Tom's Verdict
🌱 My adventure with The Greenening started with one fairly important misunderstanding: I thought I was playing a demo. Somewhere around three and a half hours later, after reaching the end of the game and unlocking every Steam achievement, it finally dawned on me that I'd accidentally played and completed the entire thing. Apparently that's one way of doing a first look.
💧 Thankfully, there was a very good reason I kept playing. The simple act of washing away the ash with my little rain cloud was enormously satisfying, particularly as every upgrade made me noticeably more powerful. Areas that initially required plenty of effort gradually became easier to clear, only for the next stage to introduce tougher ground, new obstacles and another reason to keep improving.
🌳 I also loved the environmental theme running through the whole experience. I've always had a soft spot for games where you clean up damaged places and return nature to them, so watching these lifeless areas gradually become green again was enormously appealing to me. There's something wonderfully satisfying about being able to actually see the difference you're making to the world.
⚡ Progression was handled particularly well. New abilities and increasingly powerful upgrades kept arriving often enough that I never felt as though I was simply grinding the same thing for hours. Even better, there was no prestige system. The Greenening has a beginning, a progression curve and an ending, and it trusts those things to be enough rather than repeatedly resetting my progress simply to make me do everything again.
🌋 The final section also provided considerably more resistance than I was expecting. By that point I'd become rather accustomed to my increasingly powerful little cloud obliterating everything in its path, so having the game push back towards the end gave the journey a surprisingly satisfying conclusion.
💜 The Greenening doesn't need dozens of hours or endlessly repeating progression systems to justify itself. It's a compact incremental game with a lovely message, satisfying upgrades and a clear destination. I started intending to briefly look at what I thought was a demo and ended up completing absolutely everything it had to offer. I think that probably says rather a lot about how much I enjoyed it.
For me, The Greenening earns a Tom Recommends.
Game Screenshots
Watch My Gameplay
Prefer to see The Greenening in action? Watch my gameplay video to see how the game plays before reading my full verdict.
Why I Liked This Game
- ✅ 🌱 Satisfying restoration — Washing away the ash and watching a lifeless world gradually become green again is enormously rewarding.
- ✅ 💧 Excellent incremental progression — Upgrades arrive regularly and make your little rain cloud feel noticeably more powerful as you progress.
- ✅ 🌳 Lovely environmental theme — Restoring nature isn't simply decoration; it's at the heart of the entire experience and gives your progress a visible purpose.
- ✅ ⚡ Constantly evolving gameplay — New abilities, tougher areas and different obstacles keep the simple core mechanic interesting throughout the journey.
- ✅ 🏁 A proper destination — The game has a clear beginning and ending rather than relying on endless resets to artificially extend the progression.
- ✅ 🚫 No prestige system — Your progress remains your progress, which suited this relatively short incremental experience perfectly.
What I Didn't Like In This Game
- ❌ 🌱 Nothing significant — I genuinely didn't encounter anything during my complete playthrough that I felt deserved to be listed as a dislike.
