Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 34 (Patreon)

Welcome, everyone, to the 34th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone. 

Today, I will analyze the design of the Forest area in Donkey Kong Country Returns and how the developers have created an ecosystem from scratch using fantasy elements.

Please note that all images used in this article are either taken by me in various emulators or by using noclip.website, an online map viewer for a variety of games, unless indicated with an attribution on the bottom of the image.

Creating A Fantasy Forest

Forests in platforming video games - particularly 2D platformers, although many 3D platformers are affected by this as well - rarely take advantage of the fact that forests consist of trees.

On the surface, this seems nonsensical - if a level does not have trees, how can it be a forest level to begin with? Of course, the trees are still present, but many video games relegate them to the background instead of making an effort to integrate them into the actual platforming. Here is a screenshot from a forest level in New Super Mario Bros. Wii that is emblematic of this approach:

The forest level is only nominally a forest, by using a tree background and playing a forest music track. The actual platforms in the foreground are the same regular ground and theme-independent bridges that could just as easily be used in a grassland level, a mountain level, and so on. This is the prevalent type of forest levels not just in 2D Mario platformers, but 2D platformers in general. It takes considerably more effort to integrate trees into the platforming experience so the designers let the aesthetics carry the theme rather than letting it in any way inform the layout of the level.

3D platformers are not exempt. Older 3D platformers were limited by the console's capabilities to render many polygons at once, making trees with many branches impractical or impossible. As an example, the level Fungi Forest from Donkey Kong 64 contains only two actual modeled trees, while the rest of the trees are textures along the walls of the level:

But even new 3D platformers continue to avoid having the trees be part of the platforming. Super Mario Odyssey's Wooded Kingdom contains two major areas: the quiet "aesthetic area" containing all the trees:

...and the area that play's the level's music and contains the actual platforming, which has nearly no trees, and the ones it does contain are functionally identical to climbing poles:

The trees in the aesthetic area, while very impressive, serve mainly as tall walls. There is some interaction with a few platforms placed high up in the branches to obtain some Power Moons, but there is no jumping from branch to branch. 

Thus, it is a rare occurrence to have not just one level, but an entire world in a platformer fully embrace the idea of using trees as platforms, as in the Forest world of Donkey Kong Country Returns. However, this is not the main reason I will be talking about it today, but rather, it is the sheer effort and amount of worldbuilding that went into designing that world purely through the decision to not use any preexisting tree species for the forest and instead come up with an original ecosystem.

Trees in the Mario series are overwhelmingly what can only be called "vague cartoon trees":

Not only is it impossible to determine what tree species they are, but it also is clearly not intended to be important. These trees are a simplified depiction of an idea of a tree, and - while this is speculation on my part - I truly believe it was never a concern of the artists what kind of fruit the trees are supposed to bear, what the trees are supposed to look like underneath the leaves, and so on, since they are too cartoonish for any of this to matter.

In contrast, every part of the trees in the Forest in Donkey Kong Country Returns (from here, simply referred to as "the Forest") is deliberately designed, and they are seen alive, dead, decaying, being hosts to parasites, supporting a symbiotic species, and being a home for various fauna - all while having an original concept not based on any real-life tree species. Let's take a look at the Forest as it appears on the Donkey Kong Island overworld map.

Usually, it is shown from an overhead angle that gives a better view of the wooden walkways at the expense of not seeing the trees in full. At first glance, this seems to be a regular conifer forest. The trees look like stylized depictions of fir or pine trees (especially the smaller ones in the bottom left corner) and there are no particular points of interest about them that could be seen on the map. 

One thing that can be noticed by looking around slightly longer is how gigantic the trees actually are, due to the ones on the right bordering the Jungle area that has regular-sized trees:

These trees are so many times taller than the Jungle trees that the only real-life tree they could resemble would be the redwood trees. There is something peculiar that can be seen by zooming in: the texture of the Forest trees consists of leaves even though their overall shape is that of conifers, which have needles. However, the zooming is a part of the map viewer functionality and cannot be done during regular gameplay, making this hard to notice in an ordinary playthrough. Still, this is the first hint that there is more to the Forest than meets the eye.

