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Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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Terra is a game that I really wanted to like. In theory, it was a great idea and part of the profits when to relief efforts so it was for a good cause. I also realize that, with a different audience, my experiences with the game might have been more enjoyable.
Terra is an educational game. I know. When you say those words, people automatically shudder. Despite the hard work of Big Bird and Mr. Rogers, most people just don’t associate education with fun. That is even though regular, non-educational games will teach you about history, economics, arithmetic, practical pattern recognition skills, and a lengthy list of other useful things.
Terra was designed to teach folks about how to save the world. The essence of the game boils down to the players have access to a limited number of resources. They can either horde them for points at the end of the game or use them to solve crises. The kicker is that if the number of crises ever reaches a critical point, the world ends and everyone loses.
The intended message of the game is that we need to work together in order to save the world from war, pollution and intolerance. And, let’s be honest, I like that message. I can get behind it.
Unfortunately, the game also is going to either have one winner or all losers. That means it’s a competition. And it doesn’t take the average competitive gamer long to realize that, while resources are tight, there are just enough so that one player can horde as long as everyone else focuses on saving the planet.
So, all of my games broke down into a race to be the first player to horde resources. That stuck all the other players with either having to carry the load of the selfish player to save the world and let them win the game or let the world end out of spite.
Okay, since that is how the real world often works, I suppose that that makes Terra very educational. However, it didn’t make it very fun and it is no longer in my collection. I understand that when Terra is played under other circumstance, like in the classroom, it can be a fun game played as a cooperative, as opposed to a competitive. However, the competition is right there in the rules and there’s no escaping that it is an intentional design feature!
All that being the case, Pandemic actually teaches the lessons of Terra better than Terra does and it doesn’t even claim to be educational 
Years after I gave up on Terra, I was introduced to R-Eco. R-Eco is a game of set collection and hand management. It also happens to be an environmentally-themed game like Terra, albeit on a much smaller scale. In Terra, you are trying to save the world. (Insert Heroes-themed cheerleader joke) In R-Eco, you just don’t lose points if you don’t pollute the local neighborhood.
Other than the theme and the fact that they both use cards, Terra and R-Eco aren’t that similar. They are mechanically different and R-Eco has no cooperative elements in it. The themes aren’t even that much alike, saving the world versus running a waste disposal company. However, they are just close enough that R-Eco made a Terra-shaped bell go off in my head.
For me, they both had the same message: It’s a good idea to preserve and take care of the Earth. However, in Terra, there really wasn’t any incentive to do that. In R-Eco, you actually get positive reinforcement for doing the right thing. You can get points if you don’t pollute at all and you at least lose fewer points if you don’t pollute as much as the next guy.
At the same time, you can still win even if you pollute in R-Eco. If you’re willing to illegally dump, you can often get a lot more points, enough to potentially offset the loss and be able to win the game. So, R-Eco doesn’t just say ‘give a hoot and don’t pollute’. It gives you a real choice in the matter, letting you weigh the pros and cons.
Terra is a noble idea but one that is too easily tarnished by exactly the kind of behavior it is warning you against. R-Eco, without claiming to be an educational game, does a better job being a fun game and giving you something to think about.
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