Waterful is that most appropriate and disquieting of things, a "nature-builder". It's a soft and colourful chillout game in which you cut rivers through procedurally generated landscapes with a cursor, drawing from a limited supply of water that is topped up by connecting springs.
Importantly, and perhaps dispiritingly, you can dig and refill the terrain as you please. Depending on the shape of the river and the depth of its bed, you'll cultivate different vegetation. The vegetation, in turn, attracts a range of creatures, from butterflies to big-eared foxes. For each creature, you get a sticker. There are also machines you can build to, for example, carry the watercourse over hills. Comparisons given by Berlin-based solo developer Lenja Kaufmann include Dorfromantik, Tiny Glade, Islanders, Terra Nil and Townscaper.
Charged with the full force of the romantic Sublime it ain't, but I'm always happy to see videogames playing with rivers, and I'm curious to rake my hand through these sands, teasing out the green. I wonder what flora and fauna I'd get if I wrote my name in water. Anyway, here's a trailer.
And here is some river literature, to wash that down. Algernon Blackwood's story The Willows is both a nice slice of supernatural horror – subtler and less putrid than the work of Blackwood's contemporary Lovecraft - and a ravaged and breathless tribute to the Danube. An excerpt: "We knew all its sounds and voices, its tumblings and foamings, its unnecessary splashing against the bridges; that self-conscious chatter when there were hills to look on; the affected dignity of its speech when it passed through the little towns, far too important to laugh; and all these faint, sweet whisperings when the sun caught it fairly in some slow curve and poured down upon it till the steam rose."
Alice Oswald's Dart is a book-length account of the eponymous strong, brown god and all the lives lived along its history, from freshwater swimmers to sewage workers. An excerpt: "It's a rush, a sploosh of sewage, twenty thousand cubic metres being pumped in, stirred and settled out and wasted off, looped back, macerated, digested, clarified and returned to the river. I'm used to the idea."
Within videogames, my favourite rivers include the Mississippian roguelite rush of The Flame in the Flood, and the treacherous aquifers of From Dust. Still, I think I'm still waiting for a Proper river game, one that compares to walking along the bank, losing your eye in the whirls and eddies. If we're going to talk about "wholesome" entertainment, I like the calmer places you discover within the contours of rapids, where the white water bellies out and thins, pushing up a pretty little ridge of pebbles.
The thing I like best about Waterful is the idea of river shapes corresponding to growth - less for the naturalism, than for the sense of carving out runes in a summoning ritual of some kind. The key thing I'm missing is a sense of helplessness – again, the ability to delete the river as preferred is dispiriting. Rivers should overwhelm you. Still, I'm being rather obtuse - this is obviously not the game Kaufmann wants to make. "It’s intentionally simple and made by just one person, so please expect a short, focused experience rather than a large-scale simulation," she writes.
Read more on Steam. Also please share any great art, literature, games, etcetera involving rivers.