Tile

**Tiles** are the basic building blocks of the game, dividing the area into little hexagonal pieces. Tiles are areas upon which buildings, roads and other terrain can be found or placed (Buildings can have variable configurations for multi-tile buildings). Tiles also have a *tile type*. Certain types can have special restrictions on what can be placed on them or other special characteristics. A cluster of *land* tiles is called an island, which has a biome indicating the type of tile type likely to be found there. For example, some biomes have more of a certain type of tile than others. Land tiles can become Polluted.

## Grass

Grass is the most basic tile. The starting island will always be made up of grass tiles and highlands under default start settings. Wells and any crop can be built on grass tiles, assuming the island has the corresponding Fertility. Grass is one of the three tiles that can be generated with trees.

## Desert

Sandy Desert tiles are by default first encountered on the second island as part of the eponymous Desert biome.

Wells and crop fields cannot be constructed on desert tiles. Otherwise, there are no restrictions on accommodation or industry buildings. Desert is one of the three tiles that can be generated with trees.

Desert tiles are one of the few ones that can appear outside of its biome, as a sandy ring around islands with the Rainforest biome. The main feature of this tile is sand, which is useful for building the Sand Mine.

## Snow

Like Grass, Wells and crops can be built on Snow tiles. However islands with snow tiles tend to have very limited fertility. Snow is one of the three tiles that can be generated with trees.

## Swamp

Swamp can be farmed, but does block placement of certain buildings as follows:

## Rainforest

Functions identically to the Grass tile in terms of building placement, except all Rainforest tiles will be generated with a Forest tile on top of them by default. Removing the forest will adjust the whole Rainforest biome's modifier to field production.

## Wasteland

*Main article:* Wasteland

Wasteland occurs when a **tile** has too much pollution for too long. It comes along with a single tile of the Toxic Sludge terrain feature, marked with a yellow splotch. Removing the Toxic Sludge feature with a Decontaminator will also fix the Wasteland.

## Highland

A higher section of ground where Rusting Hulks, Mountains, Electronics Piles and other raw resources like Ancient Technology deposits are located. Highlands can be accessed by building an Elevator on one side. After researching Laser and unlocking Deep Mines, they will be revealed as either Iron or Stone Highlands and a Deep Mine placed on them will produce the according resource.

Highlands are not to be confused with Mountains; Mountains are where Stone is obtained via a Quarry.

Highland is separated from normal tiles with a cliff. An elevator must be used to traverse up to it. Highlands are the only areas to find Stone and Iron terrain features.

In the lategame, these will be renamed as either Iron Highland or Stone Highland depending on what resource that island's Deep Mines will produce.

## Astrobaleenium

The Astrobaleenium Deposit is created by the Space Whale attack. It is a patch of about 10 tiles that is raised like Highland, but only a Protective Elevator will work to access the area. It is the only area to provide the Astrobaleenium resource. It also creates pollution in the surrounding lowground tiles and blocks them from being cleaned. An Astrobaleenium Mine can be placed on the highground or a Reclamation Spire can be used to remove every tile in the area.

## Crystal

Crystal is more notable as a biome type, and as a tile type is not particularly special. Two key features is that it is completely unable to be farmed, and the fact that like the two types of Highland, Deep Mines can be placed here to generate the Crystal resource once the surface deposits have been exhausted.

## Ocean

Ocean tiles come in different styles of varying depths, but they all function identically. Ships can only move across ocean tiles. Islands are separated by large expanses of ocean tiles, but some islands can also posses small archipelagos that are registered as the same overall landmass. Oceans can become polluted but cannot be Cleaned.

Oceans surround all islands. They can not be traversed by walking Peeps, with the exception of tiles hosting a Bridge, and only vehicles can move through it. Some Ocean tiles have Sunken Ruins which can be explored by Submarines. Sometimes a certain Guardian can appear here too. They provide a build restriction on buildings related to ships, such as the port, and the Desalination Plant. Oceans have three separate appearances of depth but these are all cosmetic.

## Inland Water

These provide the appearance of lakes and streams. They cannot be walked over without a bridge. They are also a valid tile for Desalination Plant but will only produce water. If this tile joins an ocean a small waterfall will result.

## Ice

Ice represents the polar "icecap" region of the planet. It is impassable and therefore cannot be accessed by Peeps nor used by the player. A faint whistling sound effect can be heard when hovering the camera over this area. There is also a game setting called "Pole Avoiding Camera" that makes the camera unable to cross the pole, which keeps the north/south up/down perspective locked, and may help the player avoid disorientation by panning around the planet and ending up at a strange angle of perspective.

## History

Originally only the Grass, Desert, and Snow biomes existed. Rainforest, Swamp, and Crystal biomes were added in Content Update 4.