I have wanted to make an open world sandbox game for a very, very long time. It's the typical dream game of an open world RPG, except my focus for this project is on the ecosystem and the world, rather than the player. I'm a big believer in games that establish certain rules and allow the player to go from there. Open world games like Minecraft or Rust cultivate in-game religion, economics, engineering and culture. Then you have games like Garry's Mod, which acts as more of a tool or platform to allow for people to create their own games within the source engine. The idea here is to create a world that functions with or without the player, and gives the player tools and abilities to change the world how they see fit.

I'll go into more detail of the world generation another time, but I want to create a foundation that sits on realism, to the point of still being efficient in code. Minecraft does a pretty good job with this, but I wanted to give it my own spin. One thing that always bothers me about terrain generation is tectonic plates and realistic land masses, mountains, and rivers. Although the world currently generates most of the quasi-randomly, I want to create a system that generates and considers tectonics and elevation in relation to precipitation.

Of course, generating the world is only one aspect of the challenge, rendering that world and populating it with things that liven up the world is something else entirely, let alone traversing and interacting with this world as a player.

Needless to say, this will be a significant undertaking. But I'm excited!

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Here's a quick story of how this project came to be. I was browsing Pinterest for some pixel art inspiration for another project I was working on when I saw a very cute pixel llama (which I've not found since). This llama inspired a sort of behavioural tree AI system for a passive animal in a pixelated world. Naturally, rather than simply create the animal, I decided to create an entire world for it to live in. I couldn't let it live in a boring, stagnant world though, so I would have to populate this world with other animals, plants, trees, terrain and weather to fully appreciate the lifestyle of this digital llama.

I had also been watching documentaries and video essays on the ecosystem in the game Rain World, created by a graphic designer, which inspired me, a designer, to launch back into programming and bringing ideas I thought were beyond my skillset within reach.

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I'm new to this whole devlog thing, so be patient, but I'll be sure to post updates and explanations of my progress as I go. Until then, take care!