VALEA

The valley is dry. You control the water.

You start with a small patch of the valley, one dry grove and a thin spring. Each day, plan canals and dikes, then open the spring and watch the water. What you dig stays, but unused canals slowly wear away, and heavy flow deepens the riverbed.

Revive the dry groves (marked with circles): forest holds water, slows the river, and spreads greenery around it. Every saved grove gives seeds and energy. Spend energy to uncover the next part of the valley (in Upgrades): it costs energy, and only opens once the valley you already have is 75% green. Sow the seeds with Plant on open, flat land: fields need water, and ripe fields give energy and more seeds. Spend energy on terraforming or on Upgrades. Your goal is to make the whole valley 95% green. Watch the forecast: rain can help or flood, and drought dries everything.

Settlements start as ruins. Bring water into the blue ring around one and it comes back to life at night, becoming a source of water that spreads shrubs around it. Keep watering it: after 3 dry nights, or a flood in its houses, it falls back into ruin and the shrubs it tended wither.

• Dig / Raise reshape the terrain. Each cell costs energy.
• The brush is soft: the center changes fully, the edges by half, and neighbouring cells never differ by more than 2 levels, so slopes stay smooth.
• Plant sows a field (1 seed per cell). Settlements slowly plant shrubs around them if there is a little water nearby.
• Climate recovers slowly and needs four things in each area: forests, standing water, damp soil and living settlements or ripe fields. Once it improves, grass and shrubs spread even where no water reaches, and the mountain peaks turn white.
• Aqueducts and Sluices (Upgrades) move and hold water: an aqueduct carries it over rock and ridges, a sluice is a gate you can open and close at any time.
• Oases are dry natural basins. Fill one with water: it becomes a second spring and keeps the land around it green.
• X-ray hides the plants and shows a height map of the terrain.