
This worked perfectly, thank you both!
Fantastic!!
Hello, devs! Are you planning to translate your beautiful game to different languages? If so, i'd like to help you with the translation to Russian language.
Thanks for the offer! :) We're not sure about translation yet
What a nice game! I like it. I'd been looking for something non-violent :^) I'm having trouble with saving, though :^( I can't click 'continue' after reloading the game, even after completing the first stage, and if I 'return to menu' and then re-enter a stage, all my progress is erased. Help??? Thanks!
That's strange! I'll look into it. Sorry about that!
No worries, thanks! Btw, in case any more info is helpful, I'm playing on Linux and basically just dumped the game files all in one place and am running the Terra_Nill.x86_64 executable directly in the terminal. Also, I think after playing a bit longer, the game is correct saving that I have completed level 1 even after I re-load the game, and while I'm playing the game, I can return to menu and then hit 'continue' to pick up where I left off. However, if I re-load the game before completing a level, that's where I seem to not be able to hit 'continue.' Best wishes with your game.
Quite enjoying this game. Would be good if there was a windowed mode, though.
Thank you! And thanks for the suggestion :)
See the above comment for running the game with unity command line arguments to launch in windowed mode <3
Oh hey, you used my friend's idea for different sets of Stage 2 biomes per map! Cool!
It's great to see the progress from version 0.3 to 0.4, kind of like the sense of growth while playing the game itself :)
A minor observation - on the earlier maps, once I get to Stage 3, if I have enough money I'll skip directly to fixing the weather and avoid all the cargo shipping. Which is a shame, I like the cargo boats and the stages of cleanup; I played a recent game and used them just for fun. That might be because there's too much money, but I'm not sure that should be reduced. Instead, maybe gate the weather systems behind 50% rocket completion? That makes them basically a separate stage, though. I dunno, just throwing an idea out there.
I saw a previous person request additional replayability of some kind. That seems like a sensible idea, although I don't know how you'll do it. But, hey, before playing this game I wouldn't have imagined an environmental city builder either. As a random idea, maybe on some levels you have to generate power in other ways from wind turbines? Solar panels? Geothermal vents? Water power? No idea if that's the right direction to expand towards, though, and I love the interactions already.
Minor bugs
- Only one conveyance port can be connected to the rocket pad, which caught me by surprise once on the Peninsula map.
- For some reason, when undoing a move sometimes the water pumps will spread water out further than before undoing the move. Not sure why or how to reproduce it - might be related to putting water pumps on elevated ground?
- If you put a Dessicator on a single tile of fynbos, with no other fynbos within range, the Dessicator is destroyed and turned to ash, but no fire starts. Also, the nearby Solar Amplifier will leave a continuous ray of light pointing at where the Dessicator was.
Hey! As always, thanks for your wonderfully detailed comments :)
Yeah we found that changing the way the tier 2 biomes are introduced really helped the difficulty curve :)
It's not necessarily a problem if you can go straight to restoring the weather if you know what you're doing. It's not going to be that easy for first time players. But we'll think about alternative ways to gate it.
We're also interested in exploring other power options like you mentioned, more on that another time though.
As for the bugs, thanks for those!
Glad you've been enjoying the game and hope to see you around some more <3
First off, I have greatly enjoyed this game, and have but roughtly 6 hours in so far.
There is one thing that is slightly annoying, even though it is my fault - a few times now I have finished a map and hit "exit" which takes me back to the desktop, when I intended to go back to the menu. This is my mistake and a mild inconvenience, but I notice that my games do not save when I do this - the map is as if I never played it. I was somewhat surprised the game did not save your state when the requirements for the map were finished.
So glad you're enjoying it! Thanks for the bug report :)
I just played this for so long. I LOVE this game.
<3
Great game! Makes you think while not being super stressful, and the visual/sound design is very good!
However, I seem to have run into an issue on the 2nd stage, where the building that (I assume) would allow me to place/create an arid biome is just... Not appearing in the buildings tab? It's a very vexing problem, as I see it in others' screenshots.
10/10 in all other aspects though!
ETA: Closing and restarting the game knocked it out of it's mild fuge and allowed progression, so I'm left assuming the building was just not needed for that stage.
In version 0.4, the developer changed things such that different maps require different biomes. So, you might not see all buildings and all biomes during stage 2.
This game got me hooked for hours, and still counting! It is generally relaxing, the music and ambience. The changes in the environment as you do things is amazing. Tier 3 is gorgeous! Everything is beautiful, and I'm in love with this game!
However, I have found a bug where recycling drones do not return resources/currency from beacons when the delta of the beacon is less than or equal to zero. (The number shown above the beacon before placing it)
This has caused me to lose what was seemingly a winning round, because I did not get refunded the resources from recycled structures.
