I recently 100%'d Terra Nil, an excellent indie puzzle/strategy game about ecological restoration. It rules and is extremely environmentalist. The premise is that you are responsible for restoring habitats ruined by human civilization. There's never any background about exactly what happened (because you know and see it every day) or how society got to the point of dedicating itself to fixing these problems; it simply takes for granted that, eventually, something is going to be done (a bit of a "communism is inevitable" message, imo). The game is not very difficult, but I found it rewarding nonetheless. It's also just a chill af vibe.
I'm also a big fan of a very different series on ecological restoration: Horizon. It goes a bit underdiscussed, but the A plot of those games is that capitalists will destroy the earth in the worst way imaginable, but that no crisis is final, and we can, eventually, undo the damage we've done. You fight big robots and
Horizon Forbidden West spoilers
kill the would-be immortal trillionaries who caused the problem in the first place :::. Though they're the epitome of big bombastic, cinematic PlayStation games, I love that shit and I'm all about the message the games are sending. They are, ultimately, optimistic.
What are some other games where environmentalism is the core theme? Particularly if what they depict is the good side of humanity's interaction with the environment: fixing the shit capitalists broke. That's the vibe I'm after most of all.
Terra Nil is so :bloomer: and nice it legit made me want to cry. Great little game!
Outer Wilds isn't explicitly about environmentalism, but it's got a deep vein of "plant trees so your grandkids can sit under them." Bittersweet, but ultimately optimistic.
I've been meaning to get into Timberborn. You play as intelligent beavers who have suceeded humans and are committed to not making the same mistakes while building their civilization.
Timberborn is very fun, the way the water plays a major role is nice. Though I've found the fun short-lived - right now once you've done a few games it's repetitive after. Hopefully new stuff will help with that between now and the release.
Thanks for making this thread and sharing those games. From the screenshots on steam the first one looked like a cozier simcity 2k clone which is an instant wishlist item to me.
I'm aspiring to release my first game sometime this year. Always looking for ways to add anti-capitalist ideology and dog whistles in. If anyone has any specific advice for an Advanced Wars 2 clone or an NES Gauntlet clone that would be much appreciated.
From the screenshots on steam the first one looked like a cozier simcity 2k clone which is an instant wishlist item to me.
I see a lot of people compare it to a city builder but it's very different. Yes, you're placing down buildings and power grids, but the flow of gameplay is so far from a city builder that I think it's really more of an open ended puzzle game. Or a farming sim? It's weird.
An environmentalist Gauntlet game where you're going through and restoring nature would be dope.
First I've heard of Terra Nil, damn that game looks a lot of fun.
Fate of the World is one worth checking out. It's similar to Half-Earth Socialism, you control a global effort to combat climate change by playing "policy cards" and seeing how those policies effect the world via an actual climate simulation. I'd say it's a bit more complicated and detailed though, mess up and you'll trigger major disasters like the Amazon Rainforest completely collapsing.
Half-Earth Socialism has been mentioned a few times here. It's pretty short but highly replayable. It is as close to the "fixing the shit capitalists broke" theme as you can possibly get lol
Block'hood had some environmentalist stuff going on as I recall.
