been playing wildmender 🌱rkgk

Hello this is not LoZ related because I've been playing Wildmender instead

Anyways here's some Wildmender fanart of Naia Mother Of Rivers

she is my mom and also kitty

back pack for his little frog

back pack where he keeps HIS LITTLE FROG

i've been playing wildmender, and it's so satisfying turning desolate land back into lush and verdant meadow and forests. :>

How we created the ideal water system for Wildmender

Over the last 4 years of work, we've created a gardening survival game in a desert world that let people create massive and complex oasis where each plant is alive. At the heart of a system-driven, procedurally generated ecology is a water simulation and terraforming system, and this post is to share a bit of how we built it.



We knew early on that the game would include some level of soil and water simulation, just as an outgrowth of wanting to simulate an ecosystem. The early builds used a simple set of flags for soil, which plants could respond to or modify, and had water present only as static objects. Each tile of soil (a 1x1 “meter” square of the game world) could be rock or sand, and have a certain level of fertility or toxicity. Establishing this early put limits on how much we could scale the world, since we knew we needed to store a certain amount of data for each tile.



Since the terrain was already being procedurally generated, letting players shape it to customize their garden was a pretty natural thing to add. The water simulation was added at first in response to this - flat, static bodies of water could easily create very strange results if we let the player dig terrain out from under them. Another neat benefit of this simulation was that it made water a fixed-sum resource - anything the player took out of the ground for their own use wasn’t available for plants, and vice versa. This really resonated well with the whole concept of desert survival and water as a critical resource.



The water simulation at its core is a grid-based solution. Tiles with a higher water level spread it to adjacent tiles in discrete steps. We broke the world up into “simulation cells” (of 32 by 32 tiles each) which let us break things like the water simulation into smaller chunks that we could compute in the background without interrupting the player. The amount of water in each tile is then combined with the height of the underlying terrain to create a water mesh for each simulation cell. Later on, this same simulation cell concept helped us with various optimizations - we could turn off all the water calculations and extra data on cells that didn’t have any water, which is most of the world.



Early on, we were mostly concerned with just communicating what was happening with simple blocks of color - but once the basic simulation worked, we needed to decide how the water should look for the final game. Given the stylized look we were building for the rest of the game, we decided the water should be similarly stylized - the blue-and-white colors made this critical resource stand out to the player more than a more muted, natural, transparent appearance did. White “foam” was added to create clear edges for any body of water (through a combination of screen depth, height above the terrain, and noise.)

We tweaked the water rendering repeatedly over the rest of the project, adding features to the simulation and a custom water shader that relied on data the simulation provided. Flowing water was indicated with animated textures based on the height difference, using a texturing technique called flowmaps. Different colors would indicate clean or toxic water. Purely aesthetic touches like cleaning up the edges of bodies of water, smooth animation of the water mesh, and GPU tessellation on high-end machines got added over time, as well.

The “simulation cell” concept also came into play as we built up the idea of biome transformations. Under the hood, living plants contribute “biomass” to nearby cells, while other factors like wind erosion remove biomass - but if enough accumulates, the cell changes to a new biome, which typically makes survival easier for both plants and players. This system provided a good, organic feel, and it fulfilled one of our main goals of making the player’s home garden an inherently safe and sheltered place - but the way it worked was pretty opaque to players. Various tricks of terrain texturing helped address this, showing changes around plants that were creating a biome transition before that transition actually happened.



As we fleshed out the rest of the game, we started adding new ways to interact with the system we already had. The spade and its upgrades had existed from fairly early, but playtesting revealed a big demand for tools that would help shape the garden at a larger scale. The Earthwright’s Chisel, which allowed the players to manipulate terrain on a larger scale such as digging an entire trench at once, attempted to do this in a way that was both powerful and imprecise, so it didn’t completely overshadow the spade.

We also extended the original biome system with the concept of Mothers and distinct habitats. Mothers gave players more direct control over how their garden developed, in a way that was visibly transformative and rewarding. Giving the ability to create Mothers as a reward for each temple tied back into our basic exploration and growth loops. And while the “advanced” biomes are still generally all better than the base desert, specializing plants to prefer their specific habitats made choosing which biome to create a more meaningful choice.



Water feeds plants, which produce biomass, which changes the biome to something more habitable that loses less water. Plants create shade and block wind-borne threats, which lets other plants thrive more easily. But if those plants become unhealthy or are killed, biomass drops and the whole biome can regress back to desert - and since desert is less habitable for plants, it tends to stay that way unless the player acts to fix it somehow. The whole simulation is “sticky” in important ways - it reinforces its own state, positive or negative. This both makes the garden a source of safety to the player, and allows us to threaten it - with storms, wraiths, or other disasters - in a way that demands players take action.

The Steam Winter Sale may be over...

The Steam Winter Sale may be over but our bundle with @wildmendergame is still on!

You can get these two cozy games for 18% off on Steam today!

