What's New
Every world needs a beginning -- and ours starts with a single island rising from the ocean.
We spent our first development session building the procedural island generator for Novus Terminus: First Flags. The idea is simple: every new game should feel different. When you start a map, the game creates a unique island from scratch -- rolling hills, sandy coastlines, snowy peaks, and broad green lowlands, all surrounded by a calm blue sea. Change the seed, and you get an entirely different landmass. Some islands have a towering central mountain with steep ridges; others sprawl out with gentle meadows and wide beaches. No two games look the same.
The terrain uses a low-poly, flat-shaded art style. If you have ever admired the chunky, hand-crafted look of tabletop terrain or papercraft dioramas, that is the vibe we are going for. Each triangle on the surface catches the light at its own angle, giving the landscape a warm, tactile quality. The colours shift naturally with elevation: golden sand along the shore, lush greens through the lowlands and hillsides, earthy browns on the higher slopes, grey rock near the summit, and a dusting of white snow at the very top.
Floating above it all is an orbital camera that lets you explore every corner of your new world. Pan across the terrain with WASD, zoom in with the scroll wheel to inspect a coastline up close, or zoom out to take in the full island. Hold right-click and drag to rotate and tilt your view freely. The camera always keeps the island centre in focus, so you never lose your bearings. We also added a proper sky with soft ambient lighting and angled sunlight that casts long shadows across the hills -- perfect for that golden-hour feeling.
Behind the Scenes
The island shape comes from layered simplex noise combined with a radial falloff -- think of it as crumpling a sheet of paper and then pressing the edges down so they always dip below the waterline. The terrain is split into small chunks that render independently, which will keep things smooth even as our maps grow much larger in the future. The ocean is a simple blue plane for now, sitting just above sea level -- but we already have plans to give it proper waves and foam in a later update.
What's Next
The island has its shape, but it is still a blank canvas. Next up: we are filling this world with biomes -- deserts, meadows, forests, and snowy peaks -- each with their own personality and decorations.