ARIDA Backland's Awakening

ARIDA: Backland's Awakening is a historical, single-player game that brings survival and adventure together, set amid a harsh drought in the Brazilian backlands. You play Cícera, an inquisitive young girl who takes guidance from her grandfather and the rest of the village to work out how to stay alive and toughen herself against the drought.

Survival takes the right equipment: a machete and a hoe handle essential tasks like drawing water, clearing trails and harvesting corn, though blunt tools do nothing, so you carry a few grindstones. You pick up the crafting recipes built around the region's everyday items, and ask the village elders for help, solving their quests to earn water and food, since a drought makes hunger and thirst genuinely cruel.

You explore the most arid regions to learn more of the backlands and gather what you need, searching out lost collectible objects to uncover its legends. Cícera's greatest dream is to venture out and reunite with her parents, and this is the first of three games tracing her journey through the 19th-century Brazilian backlands, made by a six-person indie team from Brazil.