Wildmender is legitimately one of the best survival games I've ever played.

Sometimes when I'm high all I want is to satisfy an artistic urge to create a little space. Like. Games with bases like CotL and Minecraft and Don't Starve Together and Stardew and Wildmender and even an Atomicrops farm on a good run. Something about a home and an art project all at once (the game is auxillary and im doing it so i can make a house). What im saying is i know exactly whats up w/ those spiders weaving their webs on drugs and they r my sisters 🕷🕸

Review: Wildmender

The ambition of the game design makes it easy to overlook Wildmender‘s technical flaws.  There’s just so much to mess around with, whether that be exploring the land looking for shrines, ghosts and graves, turning up new seeds and seeing what they grow, figuring out how to make rare hybrid crops, or just hanging out at home base to spruce the place up after un-collected seeds sprout new plants that clutter up the landscape. 

Read more!

Free falling really is something

You can hug the frog

and bring it home

6 Novos jogos Aconchegante para Setembro 2023

Wildmender art dump because Wildmender is Wildmending my soul

Anyways this is my character I'm pretending that in her past life they were an acolyte of Stryge. I'm designing fan acolyte/priest outfits for the gods. She hugging frogge.

Also the birds in the Salt Flats. I gifted them the beautiful headempty eyes of a grackle.

So I've been playing this game called Wildmender where you wake up in a desert and have to build an oasis (and unblock or cleanse other springs, plant vegetation and help regrow the desert- all while being attacked by wraiths and trying to purge evil from Gods shrines so they can lend you their powers- and lots of other stuff, its great)

(pictured above: Wraith- sometimes they just spy on you and don't attack and lemme tell you i've jumped out of my skin more times than I can remember from turning around to spot one, just silent and still, staring at me from the other end of the garden. Much scarier than being chased by like 10 of them hurling fireballs)

But mostly it's just an incredibly beautiful game

Highly recommended, check it out if you're interested in this type of game!!

Wildmender Gameplay

#wildmender #craftinggame #survivalgame #exploringgames #adventuregame A desert gardening survival game. Start from a tiny spring and cultivate a blooming garden. Explore a vast world amid the sands and uncover its mysteries. Can you defend against the relentless forces of nature and mysterious wraith corruption, to bring life to a dying world? Wildmender is a game about bringing a deserted world back to life. Explore the vast desert, alone or with friends. Collect plants and bring them back to your garden to thrive. Craft new tools and use them to shape the earth, and channel water to your plants. Delve into the mysteries of a fallen civilization and discover their magic. Befriend animals, spirits, and seek out the gods to help you defend the land from the vicious wraiths who seek to corrupt it. It’s up to you to save the world, one seed at a time. Turn the Desert Green With the tools you crafted, set out to grow the little oasis in the middle of a vast desert into your own thriving garden. Plant seeds, dig canals, nurture your plants, craft useful and beautiful structures, harness magical essence, protect against the forces of nature, and more! You’ll have plenty of space and choices to create the garden of your imagination. Acre by acre, you will reclaim the desert and reforest the world. Explore, Forage, and Survive Explore the desert around you. It is not as barren as you think! Forage for seeds and resources. Store them for a longer journey or bring them back to your garden, the choice is yours. Manage your food and water carefully as your journey through the dunes, the drained and salted sea, the poisoned canyons, and the cold and distant mountains. The farther you adventure, the greater the peril and rewards. Rare minerals, exotic plants, adorable creatures, and ancient spirits await your discovery. Uncover the Mystery What happened to this world? How did everything go wrong? How did the life-draining wraiths corrupt the land? Journey to the temples of the gods, learn their stories, rediscover arcane magic, unlock powerful weapons, tools, and abilities to help you defeat the wraiths, free the gods, and breathe new life to the world. 4-Player Co-op Gardening Invite up to 3 of your friends to your garden online! Work together to tend your flourishing garden. Share resources and survive together. Adventure with friends through the lonely desert. Fight together against dangerous wraiths. But don’t forget, with more hands to garden you’ll have more mouths to feed! Customize your Garden and Looks Just let nature take its course or style the garden to your liking. Craft structures and tools to decorate and shape the terrain. Build bridges over canals, a footpath dotted with lanterns, stucco walls with a gate, magical sigils that return bees to your garden, a streaming waterfall with a pool below, and more. Craft a loom and weave a wide variety of outfits to travel the desert in style. Features: -Dozens of plant species to cultivate and grow, each with a variety of cultivars to be discovered -50+ craftable structures and tools to build and manage your perfect garden -75+ unlockable perks and ability upgrades -1-4 player online Co-op multiplayer -Procedurally generated world for a unique challenge every replay -Day-night cycle: plants thrive and grow in the sun, while ghosts roam the cool nights -Variety of outfits for your character -Difficulty settings and game modes that can be adjusted on the fly

Build up your garden, and bring home a friend.

You can hug the frogs in Wildmender!