What's New
When we first started building the world of Novus Terminus: First Flags, everything was made of simple placeholder shapes -- blocky trees, flat ground, and not much else. Over the past weeks, all of that has changed. The world has come alive.
Stand on a hilltop now and look around: rolling meadows stretch out below you, covered in swaying grass and scattered wildflowers. Forests of deciduous trees fill the lowlands, their canopies gently rocking in the wind, while dark conifers climb the mountain slopes. Down at the coast, ocean waves lap against the shore with white foam dissolving into organic patches on the sand. Fluffy cumulus clouds drift overhead, casting soft shadows that glide across the terrain and darken the water beneath them.
But the landscape is not just scenery -- it is inhabited. Herds of deer graze on the meadows. Watch them long enough and you will see a doe lift her head in alert, ears twitching, before the herd moves on. Fawns stay close to their mothers, noticeably smaller and lighter in colour. Schools of fish circle near the coast, each one weaving independently through the water. And above it all, ravens soar in wide circles before swooping down to peck at the ground, then launching back into the sky.
We have integrated over 108 unique 3D assets into the game -- 33 buildings, 30 different settler types each with 20 animations, three animal species, and multiple tree varieties. Every single one of these was modelled in our custom pipeline and brought into the engine with proper animations. The settlers themselves can walk, carry goods, sit down to rest, eat, lie down to sleep, build with hammers and saws, and much more. When the game starts and you watch your first settlers file out of the headquarters one by one, the door swinging open and shut for each of them, it finally feels like a living place.
Behind the Scenes
Getting all of this to run smoothly was a real challenge. The world has around 5,000 trees, over six million individual grass blades, nearly 150 deer across 30 herds, 25 fish schools, and 15 ravens -- all animated, all casting shadows, all swaying or moving independently. We spent a lot of time making sure the wind affects only the treetops while the trunks stay rigid, and that every animal transitions naturally between behaviours like grazing, walking, and being startled.
One thing we are especially proud of: the clouds are not flat textures. They have actual rounded shapes with bright sunlit tops and darker undersides, and the shadows they cast on both the land and the ocean are perfectly synchronised. It is a small detail, but it makes the whole atmosphere feel cohesive and warm -- exactly the cosy feeling we are going for.
What's Next
With the world looking and feeling alive, it is time to let the player shape it. Next up: placing buildings, connecting roads, and watching your settlers get to work.