The Big Forest

The Big Forest is the working title of a game I'm developing which is set in a big mystical forest and has a strong focus on exploration. The gameplay will involve light puzzles based on connecting clues found through exploration and gradually gaining access to new areas.

(This isn't a VR game - after Eye of the Temple I'm done with VR for the time being.)

The project is in its early stages. The game will be fully procedurally generated, and so far I've been working on a series of disconnected experiments and proofs of concept that will eventually all be rolled into the game. These include procedurally generation of terrain, gameplay progression, creatures, and music.

Procedural terrain

I first started work on this project in March of 2016 when I gave up on the (also procedural) game I worked on at the time called The Cluster. I created an endless procedural forest terrain and managed to make natural-looking paths go through it with switchbacks etc. by using pathfinding for planning the paths.

After adding grass and trees I ended up putting the project on hold to begin working on Eye of the Temple. In September of 2023 (seven years later) I started working on the terrain again. I've been improving the grass and tree coloring, adding water streams to the forest, and added little planks and bridges over the water streams.

Gameplay progression

In 2022 I came up with some new ideas for what kind of game The Big Forest could be. During the year, I developed a way to procedurally create dependency graphs and also procedurally create fully playable game levels based on the graphs.

A dependency graph is a concept in mathematics and computer science which has been independently "discovered" by lots of game developers because it turns out to be pretty central to designing any non-linear game.

You can read more in my blog post Procedural game progression dependency graphs.

Obviously this proof of concept is using a completely different aestetic than the terrain prototype, but that's just because it made it easier to iterate quicker. The plan it to unify it all eventually.

Creatures

I need lots of forest creatures for the gameplay of The Big Forest, some of which will revolve around identifying specific creatures to use for various unique purposes. I prototyped the gameplay using simple sprites for creatures, but the final game requires creatures that are fully 3D and fit well within the game's forest terrain.

I've been working on creatures that are both procedurally generated and animated, which, as expected, is quite a research challenge. For the animation aspect, I've been using my Locomotion System from 2009 as a starting point, and worked on making it fully procedural.

You can read more about the procedural creatures in my blog post Procedural creature progress 2021 - 2024.

Music?

I did a little bit of experimentation with procedural music as well. I haven't made a final decision if the game will be using procedural music or not, but it would be neat. Naturally, I'd have to make a lot more progress for the quality of the music to be suitable.

Mystery and wonder

Furthermore I have ideas about how to populate the world in a way that's informed by my article from 2021 about designing for a sense of mystery and wonder. Combining all these elements into an actual game is going to be a tall order though.

If you'd like to follow the progress, you can see the social links in the sidebar, or old-school add my blog to your rss feed reader.

Procedural creature progress 2021 - 2024

For my game The Big Forest I want to have creatures that are both procedurally generated and animated, which, as expected, is quite a research challenge. As mentioned in my 2024 retrospective, I spent the last six months of 2024 working on this — three months on procedural model generation and three months on procedural animation. My work on the creatures actually started earlier though. According to my commit history, I started in 2021 after shipping ...

Procedural game progression dependency graphs

In 2022 I came up with some new ideas for what kind of game The Big Forest (working title) could be. During the year, I developed a way to procedurally create dependency graphs and also procedurally create fully playable game levels based on the graphs. In the video below you can see the prototype I had near the end. A dependency graph is a concept in mathematics and computer science which has been independently "discovered" by lots of game developers because it turns out to be pretty central to designing any non-linear game. ...

The Big Forest

I've been continuing my work on the procedural terrain project I wrote about here. I added grass, trees and footstep sounds (crucial!) and it's beginning to really come together as a nice forest to spend some time in. I made a video of it here. Enjoy! If you want to learn more about it, have a look at this thread on the procedural generation subreddit. ...

Creating natural paths on terrains using pathfinding

Pathfinding is not just for finding paths for AI agents/NPCs and similar. It’s also for procedurally creating paths. While working on path creation for a procedural terrain, I had the problem that the generated paths would keep having too steep sections, like this: It was too steep and also didn’t look natural at all. I kept increasing the cost multiplier for slopes, but it didn’t help. Then it hit me: My function just penalized the vertical distance, but it didn’t make any difference if this vertical distance came gradually or all at once. ...