That being said, please keep up the good work!
Edit: Additionally, some hitboxes tend to get hidden behind cliffs; for example, I can't place a beehive on a tree that is right behind a cliff.
Managed to clear the game on Normal, with a final score of 25707. I might try Hard mode sometimes...
Thanks for the feedback! So glad you enjoyed it :D
This game is stunning in its simplicity and (now) balance between relaxing and strategy. I also love that the maps are dynamically generated, which adds to replayability! This is honestly one of my favourite games on itch, and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.
Constructive Criticism:
I do second TemplarFreak's note about the fyrnbos, I've definitely had to restart a level because there weren't enough trees.
I also think that the green color for the outline of valid tiles and the text makes it blend in to the point of illegibility--maybe a yellow would be better?
Not sure if they're concerned about this, but yellows and reds should be avoided in a use-case like this because they're less colorblind accessible for such a vital feature. They also don't really satisfy as much as a green or blue. I don't totally subscribe to the theory that colors have a heavy impact on how you play and how you feel while playing a game but I think there is some merit to it.
Thanks for these points you guys!
Really enjoy this game, great vibe the later tier takes a little getting used too (get the weather system going asap or you'll go bankrupt) Feels a lot like 'islanders'. But I can't progress past the mountain as, my native resolution is not supported and the play button is off screen(ultra wide 3440x1440).
Sorry about that! Glad you enjoy it :)
This game is really solid, but I think a few things are really holding it back. It could do with some speed controls and a bit more consistent world generation. The Fynbos biome is also tricky and a pain in the ass to work with. Some kind of automatic failure detection would also help a lot. A way to restart the map immediately would be a nice addition. I do have a few balance complaints with the game, as well.
At some points on that last level upwards of 40 to 50% of the land would be completely inaccessible. This is due to some of the land spawning as tiny islands. There is also a lot of water. That makes it EXTREMELY tight and a MASSIVE difficulty jump. Under some circumstances, this can also make it impossible if you make a single mistake. You won't be able to reclaim land from burnt buildings, so you won't be able to achieve the right biome balance.
Speed controls would also be nice for when you're waiting for the drone to move around or for rain to start. It takes quite a while for that drone to move around a big map, and rain seems to be on a reliable cycle but a long one. If you want to maximize points by relying on rain, it takes a long time. So if the game could speed up, that would help both of those a ton.
Next, the tree distribution is pretty unreliable. A good distribution would have most of the map covered. Most of the time, that's not the case. This makes working with the Fynbos Biome a lot more tricky than seems intended. It's such a vital and fundamental biome, it seems like it should be more accessible like Wetlands. You have to be very careful to create tiny forests by building an Arboretum while a fire is still burning. Due to that, it instead becomes the hardest ones to meet that coverage goal.
The failure conditions are a bit obnoxious. The game doesn't seem to have any way of detecting if you're in an unwinnable state. On top of this, with no easy and quick way to restart the map, this becomes tiresome pretty fast. There needs to be some way the game communicates to the player better about this. Or the game could have a handier restart function, that doesn't need exiting to the main menu.
What buildings are available can also be a tad strange. Like, Conveyor Ports and Deconstruction Pylons. Why do these need to exist? They seem to only kind of pad the game. If Steam Plants, Hangers, Beacons, and Seed Launchers were cheaper, there'd be no point to them. They seem to only provide you with a way to build money back up in the event you exit Tier 2 with only a few hundred points. This would not be necessary if these other Tier 3 buildings were cheaper.
As for as bugs go, the game is pretty solid. I only found a few. One is due to the isometry of the game. Trying to place things behind cliffs, for instance. The only other issue I found is that sometimes fields will regenerate themselves. Using undo after you've placed a Toxin Scrubber, the fields it cleaned sometimes stay cleaned. I definitely abused this on occasion, it was rarely handy but it did help once or twice. There was very minor UI problems too, but they were very few and far between and not very problematic. They may not even be worth mentioning, as I kind of only stumbled across them by accident.
All that said, those are pretty much my ONLY complaints with this game. There is a lot of clever ideas in here. For instance, with how biomes appear naturally distributed. Simply due to the game's mechanics. Fynbos on the outskirts of forests, wetlands that cluster around rivers. The base generated world having rivers that usually flow from high elevations. Rocks that tend to coalesce around the riverbeds due to your water wheels. It all looks pretty right. The only weird thing is arid plateaus. There should instead be proper rain shadows. I guess that would be too time consuming and resource intensive for the goals of this game, though.
