If you thought game development wasn't physical work, you clearly haven't met Henry Driver. He's the man behind the "game" Treeplanter, and for every copy sold, he plans to plant a real tree. Go, Henry, go!

This guy genuinely managed to make me feel like a first-rate lazybones. Henry Driver is a farmer from Suffolk, England, and as he writes on his X profile, he plants "hundreds of trees" every year.

Okay, in my defense, I could bring up a bit of gardening and looking after the animals in the yard. But Henry is probably doing a lot more to keep a few extra square miles of ecosystem happy than I am. So yeah, it's still 1:0 to him.

And Henry isn't just a farmer. He's also, well, sure, let's call him a game developer. Just yesterday, he dropped his first project—though I'd really call it more of a creative tool—called Treeplanter. It lets you build and admire your own atmospheric woodland scenes. And there's no shortage of things you can do with it.

Getting creative for the environment

The most interesting bit, of course, is that buying a copy of Treeplanter means a real tree gets planted—without you having to lift so much as a finger. That said, I do wonder what master planter Henry Driver is planning to do if his artsy little tool suddenly sells tens of thousands of copies. 🙂 I mean, never say never. Especially when you've come up with something that could, in theory, appeal to pretty much every environmentally conscious gamer out there.

Anyway, let's get to Treeplanter itself. It's very much a pure "single-player tool," built around an interactive, quite literally picturesque forest—or natural diorama—that changes with the seasons. According to the description, it's deliberately "a small game with no goals or challenges" and focuses instead on observation, creativity, and the way nature fits together (rather than characters or plot).

Landscapes for photographers

Treeplanter gives you a UI that feels a bit like Photoshop and The Sims had a quiet little woodland baby. You can put together groups of trees branch by branch, watch roots spread beneath the soil, create an ecosystem full of animals, plants, and birds, and see how the seasons and weather reshape your tiny forest world. You can also place all kinds of objects—footballs, snowmen, bicycles—or buildings like windmills and ruins into the scene.

For action fans, it's probably a snooze. For anyone in need of a little peace and quiet, it'll likely feel like paradise. One nice extra: there are procedural creatures too, though they probably won't turn heads the way they do in No Man's Sky. If you want to see Treeplanter in action (sorry, that one had to happen) you can check out the release trailer below. Right now, the unusual little game is only available on PC and Mac.