Work · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation
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.
Terra Firma is a free-to-play erosion simulation game available on Steam that models how geological processes shape landscapes over time. It requires a computer with a dedicated graphics card to run. The simulation… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Terra Firma, a playable erosion simulation launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
TerraForge3D▲69Free Opensource Procedural 3D Modelling and Texturing Tool
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2
For the past three years I've been building what I hope will be the next Blender, tackling the lack of any good 2D design or image editing tools outside the Adobe monopoly. This was our first year participating in Google Summer of Code and this Q3 update includes the big payoff from that, covering the most progress we've made so far as a project. If you're a Rust dev, consider getting involved as we apply for the next GSoC in the new year— you could be our intern next summer :) Q3 progress report: https://graphite.rs/blog/graphite-progress-report-q3-2024/
2024 · graphite.rs · its alternatives →
- 3AF
I've seen some interests in (simulation) video games here on HN so I thought I'd share a short version of our story. More than 6 years ago, me and my friend from university were playing around with an idea of making a game we always wanted to play. We worked on it on weekends but the progress was quite slow, especially due to so many dead ends and wasted effort. Eventually however, we solidified our direction and decided to take the risk to resign from our well paid SWE jobs and work on it full time. It took more than a year but yesterday we have finally released it on Steam:…
2022 · its alternatives →
- 4
My cousin and I love the Terraforming Mars board game. But we'd often get overly excited and knock our pieces off of our boards, losing track of our progress. So I digitised it. It comes with a few cool features like resource conversions (e.g. converting plants to greenery), production phase, offline, mobile-friendly and keeps track of the history using the browser history itself. Sharing this here in case there are any other TM fans that could also find some use in this :)
2024 · terraforming-mars-player-board.netlify.app · its alternatives →
- 5
Took a break from the falling sand simulation blog posts this week to work on another small project. It's a little pixel world generator- each time you visit, you'll see a new little world. I really like this stuff and had a blast building it yesterday!
2022 · jason.today · its alternatives →
- 6IM
Hi. I made a video crash course about Terraform 0.12. It's one of four I want to do. I would love to show you what I've made so far and get your feedback and thoughts. The course is financially free but does require an email to signup (a limitation of the platform I'm using): https://www.thecloud.coach/terraform-crash-course Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks.
2019 · its alternatives →
- 7IB
I've been working on an MMORPG that is now in alpha as a solo developer. Here are the major open source technologies that I use: Blender - 3D modeling software for creating the overall environment and every game object. I've gotten a lot of CC and Public Domain assets from https://poly.pizza GLTF - I export assets from blender to the GLTF asset format JSON - I write a JSON config for every game object that describes things like its name, its interactions, its collisions, etc. Node.js exporter - I iterate over the environment and every asset to create a scene hierarchy. I use…
2024 · alpha.reconquer.online · its alternatives →
- 8IC
I built a desktop Mars colony survival game called Underhill, in homage to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Land on Mars, build solar panels and greenhouses, and try not to pass out during dust storms. Eventually your colonists split into factions: Greens who want to terraform and Reds who want to preserve Mars. There’s Chill Mode for players that just want to build & hang, and Conflict Mode that introduces the Red v. Green factions. Reds sabotage, the terrain slowly turns green as the world gets more terraformed. Feedback welcome, especially on performance and gameplay!
Feb 2026 · underhillgame.com · its alternatives →
- 9
A multiplayer geography game using Websockets. Contribute to abrenaut/posio development by creating an account on GitHub.
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10IM
I've posted this game here before, hopefully a repost is fine as the game has changed quite a bit (improved AI, improved mapeditor, much quicker gameplay, etc). Game is based on JavaScript/Canvas and WebSockets. On the browser side the map is pre-rendered (as a background image), just the mobile units/buildings and animations are dynamically rendered. The lobby server is made in node.js, but the game server is C++ for performance reasons (mainly the pathfinding). I found the C++ WebSocket libraries out there to be too difficult to use so I made my own based on the rfc. Overall I…
2022 · battle-of-flags.com · its alternatives →
- 11
It all started as an experiment to see if I could build a game making heavy use of Deno and its SQLite driver. After sharing an early build in the „What are you working on?“ thread here, I got the encouragement I needed to polish it and make a version 1.0 for Steam. So here it is, Microlandia, a SimCity Classic-inspired game with parameters from real-life datasets, statistics and research. It also introduces aspects that are conveniently hidden in other games (like homelessness), and my plan is to continue updating, expanding and perfecting the models for an indefinite amount of time.
