The Endless Forest

Last year me and a friend were looking for free online games to play. Yes, I know we are cheap and we didn't feel like spending $30 bucks for a retail game to play. Upon searching we found many entertaining titles such as Rakion and GunZ: The Dual, but those never seemed to hold our interest for very long because not only of the poor quality, but also because the game was pretty repetitive. Upon searching even more for these free online games we came across a title called The Endless Forest. After looking at it we thought it was probably the worst idea for a game ever.

After our class discussion about the college where you develop a virtual world every 2 weeks, I just now realised that The Endless Forest may have derived from that college. In this game you play the roll of a deer. Yes, a deer, and you are in a forest... guess what? the forest never ends! Inside this virtual world you can interact with other players who are deer, but there are no means for traditional communication. To interact with each other, you have a set number of different gestures you can make towards other deer. These gestures include tilting your head, rubbing up against trees, laying down on the ground and also making some kind of bizzar mating call. Aside from all these things that a normal deer could do, there are also ways to change the appearance of your deer by eating magic berries or laying in front of a certain shrine for a set amount of time.

After playing the game for about an hour, my friend and I decided to call the game "The Deer Game" we went on to bash it on how poorly designed it was, the lack of having anything really interesting to do, and also that the game was ultimately pointless. Not until after our class discussion about virtual worlds did I understand how this game might be used. Maybe it could give us a better understanding on how wildlife survives and why they do the things they do. again, I am not certain about the exact point of the game, but it could be usefull in certain situations, perhaps as a teaching element in school.

If you wish to look at "The Deer Game" you can find it at http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/