Category: The Endless Forest
The Endless Forest at Vooruit’s 25th birthday party
Next Saturday, September 22nd, Arts Center Vooruit in Gent, Belgium, is celebrating its 25th birthday. There will be concerts, performances and parties throughout the building. The Endless Forest will be shown on two interactive consoles in the Foyer of the Theaterzaal in the back of the building, as part of the new media arts Parcours.
The Endless Forest featured in GEE magazine, Germany
The Endless Forest is page 9 of the September issue of GEE magazine. This is the biggest (and glossiest) offline publication to pick up on our game and it certainly has enabled us to welcome many new players to the forest.
Color us very proud. 
100,000 Nameless deer…
While we weren’t paying attention, the number of times that The Endless Forest has been downloaded jumped over the 100,000. The game has been downloaded 122,879 times to be precise. As far as we know, at least.
So far, some 17,000 players have named their deer (aka registered/joined). And lately, the number of active players per month exceeds 1,500.
This is reflected in increased activity on the game’s forum.
But we still have a few more copies available. So, if you haven’t already, download The Endless Forest now! (get the Phase 3 beta, it’s pretty stable on most machines)
Tale of Tales on Austrian radio tonight
Tonight, Austrian national radio ORF 1 will be broadcasting a report on Belgian new media art, at 22.30, during the Matrix show. The half hour documentary was made by Armin Medosch after his visit to Belgium last Spring.
You can listen to it only during the time of the broadcast by going to the channels website http://oe1.orf.at/ and clicking on ‘webradio‘ on the top.
Simultaneously, a story about Tale of Tales has been published (in German).
Indie + Art = Forest?
According to Michal, Within a Deep Forest is the best indy art game of the moment, followed by yours truly’s The Endless Forest. Flow is only third because it doesn’t have a forest. But 12. Rainy Day and 14. Seiklus also seem to involve trees of some kind.
Via Angelo Vermeulen.
“The freakiest, sickest, scariest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Ok, with that human face part I’ve gone from relaxed to petrified (I guess you could say I’m like ‘a deer in headlights!’!!).”
“Sweet fucking Christ, that’s terrifying. That’s going to be chasing in my nightmares tonight.”
“That has to be one of the freakiest, sickest, scariest things I’ve ever seen. That’s like Omaha Beach, Iwo Jima, Alien, F.E.A.R., a botched surgery and evil evil evil Bambi all rolled together.”
“OH GOD THE WEBPAGE! DO NOT PRESS THE LINK
If you think that picture is terrifying, their main pages background will make you shit yourself.”
Recent thread on Penny Arcade Forums
And here we were thinking our new fawn character looked so cute.
It’s not the first time that we have heard people respond like this. The human face on the deer in The Endless Forest sometimes freaks certain people out. Granted, most of those people would not be interested in playing the game. But this thread on Penny Arcade happens to be about non-competitive games.
Anyway, if you can see what might be so immensely unsettling about our Endless Forest characters, please let us know. We just think they’re cute imaginary creatures…
See Lina Kusaite’s portfolio for more concept sketches of the fawn.
Exhibition: The Limits of Nature
The Endless Forest will be a part of exhibition Els límits de la natura (The Limits of Nature) at Centre d’Art la Panera in Lleida, Spain from 5 July to 30 September 2007.
The site is in Catalan and Spanish but if you cannot understand the language, I give you, from an email conversation, the exhibition theme, according to the organizors:
With this exhibition we would like to show four works related with nature. The relation is different in every work. Our intention is to show people the importance to take care of the environment and how from digital arts some programmers like you developed alternative video games which could help us to be more aware of the problems of our world. I like your work because you can keep in touch with other people in a natural and magic space. You can experience nice and wonderful experiencies playing it.
yes, then.
Other included works:
Jason Rohrer, Cultivation, 2006
Game about community of gardeners growing food for themselves in a shared space.
Playerthree, Stop Disasters
A disaster simulation game. You have to plan and construct a safer environment to help the population. You have to battle against tsunamis, earthquaques, floods and fires.
Molleindustria, The McDonald’s Videogame, 2006
Extreme exploitation of natural resources in order to feed a lot of cows. And also you can realize the suffering of the cows in the farms.
“Ack, it’s impossible to grief the other damn deers”
“Ack, it’s impossible to grief the other damn deers. You can’t talk to them, and no matter what you do is seen as being ‘friendly’ to the other person.”
Quote by Fie, Barbarian, from a 4 page thread about The Endless Forest on the Age of Conan forums (and that’s not even the only thread about our game.)
We win!
The usual homophobia and hunter-fantasies aside, this person, in an attempt to disrupt the peace in The Endless Forest, found out our true secret: without a gun, there is no way to shoot. Welcome to the Forest, Fie!
Chaos in The Forest!
This screenshot pretty much tells it all. There were a record number of deer in attendance for The Endless Forest ABIOGENESIS: Summer Solstice! It was almost more than our server, or we ourselves, could handle but it was a great time and we hope it was good for you too. Thanks to all who logged in, for the patience and participation. Till next time in Phase 3, you bet! 😉
see more images in the Gallery.
And our favorite Endless Forest videographer, Anduin, video captured the experience perfectly!