Dec 2025 · microlandia.city · its alternatives →
- 12
Free Real-World Intelligence: Give Your AI Real-Time Access to the Physical World. Grassland lets developers give their software an API for accessing real life environments regardless of economic, geographic or political barriers.
2019 · grassland.network · its alternatives →
- 13
I got pretty good at (and very addicted to) the lunar lander game from a few days ago... so I decided to make an autopilot for the lander based on what I felt like was the best strategy! Now I can have perfect landings every time without lifting a finger :D Writing the autopilot code was a lot more fun than I expected! It felt a bit like programming a robot. Source code: https://github.com/szhu/lunar-lander-autopilot Original lander HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35032506
2023 · szhu.github.io · its alternatives →
- 14MS
Did this a few years ago. Seems apropos. Sources and more here: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Mooncraft2000
Apr 2026 · mooncraft2000.com · its alternatives →
- 15
- 16
Just One Earth▲135We only have one earth. Let's save it. 🌏🔥
2020 · justone.earth · its alternatives →
- 17
Freeciv is a Free and Open Source empire-building strategy game inspired by the history of human civilization. The game commences in prehistory and your mission is to lead your tribe from the Stone Age to the Space Age.
2014 · play.freeciv.org · its alternatives →
- 18TA
2014 · rileyjshaw.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Viberia▲146Hey HN, This is my take on the agent harness. Everything on an isometric map. Agents are grouped into "buildings" that run in a sequence or a loop; e.g., the CodeForge has an agent that writes a PRD, another one that implements, and a third that reviews. Everything is customizable, you build your own buildings/teams however you want. It's a Tauri app, really light (about 8x less energy than the closest competitor I benchmarked, so it actually runs from a coffee shop on battery). It's macOS only for now, but ping me if you are willing to test the Windows or Linux version. I've been…
May 2026 · getviberia.com · its alternatives →
- 20AP
I built this because I wanted a fun way to practice incident debugging without the stress of an actual outage. You get a production incident scenario, read through logs and metrics, and figure out what went wrong. 9 scenarios so far across beginner to advanced. Built with Next.js. Free to play, no signup required to try it. Would love feedback on the scenarios - especially if you've dealt with real incidents that would make good puzzles.
Mar 2026 · youbrokeprod.com · its alternatives →
- 21
Earlier this year, we released our open-source game engine [0] built with Rust, WebAssembly, and WebGPU. Today, we’re happy to announce the Ambient platform, which brings web deployment, server hosting, and more to the runtime. With Ambient, you can make a game, deploy it to the browser in one command, share your URL and instantly play with others, no downloads or installs needed. Our WASM use is innovative; it is being used as both a sandboxed runtime for user code, and as a way to run the entire Ambient runtime in the browser. This, paired with our ECS data model, enables a highly modular…
2023 · ambient.run · its alternatives →
- 22FE
2016 · play.freeciv.org · its alternatives →
- 23
The Terraform Provider for Factorio. Contribute to efokschaner/terraform-provider-factorio development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24G3
I made a web app to generate 3D models of real places on earth from land cover and elevation data. Click anywhere on the map to get a polygon, and then click "generate". It should work at most scales, but if your watershed or region selection is too large, the result can be less exciting because it's so flat. As a warning, the 3D models can sometimes be too much for my phone. It's nicer on desktop. I'm still working better on mobile support. The land cover data I'm using gives a cool effect, but at some point I'd like to add in global imagery and clouds. The backend is a Python thread…
2025 · topography.jessekv.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →