Terra Nil review – restore nature, and with it your hope for the future

PC, smartphones (via Netflix); Free Lives/ Devolver Digital
The rewarding environmental restoration game plays like a puzzle and is satisfyingly simple

In the beginning, there is nothing before you but cracked, brown earth. This landscape of toxic soil and dried-out riverbeds is yours to restore in Terra Nil. But the ostensibly weighty task is made satisfyingly easy for players - all you need to do is to place a windmill on a stone surface, where it will provide machines with electricity. The toxin scrubber and irrigator are crucial, whether you're restoring a continental zone, a polar zone or a piece of tropical rainforest. The scrubber detoxifies the space around it, getting it ready for new life to spring forth; the irrigator provides the crucial moisture necessary to kickstart that process, at least until you've got the tools to make it rain.

A polyp collector, once unloaded into the sea, will grow you a nice coral reef clattering with crustaceans, molluscs and everything else that has a shell, and easily recyclable atomic reactors bring heat and electricity to regions where a windmill can't do the job. Recycling is another vital part of the process, as is reintroducing local fauna. As soon as you have restored nature in a region, it's time for you to leave, which means picking up after yourself. Every bit of machinery you set down needs to be collected, before it is recycled into the airship you will eventually depart on. You're leaving with the knowledge that the interplay between the local fauna and flora will keep the region alive, no further human intervention necessary.