FlowScape was a program that I picked up over the Steam winter sale at Syn’s suggestion. It’s not really a game, persay, but it has elements that make it feel game-like.
I’ve spent a little bit of time messing around with it so far – the idea was we could use it to make natural backgrounds for our webcomic art. So, I don’t have a full grasp on what all it can do and what the limitations might be. But from what I have experimented with, it should do what we need it to.
Flowscape isn’t just a digital art or 3D sculpting program. It’s pretty intuitive to use and it has very chill and relaxing background music that accompanies you while you play (some of the tracks were by Skyrim composer Jeremy Soule).
You can start with a random seed that plops down an environment and some animals and edit that if you want. Or, you can make a blank slate and do your own thing.
I rolled a few random seeds so you could see some of the variety in the starter environments you get.
Modifying the environment really is as easy as selecting plants, items or animals and “painting” them in with your mouse. It’s hard to explain, so I’m dropping a video here instead!
Steam reviews note that this is a great immersive program for worldbuilding and often used for creating atmospheres for tabletop gaming. And I can really see that. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of what this program can do, but as the video above shows, there’s quite a bit that can be done with it.
I’m not sure if they’ll ever open it up to something like the Steam Workshop, but having the community create assets for it would be absolutely incredible! While there’s not yet a Workshop built in, the Flowscape Discord has it covered:
I think I need to join this Discord. I’m sure there’s lots of inspiration to be had there!
(Note: And there is.)
