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Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation

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Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation

#1

Post by mehwoot »

It's free to play on steam, but you'll need a computer with a dedicated graphics card.

I just released a new version after first releasing it 18 months ago. It's been a hard slog to scrounge time as it's not my day job but that's life.

There's a ton of obvious improvements in the future (weather systems, temperature, varying rainfall, ice/snow, more biomes, more plate tectonics, lava, etc) but all suggestions/feedback is welcome.

Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation
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Re: Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation

#3

Post by mehwoot »

gus_massa wrote: post #2

Is it only sandbox mode, or does it have some scenarios with an objective? The river look too straight. I expected more meanders.

Just sandbox mode for now.

The rivers don't meander in the way that real rivers do- real rivers meander because of differences in flow velocity across the width of the river, but the simulation doesn't run at that sort of resolution. If it did, the area covered would be far smaller.

Re: Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation

#4

Post by [deleted] »

mehwoot wrote: post #3
gus_massa wrote: post #2

Is it only sandbox mode, or does it have some scenarios with an objective? The river look too straight. I expected more meanders.

Just sandbox mode for now. The rivers don't meander in the way that real rivers do- real rivers meander because of differences in flow velocity across the width of the river, but the simulation doesn't run at that sort of resolution. If it did, the area covered would be far smaller.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation

#7

Post by speps »

gus_massa wrote: post #2

Is it only sandbox mode, or does it have some scenarios with an objective? The river look too straight. I expected more meanders.

Look at From Dust[1] for something like this with gameplay, more recent than Populous (Xbox 360 generation).

[1] https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/from-dust

Re: Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation

#8

Post by greggsy »

I like poking around with these sorts of sandboxes, but in order to gamify it, you might need some objectives, limitations and planning goals, eg:

- you have a limited amount of some mineral or rock that erodes quicker or slower than others, and you need to move water from one location to another.

- there is a magma chamber growing under a mountain. Move the villagers out of harms way / destroy enemies.

- introduce sinkholes: make as many sinkholes as possible within some period.

Re: Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation

#9

Post by worldsayshi »

greggsy wrote: post #8

I like poking around with these sorts of sandboxes, but in order to gamify it, you might need some objectives, limitations and planning goals, eg: - you have a limited amount of some mineral or rock that erodes quicker or slower than others, and you need to move water from one location to another. - there is a magma chamber growing under a mountain. Move the villagers out of harms way / destroy enemies. - introduce s…

- Maximize precipitation, biomass or biodiversity

Re: Show HN: Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation

#10

Post by sdflhasjd »

speps wrote: post #7
gus_massa wrote: post #2

Is it only sandbox mode, or does it have some scenarios with an objective? The river look too straight. I expected more meanders.

Look at From Dust[1] for something like this with gameplay, more recent than Populous (Xbox 360 generation). [1] https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/from-dust

I really liked From Dust. It seemed impressive what could be done on the 360 at the time, and I'd really like to see it with a higher-res, larger scale simulation on some more modern hardware.
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