I love the standard farm sim formula. Becoming a titan of capitalism by hoeing rows of tomatoes by hand is great, but I've really been craving one that's about tending the environment that already exists instead of clear-cutting an entire forest to make way for my perfectly optimized agricultural vision. Some games have tried, but The Regreening, a demo I played in the current Steam Next Fest—launching on Steam on December 7—is the one that I've enjoyed the most.
In The Regreening, you're revitalizing a post-apocalyptic landscape, replanting flora, and designing environments for animals to return to while making friends with godlike animal spirits. It's almost as much a tiny city-builder as a farm sim.
I asked the developers at Positive Impact Games how they feel The Regreening fits into what's normally such a strictly formulaic genre and what it's doing that they weren't able to find in other farm sims.
We love farm sims, and many of us have played hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in games such as Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. In many farm sims, players care deeply about their environment, the farm they are building, their homes, they spend a lot of time building a cozy world for themselves.
The Regreening takes this feeling and makes it integral to its core. Players are encouraged to clean the world and help build it back in a way they find satisfying. However, we made one major change from traditional farming sims: how the reward system works. We removed the currency and exploitative loops of planting and harvesting for profit.
In The Regreening, you’re not planting nature to take its resources and sell them. You’re planting because that tree might improve the soil, provide shelter for an animal, help retain water, or become part of a larger biome spread.
We wanted players to feel that their actions would have a positive impact in the natural world around them. And for their hard work and care, the reward is being able to watch these animals return and, of course, hug them!
I think what made The Regreening work for me so far is that it actually doesn't hew too close to the established farm sim. As Hachey explained, partly that's down to removing the loop of for-profit agriculture. But also, it plays more like a strategy game or a small city-builder where I just so happen to be a character moving around the world.
I watch flowers grow in real time and patches of watered soil turn green over the course of a day. Every time I want to place a new animal habitat I look at a spiderweb of environmental connections and stats showing whether the species can take root there. I've got to carefully manage the tile overlap for rabbit and fox habitats so both can thrive.
From what I saw in the demo, The Regreening is way less about the characters than most of my favorite farm sims—grandma and the giant bird are fun folks, though. I am up for a less farm-y farm sim if it means I'm doing more curating than dominating.