It is also very mechanically satisfying. Other than the few problems I've mentioned, this is a very refined and robust city builder, with a very neat twist. One that I haven't seen exactly before. If this were made into a fuller game or had a more realized sequel, I would definitely buy it. Especially if it had a more roguelike stylization to the gameplay. Where there would be a reason to play it over and over again, because I kind of already want to. There isn't good enough reasons as it stands to do that, though, which is disappointing. I hope this game sees a lot of success. It definitely deserves it!
I've been a bit intimidated about the length of your comment so I haven't replyed to it for a while, sorry about that :D
I agree that the top end of the maps are probably too difficult, and that simply having less available space is not the best way to tweak difficulty, it's something we're aware of.
There is an automatic failure detection system but it's been overly enthusiastic in the past so I've dialed it back, maybe too much.
Speed controls are a fair point as well.
It's interesting to me that you have struggled with the fynbos boime, maybe it's something we need to look into. With our playtesting, the starting trees are almost always enough to get you most of the way there to completing fynbos. I can also look at tree distribution.
The earlier tier 3 buildings are supposed to introduce the idea of recycling and allow a more gradual understanding for new players (they only have to deal with a few buildings once they reach tier 3). Tier 3 is kind of trivial though so it might be something we look into.
I'm really pleased to hear you found the game so mechanically and visually pleasing. We've really put a lot of time and love into those parts of the game, so hearing that players can see it is awesome.
Thanks so much for your feedback, I hope you continue to enjoy the game and I see you around in future <3
Sorry for such a long post, but I just had a lot to say.
At some points, it almost kind of feels more like a classical RTS with a city builder twist just because of how satisfying the "sprawling out" nature of the game is kind of reminiscent of Zerg Creep or Command & Conquer. You odn't normally see this kind of restricted land usage in a City Builder, they usually just let you go full nuts with it and expect you to know where to place things. I think that also makes this game pretty accessible but with a lot of room for players to make their own decisions on the fly.
For Fynbos I don't think it's necessarily that there aren't enough trees, its the distribution can be wacky sometimes. On pretty much all the times on that last level that there were tiny inaccessible islands, there was at least a tree on one of them that could have been on the mainland. Sometimes, trees will also get a bit clustered instead of spread out across the map. Those tend to be the biggest problems, and a few times it made one or two whole corners of that map completely inaccessible normally without tricky and clever timing with arboretums.
You could literally only have like, 4, or 5, trees on the entire map and as long as they are all in the right positions that's more then enough. That could also provide another way people could make a different kind of pleasant-looking reclaimed wastelands, by having a thin stretch of forest that goes everywhere instead of one big cluster.
You can use toxin scrubbers to clear ash after a fire, that makes fynbos a lot easier to get
I must say this is one of the most gorgeous and peaceful games I've played. Thank you for making it! You might consider distributing this on GOG once it is done, I believe the people there are going to love it. (I will also gladly pay for it on GOG, you deserve it).
Thank you for your kind words!!
Saw it on YT and I love it, thanks for that really nice experience. I especially love the rain and the way you end up with a fully green map once all the human clutter is reclaimed at the end!
:D so glad you like it, thank you <3
I really enjoyed your game so far.
Now stuck on the island trying to green it again :'D
Hope you have as much fun developing it as I enjoyed playing it. Awesome job, get on with it! (Sent a little incentive to you ;) )
Regards, Lazalatin
Thank you!
Love this game! Already spent a good few hours of concentration working through the first two maps! Very good and fun! Thank you so much for making this game, in all it’s relaxation.
I have been having trouble with the third map, stuck on tier II and unable to move past. It says I need wetlands but there are no structures available to make any? There also appears to be empty text-boxes, so it may be my computer having an issue, and not the game itself.
Hey there! I'm glad you're enjoying it! Can you send me a screenshot? The third map is supposed to require Arid Scrubland instead of Wetland
I hope this is visible! From the bottom corner it looks like I still need something to move forward, but I have green checkmarks under all the structures I have. (Also I'm not sure if there are supposed to be visible titles in the empty boxes)
Damn that's definitely a bug. I'll check it out. What OS are you btw?
I'm on MacOS Catalina 10.15.5
Thanks! I need to get hold of a mac to test and I'll get back to you!
Hi, I wanted first of all to thank you for this game! Very nice and relaxing, reclaiming the wasteland with an atmospheric music background is truly a zen experience.
Secondly, I wanted to report a small bug in the 0.40 version, where undoing an action causes a reload of the map (this is probably WAI, though a bit annoying), after which "DEBUG TEXT" is visible in the top right corner.
I tried grabbing a screenshot for posterity but it came up blank. It should be easy to reproduce anyway.
