Gibbon: Beyond the Trees
Hi, I’m Eddy Boxerman, a physics/animation/gameplay programmer & designer. Gibbon: Beyond the Trees, a game I’ve been collaborating on over the last few years with the awesome folks at Broken Rules, came out on Apple Arcade a few weeks ago.
It’s an endless-runner style game in which the player controls a gibbon that can swing, slide, and somersault their way through the jungle, and beyond. It’s a beautiful game, not only visually, but aurally and narratively as well. (I may be biased).
The first thing you need to know is this: gibbons are amazing. If you’ve never seen a gibbon “brachiate” (swing from handhold to handhold), watch the below video.
Such fluid swinging is what inspired Felix to try to create a game that would convey the sense of joy and freedom-of-movement that gibbons must feel.
He began working on a prototype, but found the movement to be quite complex, and elusive to capture, so he branched out…
Animation mockups can be a great way to explore and sketch out a game’s identity, without requiring it to be fully built. So Felix and Clemens worked with their office-mate, Sascha Vernik, to create the following mockup:
They also asked David Rosen of Wolfire Games if he’d be interested in creating a movement prototype of gibbon brachiation, running, and sliding. (David has a long history of creating cool, procedural animation systems, such as for their game Overgrowth.) Luckily he was up for the challenge, and created a system that was an awesome launching point for creating the full game. David also just published a video describing that prototype and the techniques he employed therein – required viewing for anyone interested in the subject!
I also joined the project around this time, and started to work with Felix on
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