Ydrasil

Last weekend I took part in the nordic game jam. 48 hours, 7 people and a spelling error in the game title (the tree of life in norse mythology is called Yggdrasil) later we made Ydrasil. A tree simulator where you grow and trim a tree using the powers of cut and thunder. The tree would grow by itself in a very limited manner, by cutting a branch two new one would sprout from the place where you cut the branch. Using thunder instead and the branch would stop growing.

We developed it as a toy first and foremost and had some difficulty tranforming it into a game, this was also because some of us, myself included was a bit reluctant to force gamey conventions on something that lives on being freeform and a creative tool. We did end up putting some weird game goals in there with runes falling down from the sky and the player having to balance it out between the tree and the snake on the ground. It was weird.

In any case we'll continue to develop on it and this time we'll have a bit more time to look into how to make it a game in a way where we can still keep the creational part of the game as the main focus.

Play Ydrasil.