The Earth Appreciation Festival returns for its fourth year this April, starting on April 1st at 10AM PDT and will be live until April 8, 2025. Co-organized by the developers of Empires of the Undergrowth, The Wandering Village and Timberborn, the event features 160+ discounted and upcoming games centred around two themes: nature (including Manor Lords, Aloft and Rusty’s Retirement) and eco-dystopian (including Frostpunk 2, The Riftbreaker and Forever Skies).
In recognition of World Earth Day which takes place at the end of April (April 22 2025), we’re hosting an event (April 1 to April 8 2025) celebrating the beauty of our green planet, and the marvelous diversity of life as we see it and as we imagine it. We’ve now run the Earth Appreciation Festival for four years in a row and each year we choose a selection of games with nature or eco-dystopian themes.
Nature games have a primary theme – whether narrative or mechanical – that focuses on nature at its best, as it is seen or imagined. As examples, games focusing on the lives of animals or plants, farming, the intricacies of evolution, or the delicate balance of an ecosystem suit this category. They inspire awe and encourage us to protect the environment that we all depend upon.
Eco-dystopian games on the other hand may have themes of pollution, climate change, overpopulation, and conflict, where the wellbeing of nature is far from guaranteed. Post-apocalyptic or other dystopian settings work here. They offer a glimpse of the dire possibilities that show how much we’d miss our natural world if we lost it forever.
For the first time, we are also producing the Earth Appreciation Festival Showcase which aims to highlight exciting announcements and reveals from a selection of games participating in the event. The showcase will go live alongside the start of the event on April 1 at 10AM PDT and will be hosted on the Slug Disco YouTube channel.
The Earth Appreciation Festival was started to honour World Earth Day which takes place this year on April 22nd. During the event we encourage participating games to make charitable donations to organisations close to the heart of the developers and communities.
For this year’s Earth Appreciation Festival we’re partnering with charity “Cool Earth”, whose mission focuses on protecting the rainforest and tackling climate change, while also supporting the well-being and livelihoods of the people in those communities. Cool Earth has relationships with nature-loving, cosy focused creators who use their platforms to raise awareness and funds for Cool Earth via Twitch and Tiltify. This Earth Day, April 22nd, Cool Earth will be working alongside their network of streamers to raise funds through their “Stream For Cool Earth” initiative, which you can learn more about here. Developers taking part in this year’s Earth Appreciation Festival have been invited to share keys for their games to support this initiative.
Alongside this collaboration with Cool Earth, some of the games participating in the event will be donating a portion of their revenue made during the event to a charity of their choice.