The first level of the Forest, Vine Valley, starts off in a cave. The game begins every world's first level with a segment based on the previous world, to provide continuity between the areas of the island (with the possible exception of the Forest-Cliff transition, where the Forest is seen only very briefly in the background). Thus, this part is based on the Cave world. However, at the top of the small cave area, we can already see the roots of the first of the Forest trees:

This tree is dead and hollowed out. We will later encounter two major reasons the Forest contains so many dead trees. 

A sequence of Barrel Cannons shoots Donkey Kong further up the tree, until the ground of the Forest becomes visible:

Finally, as Donkey Kong arrives at the top of the tree and the level's music ("Forest Frenzy Returns", a remix of the Forest Frenzy track from the original Donkey Kong Country's forest levels) begins to play, there is something unexpected at the top of the screen:

Leaves. As it turns out, these trees, despite seeming so much like conifers from the world map, actually have leaves. Now, there is an overlap between the different ways trees can be classified. Conifers are simply trees that bear cones; they are merely part of a larger group called the gymnosperms. To define those, it is best to say what they are the opposite of: gymnosperms are trees that do not flower. Many of them have needles, however, the ginkgo tree does not flower either, but has regular leaves.

Another way to look at this is to distinguish between evergreen and deciduous plants. Evergreens do not shed their leaves (or needles), while deciduous plants do. Still, there are exceptions on both sides regarding where gymnosperms and fruiting plants fall here; since some leafy fruiting plants are evergreens, and some conifers actually shed their needles. Unfortunately, we cannot decisively place the Forest trees on the gymnosperm/fruiting plant divide since we do not see them bear cones OR flower - but in one place in the level Longshot Launch, we do see them shed their leaves, making them deciduous. 

It is very hard to notice in-game, but some shadowed trees drop leaves in one portion of that level continuously. I have circled the falling leaves in red.

Thus, what we have here are trees that apparently, from a distance, look like redwood trees, but are actually deciduous leafy plants that may or may not flower. In accordance to this, I will call them Leafy Redwoods from now on. 

Let's look at the general visual design of the Leafy Redwoods. For this, take a look at the far background of most of the Forest levels, extracted from the game's files:

Here is the layer that appears between the far background and the modeled parts of the background that are closer to the camera:

We can see the Leafy Redwoods have distinct design elements. The branches along the lengths of the trunks are short and have a distinctive spiral shape. There are no leaves on the branches; all leaves are concentrated in the crown (another element taken from real-life conifers, which often have tall, bare trunks without major branches and have all the greenery concetrated in the crown) - although there is one exception we will get to shortly. There is also a distinctive spiral pattern on the bark. Compare this design to the forest level backgrounds from the original Donkey Kong Country:

The regular forest levels in that game have a dense collection of pine trees...

...while the Treetop levels have bare trunks that could belong to any species of sufficiently tall tree. Comparing these to the Forest from Donkey Kong Country Returns, it becomes clear it was intended to resemble both of these. Of course, the level's name, Vine Valley, is also a deliberate reference to the forest world of the same name in Donkey Kong Country.

There is another design element of the Leafy Redwoods that, as far as I can tell, is completely original and is not based on any real-life tree:

Instead of leaves growing from the ends of branches, sections of leaves grow directly out of the trees' bark. This simply does not happen in the real world as a regular part of a tree's growth; while examples of leaves growing out of bark exist, they are signs of a disease or mutation instead. It can be compared to humans growing keratinous growths, or horns, from random places on their skin - which does happen, but is always a sign of a medical issue.

Finally, many of the trees have sections of their bark missing, but underneath is simply more identical bark. In the real world, as a tree grows, the bark moves outward while the inside is filled with more wood; the cross-sections of these trees also show they have yellow wood. This could mean the bark sometimes sheds, taking some of the underlying substance along with it, then recovering with more bark; or that someone carved into the trees but they recovered afterward. The latter one could be plausible given how the entire Forest is covered in carvings:

In the first level, we see these idols of the Piranha Plant-like Chomps enemies. However, most of the carvings are of totems, which seem to be related to the Tiki Tak Tribe, the game's antagonistic force:

However, the connection is never explained. The game's story states the Tikis were released from the Volcano just before the events of the game, but the carvings look much older. Could they have been from someone who worshipped the Tikis in the past, or perhaps from the Tikis themselves before they were somehow sealed inside the Volcano? The game does not answer most of the questions regarding artificial background structures, instead letting the players come up with their own interpretations.

