Terra Firma is a detailed simulation of our natural world and the forces that shape it. Players use a set of simple tools to modify the landscape, change rainfall patterns, temperature and tectonics and then watch as the simulation turns their input into a realistic living world.
Players are free to let their creativity loose in sandbox mode, or play through a series of relaxing puzzle scenarios in the campaign mode, where they work at an alien terraforming company tasked with creating worlds of varying specifications for clients.
The simulation operates on a scale never seen before, running entirely on the GPU in order to harness the full power of modern computers. Worlds are huge- up to 16,000 km2 in size progressing hundreds of years every second yet zoomable all the way down to individual plants and animals living in real time.
A series of interacting systems model how the earth evolves:
Water flows over the map creating complex river systems that change the landscape. Mountains erode and produce realistic formations, as the sediment is carried downstream and deposited in floodplains or river deltas
Players can modify rainfall and temperature to create seasonal variations. Create a world with tropical monsoon conditions and see a savannah flourish, or change the temperature to be colder and watch as glaciers take over and scour the landscape, leaving behind U-shaped valleys and glacial lakes when they retreat
Plants and animals flourish in the world depending on the local conditions such as rainfall and temperature. Explore boreal forests, mangrove swamps, savannah plains, jungles, deserts and steppe grasslands amongst others
Different rock and material types have different properties and produce varied landscapes as they erode. Lava cools into igneous rocks whereas deposits from rivers form sedimentary rocks. Alternating layers of rocks produce different topologies as they erode, with slot canyons, stepped canyons and mesas viewable amongst other formations
Plate tectonics simulates different types of plate interactions with divergent, convergent and transform plate boundaries producing different resulting landscapes
More systems are planned in the future, such as wind, humidity and air pressure, weather systems, ocean currents and sand dunes
Worlds created in Terra Firma are able to be saved, loaded, and exported to other systems, either as heightmaps or via an exporter to your favourite voxel based game.