Ah, thanks for letting me know! Glad you enjoy the game :)
I noticed the same "DEBUG TEXT" message in the top right corner right after launching a new game for the third map. I don't remember seeing it on previous levels, so perhaps it's something to do with the third map.
Speaking of which, I'm a bit stuck on the third map. A frustrating element IMHO is the need for greenery to plant beehives: trees seem to spawn at random around farmland, so you can't plan around that, and arboretums require fynbos flowers to already be present so it can turn into a bit of circular dependency.
Hey! Thanks for the feedback. The circular dependency is definitely on purpose :) maybe try burning an adjacent area to the starting forest (for a new forest) and using the starting trees for fynbos
I was curious because I saw the fire in the picture.
I wonder how that came about?
This is a simple strategy game.
I like pixel style games.
It's good to play games with music in the background.
The only pity for me was that there was so little to play with.
Did you only play level 1 maybe? There's a lot more game still
Maybe so. I hadn't noticed there were other levels, thank u :)
The game doesnt work on MAC Catalina :(
Hey! Sorry to hear that, can you tell me what the error is?
Same issue. I get a dialog that just says "The application "Terra Nil.app" can't be opened. I think it is related to system lockdowns introduced in this version of macos, but also could be if it's 32bit app for some reason. Suspect answer will be very similar to https://itch.io/post/1666042. Edit: tried it and it was the same.
This game is good! You should add custom maps so we can make some!
Thank you! We'll look into it :)
Hello there! I love your game! Is there a way to adjust the resolution?
Thank you! Not right now I'm afraid
A great game and a fresh update giving the players some sense of completion. However, I would like to report a bug. On the OSX version I do not see the amount of money I am having (the number is not displayed at all). Also, when running the game my laptop enters the cooking mode (ventilators at max and the temperature still increases).
And a feature request: there should be some information about the key mappings. Ideally, it should be possible to change the keybindings. I had to press all the keys until I found that R rotates the area of the greenhouse. Also, on a German keyboard (qwertz) the keys for zoom in and out (Z and X) are not next to each other.
Thanks! And thank you for the feedback :)
Hey, just tried the new version 0.4, again on MacOS 10.14.6 and I still have problems with seeing the amount of currency I have (see screenshot). Otherwise, I LOVE the direction that this game is going. It was a great relaxing game and it gets better. Keep up the good work!
Damn I need to get ahold of a mac to test on
This game is incredible. Fresh and truly unique. Beautiful theme and colourful graphics make it really relaxing. Great job! One thing to consider during development is the difficulty curve. Tier I is most difficult, and then II and especially III is a formality - hard to mess up. Secondly, once I mastered tier I in the first and second map, all other maps proven to be easy. The first 2 maps I had to restart many times, second two - did it first go. The last one will most likely be similar. The game needs something to flatten the difficulty spike at the beginning and provide extra challenge in the end game. My gut feeling would be providing more undo levels, and adding more complexity to tier II and III requirements.
Thank you! It's really interesting that you found tier 2 so easy, I agree that tier 3 is easy but most players struggle with tier 2. Why did you have such difficulty on tier 1?
Tier 1 has this "do it right or die" situation. One misplaced river or calcifier and you run out of money. You have some, but not nearly enough to correct your mistake, and a single undo does you no good. You are stuck and need to restart. Before you learn to be efficient you fail several times. On the other hand, once you literally lay the ground work and cover a decent chunk of the land with reclaimed area it is cash out time. You can start with placing bee hives for a big chunk of money for example. You also get the lab, that enables cheap tools to fix small issues. At tier 3 you are even less locked in because you get the ability to recycle buildings... and so on. :) The game gets more forgiving the later it gets so I guess it is "hard to learn easy to master" :D Anyway it is great fun and thank you again for creating it. Pledged 5$ :)
Thank you :))
I've been a fan since the Jam version.
Having played the current version 0.31 from the previous version, I'm astounded at the transformation of the game's purpose into a system that is more geared towards completion!
I like terraforming games like Sim-Earth where you can make lush, green, life inhabitable from barren land.
I've played through the entire MAP. The only change seemed to be in how efficiently you can produce in a small area of land, as what you can do with these things remains the same on every map. If you plan to add new MAPs, I'm hoping for ideas that will change the play style, such as environments with limited natural energy available.
I am reporting a bug that disrupts the game balance.
Keys 1-3 are convenient shortcuts to each tier facility selection, and this operation can be used in any development stage.
The image shows a rocket silo built and rained on, which is now environment complete.
Ah thanks for pointing that out. Also I'm glad you enjoyed it! And we have some ideas for different maps :)