The carving plays a central part in the level design. Most of the trees Donkey Kong can platform on have been cut down, and parts of their trunks and branches carved. While this gives a slightly more artificial feeling than branches of completely intact trees would, it is still a remarkable effort towards including the trees in the platforming compared to the Mario examples at the beginning of the article.

Later on in the level, and in most of the Forest levels after that, these hanging houses can be seen. They are also included in the platforming by forming areas Donkey Kong can cling on to, and sometimes swing on their ropes. However, as with the carvings, it is entirely unclear who could be living in them. They are lit up from inside, so they are clearly inhabited, but there are no species here that would seem to be a logical choice for living there. The Forest has the following species living there: carnivorous plants, bats, frogs, cobras, spiders, hippos, and the Tiki Tak Tribe. None of these fit too well to be living in such housing except for the Tikis, which again have only recently appeared and would not have time to build this many houses. 

Moving on to the second level, Clingy Swingy, we encounter another species of tree. While the vast majority of the Forest is a monoculture of Leafy Redwoods, these trees appear in Clingy Swingy and Wigglevine Wonders: 

These trees look completely unlike the Leafy Redwoods, with large, bulbous trunks and wide branches. This is purely speculation on my part, but I believe these were added purely for visual variety and were originally intended to be an asset somewhere else. There is only one trunk model and one crown model for these, only rotated relative to each other for the different copies of that tree. These, together with the single giant tree at the end of Springy Spores, are the only trees in the Forest that are not Leafy Redwoods.

In this level, we can see another aspect of the Forest become more prevalent: the yellow fungi growing on the Leafy Redwoods.

These come in various forms, such as flat textures on the ground (left), decorative parts (alongside the tree trunk) and large platforms DK can stand on. This type of fungus is called a polypore. Polypores grow on wood and come in two varieties: the ones growing only on dead wood, which are non-parasitic, or the ones also growing on living trees, which are parasitic. These polypores are clearly parasitic. They can be seen growing on many trees in the close background of the Forest levels, and especially inside the hollowed-out trunks of dead trees, showing that they could have been the ones responsible for the tree's death with their infestation.

The third level, Flutter Flyaway, features enormous vines twisting around the Leafy Redwoods:

These seem to be based on a type of vine called a liana, which have a symbiotic relationship with trees, using their trunks to climb higher, but providing nutrients for the tree when they decay (although real-life liana vines are less elastic and certainly not spring-like as these). They are also host to the parasitic polypores, but of a different red color. Interestingly, the vines do flower:

Of course, this tells us nothing about whether Leafy Redwoods flower, as they could simply not be in season at the time of the game's events. 

The vines are also gameplay-relevant in two ways; ones that are in the foreground can be bounced off, while those in the background provide indication for the flight path of flying Tiki enemies.

In the next level, Tippin' Totems, we see more different background structures:

With the addition of the walkways and bridges, the houses resemble a village, although as before, there is no indication who may live there. Strangely, some villages in the game are clearly idenfiable as belonging to some species, such as crab villages in the Beach world and mole villages in the Cave world. These are notable as being the same species who get hypnotized by the Tikis; however, the one this happens to in the Forest is Mangoruby, a unique flying plant/snake monster that is, as far as the game shows, the only member of its species.

This level is the first time a giant dead Leafy Redwood is seen. While hollowed-out trunks of smaller Leafy Redwoods are beige or brown on the inside, these giant ones appear to have been decaying for so long they have changed color. They are also covered with parasitic polypores, ferns and small vines on the inside. 

This level features the Bopapodamus enemy - or rather, obstacle, as they have no way of actually attacking Donkey Kong and seem not to be hostile. These would be the prime candidate for who could be living in the hanging houses if not for the fact a single Bopapodamus is almost the size of one of the smaller houses.

