Tree of Life: an indie MMORPG from Korea

The idea for an MMORPG “that shows real life” has been with the three-person studio for some time, but the game is becoming closer to reality, thanks in part to a successful crowdfunding campaign in Korea for OddOne Games’ ambitious project.

The Tree of Life

The game is called Tree of Life and might be best described as Minecraft meets MMORPG. With a cute aesthetic, and beginning the game with only your bare hands in search of materials to make and defend your village, the game conjures up memories of Mojang’s hit, but from there it starts to look more like its own take on the MMO genre. Being developed for PC, the game offers an interesting experience in its persistent online world. Trees grow into forests, and new dungeons appear in real-time, and players can choose to maintain the forest or clear them, while engaging in a host of pursuits, encompassing several political and occupational objectives.

To chop, or not to chop?

Players can build villages, choosing to settle down with other players, or, naturally, fight to keep them out. You needn’t settle for being the chief of a small village either, as uniting several villages could leave you a veritable king, according to OddOne Game’s website. The game boasts upwards of 20 occupations, ranging from alchemists to smiths, and apparently offers players the opportunity to specialize within these professions.

As if the daily grind of village labor and the presence of other humans wasn’t already scary enough, the game also includes monsters, who have their own communities and will be watching your rise carefully. Like players, they can be friend or foe, and can help or hinder your along the way. So if the gameplay isn’t enough, we have the monsters staring back at us as a reflection of our own dual nature to ponder.

Monsters looting.

The money tree

While we’ve spoken a lot about Kickstarter and other approaches to funding to crowd funding recently, this project opted to go a different route, pursuing a campaign in its home country of Korea. The campaign had a modest goal of 5 million won ($4664), but more than tripled that goal to bring in $15,594 thanks to its 279 backers.

(See: This Korean studio is rolling the dice, literally, on Kickstarter)

In an interview with Korean site Inven, the team spoke at length about their project and crowd funding in general, and noted that while the initial crowd funding campaign was great, it alone won’t be enough to see the project to its ultimate goal. Fortunately for the three developers, they seem to have a budding community around their game offering feedback and support, including the uncommonly heartwarming story of a backer currently doing his military service.

For now, military serviceman is missing from the occupation list.