Went in last night (after having been in the previous night and nobody conscious) and found myself near the fountain and not on my little hill. Picked myself up and started walking home but before I even got there someone greeted me - it was Saater! And I am always happy to see Saater, I don't see enough of him!
He immediately cast me some new pyjamas, which I appreciated.
We ran about like fools for a while, making a racetrack of this mushroom circle and somehow not waking the slumbering deer within with the thindering of our hooves.
An excursion to the lake followed, and I even managed to walk on water for a while, and even sit down on it at one point. I felt like a Jesus-ox-ram-deer-thing!
...until I kept falling in the water and losing my set lol. I am not yet adept in all the ways of the forest, certainly not as proficient as Saater.
I did practice a bit of flying, and we both launched off a convenient hill and sat for a while in the air.
Saater knew a sort of vertical launch move to get airborne which was much more efficient than the way I do it, by running off some raised ground and then repeatedly jumping. I think he was trying to show me how to do it but I was too daft to see what it was.
Accordingly there was some levitation (and levity) near the twin statues..
and a visit to the fountain, although we did not on this occasion become squirrels.
I became momentarily distracted by probing the effective boundary of the mushroom circle around the fountain, and finding that it is not entirely precise, and that it is therefore possible in places to be inside it and yet still retain one's clothed form. Because I am a nerd and interested in that sort of stuff, unlike normal people who would just be carrying on with the frolicking.
(But I suppose such an interest is not uncommon here, given the many and varied ways people have found to subtly bend the game rules in order to wring more possibilities out of the various modes of interaction).
It really was so nice to spend a bit of time with Saater. I will always be happy to see him in the forest
Then it was time for me to bid him goodnight, and settle down upon the little hill before heading off to bed.
It was lovely to see you Saater, and much fun hanging out and playing for a while. I look forward to seeing you again, hopefully soon!
Another wonderful journal
Its just so nice to read about your adventures and your screenshots
are always adorable. You are right, Saater is very skilled at air acrobatics!
I am quite impressed, It seems that you are getting the hang of it quite well
I am also interesting in finding oddities in the forest, like you said - ways to bend the game.
I really love that aspect, its one of the things that makes this place so special in my opinion!
Have a good day friend, See you in the forest!
Signature by Hoodie
ah I am still learning, I
And yes the ways people bend the rules are fascinating. I have a bit of an interest in how games work and I find the forest particularly interesting, in that it's been around in some form for nearly 20 years now and has such a deep history and lore and that includes the methods that people have found to increase their ability to express themselves though exploiting bugs. Not out of any desire to "break" the game, just to be able to communicate more effectively. I see parallels to what they call in urban planning "desire paths", where people will circumvent planned pathways by cutting across grassy areas and in doing so wear their own paths through the grass. Rather than erect barriers to prevent such transgression it can be better to actually redesign the pathing to incorporate peoples' preferred routing.
I was reading through some of Michaël's writing about the port he's making to unreal engine and at one point he was saying that he'd "fixed" the bug that allowed levitation/flying and I thought it would be a shame if that were really to go away, given that people have learned it and enjoy using it. Better IMO to learn from what people are doing with it, and build some equivalent in as a sanctioned feature. I've seen dev cycles where some random bug has turned out to be actually rather fun and been officially incorporated and become a beloved part of the final game.
The forest is remarkable in all kinds of ways really. I thought it was a wonderfully different and interesting experiment when I first encountered it towards the tail end of 2005, and I was absolutely delighted to discover that it still existed and was being used every day in 2025. That in and of itself is a remarkable achievement; not many online games have such longevity. And the community that has grown up around it is also remarkable, in that it has drawn together people who support one another, share their creative works, and imbue the game with wonderful stories, artwork and deep lore.
I can't think of anything else like it, and - especially now, where so much of the games industry is focussed on simply wringing out the most money they can from users through iteration of whatever framework of revenue-extraction is deemed maximally effecient - it makes me think about how it is important that there should be scope for games to be made purely for the sake of art, purely because somebody wants them to exist and to enrich the lives of users.
I am very happy that it still exists, and also that I can be a part of it!
Signature by Saater