Moonbound's enviroments in general are in need of a HUGE upgrade, right now its not bad but its very geometric and not anywhere near my vision. I want to use the background of the game as a way to incentivize and even directly aid exploration, for example you may see landmarks in the background that you can actually walk to by following them, you can get an idea of where in the map you are by those landmarks. I already have 3 huge landmarks I have planned that will aid exploration, being The G.A.P, The Skycrapers, and The Safehaven, these are all going to be important areas in the game and are all HUGE, so you will be able to see them during gameplay regularly and use them to guide you :>.
Im also hoping to achieve that same, or similar level of amazing and beautiful detail that is rainworld's enviroments, the way each screen could probably pass as a painting on its own just amazes me and I really hope I can achieve something similar, I doubt quite to THAT level but at the very least I want more plants, enviromental objects, decorations, just, THINGS to decorate the world
The official art at the top of this blog is a good example of what im going for specifically for the Echoing Wilds, im actually being inspired by the Spirit Wilds from the Legend of Korra if any of you have watched that (Amazing show btw, if you haven't totally go watch that and The Avatar: The Last Airbender if you havent (watch avatar first)). See, in the alien world of moonbound, the forests are going to look familiar, but not nearly the same as our own forests, im going for a fungus dominated ecosphere in moonbound, where the "Symbiote Trees" as im calling them are tall, long, and sprawling, covered in tiny bits of mold and fungus, showring anything below them in spores. The ground littered in mushroom caps and small cane sprouts, vines, giant cornstalk-like plants, optimization is a worry when I consider getting these into the game but I very much want to figure it out.