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New missions
One of the main things we wanted to do with this update was to add more content in each region. It seemed that as players were just beginning to dive into a region’s mechanics, they would be whisked away to something new.
So in Vita Nova, we wanted players to spend a bit more time in each region, gain some confidence from the mechanics they’ve already learned, then throw in some twists and surprises. We’ve introduced 5 new missions, which means new biomes, new structures, new achievements, new handbook pages, new music and a new animal.
New Animal System
Speaking of animals, we’ve also completely overhauled how animals function in the game. Previously, you’d manually bring animals to your map near the end of a mission. We wanted it to feel more natural. To feel like the reclaimed habitats were attracting animal populations seamlessly.
Now, when there are suitable habitats for them, animals will migrate to your map. Sometimes, the habitat may be sufficient for them to survive, but not ideal for them to thrive. To complete a mission, you may need to build Wildlife Bridges so they can cross rivers and climb cliffs, grow new habitats to better meet their needs, or nudge them to a suitable part of the map with a Sonic Pulse. This affects all the missions in the game, new and old, so if you’ve already played Terra Nil you can replay the old levels for a different challenge.
3D World Map
Adding more missions also felt like an opportunity to revamp the UI of the world map. We’ve rebuilt the world map so that every mission is represented by its own area making it much easier to see which you’ve completed. It is also a little more interactive and reminds me of imagining the far off places around the world while spinning the house globe.
Development Update
In the early development of Terra Nil, we felt we were onto something special. You may have seen the original pixel art itch prototype from over 4 years ago. After working on that, we eventually did want to release a full version. When the Steam version launched last year, we were floored by your reception. Not only for the game itself but for the ideals we originally built the game upon - putting the natural world in the spotlight. So much so that it’s allowed us to become a significant contributor to real world conservation by donating over $100,000 to the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
But after launch, we really needed to take a rest. We were very tired and were looking for some perspective after a long year, tunnel-visioned on Terra Nil’s development. For that final year, a few other Free Livers and contractors joined the team to push the project over the finish line. After the game came out, they went on to other projects like Anger Foot, which releases in a few weeks!
Even though the dev team was back down to just two of us, Sam and myself, we still had many ideas to improve and expand Terra Nil. At the same time, 3.5 years working on one game is a lot (and it was even longer for Sam). We have even more ideas to work on new prototypes and projects. More of the weird, wacky and wild stuff that Free Lives is known for. So we spoke to our friend and fellow South African, Francois van Niekerk. He was starting his own studio after leaving Spry Fox.
In August, we started working with his new studio, Clockwork Acorn. Sam, Francois and myself have assembled a team who have been the driving force behind Vita Nova and are already working on future updates. Sam and I will still oversee Terra Nil’s direction, but we believe that the game is in extremely good hands. The kind of hands we would trust to take care of our reclaimed ecosystems.
What’s next?
Our new development partners at Clockwork Acorn are already hard at work on another content update! We want to share more of our work-in-progress development and we are looking into hosting community playtests so that we can improve the game for all of you. If you’d like to be involved in the future of Terra Nil, please join our Discord server!
We are so happy to have Clockwork Acorn’s support. We’ve now shipped a big update together, one where Sam was away on paternity leave for a chunk of that time (Congratulations, Sam!)
More content is in the works and all of us, Sam, Francois, Free Lives, Clockwork Acorn and myself can’t thank you enough for supporting our cause of putting environmental reclamation in the spotlight.
Thank you for your support!
Jonathan and Team Terra Nil
New Features
- New world map
- 5 new levels - Hill & Dale, Polluted Bay, Scorched Caldera, Subpolar River & Continental Outskirts
- 2 new biomes - Freshwater Lake & Rocky Scrubland
- 9 new buildings - Cone Filter, Pipe Hub, Carbon Compactor, Percolotrium, Mini Bamboo Nursery, Chaparrallum, Transpirator, Sonic Pulse & Wildlife Bridge
- Revamped animal system - Animals populations will migrate to the map when suitable habitats are available. To complete a mission, a certain number of animal populations will need to have ideal territories for their needs
- 1 new animal species
- 3 new climate conditions
Bug fixes
- Fix issues with scrolling the mouse and rotating buildings on Linux
- Fix invisible airship at the start and end of missions
- Fix airship to be in its “flying” state at the start of missions where it appears
- Fix airship to show correct placeable tiles in Temperate Bay
- Fix sunflower threshold being impossible to reach on the Island City on Environmental Engineer difficulty
- Fix overlapping text in the Seed dialog in the world map
- Fix recycling silos to no longer recycles standalone beacon
- Fix highlights drawing behind LOD objects
- Fix batched vegetation flickering for one frame at the origin
- Radiation cleansers and heliocages must be recycled before liftoff
- Setting the difficulty before starting a restoration will no longer show the difficulty select screen or incorrectly show tutorials
- A rare bug that causes terrain to appear black on Mac has a partial fix that requires changing a setting in the options menu. If you’re experiencing this, you can opt into an experimental build that has a fix for this using the password “blackterrain2”.