At the end of the level, there is a giant stack of totems. These are never seen in full during regular gameplay since the bottommost one never rises high enough to be seen:

Interestingly, one of these looks like a crab, meaning they are not done only in the Tikis' likeness, but in the likeness of other species on the island. In the next level, Longshot Launch, one of them looks like Donkey Kong, further confirming this:

This only raises more questions as to who could have made Tiki-style totems of Donkey Kong (or a Kong ancestor) if the Tikis are the Kongs' enemy.

Speaking of Longshot Launch, at one point in the level, something unique is seen:

In the very top left corner of the screen, there is the sky. Before this, the levels of the Forest very deliberately refused to show both the ground and the sky. The ground is not shows for gameplay purposes, to make it clear that the entirety of the levels is a bottomless pit mechanically. The sky is not shown to create the feeling of a dense forest. However, here, there are some segments where parts of the sky can be seen. More interestingly, this means the tops of the Leafy Redwoods can be seen as well:

While they match up very roughly with the Forest overworld map, the crowns are much shorter compared to the trunks and have a distinctive twisted top that is also something not seen on any real-world trees, even conifers. Either the world map uses a very simplified design, or - I speculate - an early design of the trees, and simply was not updated later.

The next level, Springy Spores, centers entirely on mushrooms. In addition to the regular parasitic fungi from the other levels, the Leafy Redwoods here have other, colorful mushrooms growing on them. Fungi shaped like this are not typically parasitic in the real world, however. There are also Chomps that have a tongue that resembles a bouncy mushroom, to integrate the enemies into the level theme.

Inside another giant dead tree in the middle of the level, we see a new type of parasitic mushroom that has spikes:

I adjusted the camera for this shot; during regular gameplay, they are seen from such an oblique angle it may not be visible they are mushrooms at all.

Near the end of this level, there is a tree that is completely unique in the entire game - or, at least the foreground part of it is:

It is unclear if these objects are twisting trunks or roots. Zooming out further does little to help:

The objects neither begin nor end on screen, although they do look more like roots here. Viewing this area in a map viewer shows that the individual roots or trunks are in front of one large trunk:

The texture for that trunk is actually the same as that on the gigantic roots that can be encountered in nearly every level in the Jungle and Ruins worlds:

However, the roots of these trees are completely different. Whatever that plant is, it is too large to be identified properly.

The next level, Wigglevine Wonders, mostly reuses the same background elements (also being the only other level to feature the thick trees from Clingy Swingy); however, there is a small bit of world-building near the end: 

The final area of the level (on the right) is inside a giant fallen Leady Redwood. Looking closely at the background before it is entered, we can see other fallen-over trees in the distance. This by itself would be interesting, however, the next and final regular Forest level, Muncher Marathon, takes place entirely within a completely horizontal dead tree, and its beginning segment also features many fallen trees. Thus, this area foreshadows not just the final area of the level, but also the entirety of the level after it.

Almost the entirety of Muncher Marathon is a chase sequence where Donkey Kong is pursued by a giant swarm of spiders through a fallen tree that is so long that it must have been several times taller than the rest of the Forest when it was still standing. The level begins with a view of nest full of spider eggs:

This is actually based on real-life spider egg nests which are clustered and wrapped in spiderwebs the same way. To proceed, Donkey Kong must destroy some logs, which causes the spiders to hatch. The swarm chasing him may look intimidating...

...however, zooming in on the spiders, we can see they have googly eyes, making them much less threatening:

The trunk of the giant tree actually has its own ecosystem, being presumably the largest hollowed-out trunk in the Forest. It contains two types of plants not seen anywhere else:

The first is this strange type of cucurbit (watermelon/squash plant) that is shaped like a jar and sometimes has spikes emerging from the top. The other one is a flat growth that resembles another fungus:

It is truly emblematic of the effort the developers put into the game that two additional plant species (I am using the word plant colloquially; fungi are not plants in the scientific sense) were created specifically for an area where the player is not able to stop and take a closer look at the surroundings.

The final level of the Forest, Mangoruby Run, is a boss level and consists only of a small pre-boss area and the arena itself. The level takes place in a lake, with the Leafy Redwoods growing directly out of the water:

This again differentiates them from real-life conifers, which cannot grow in such environments. There is actually a large piece of unused content here:

Upon entering the level, Donkey Kong appears in the lit area on the stump on the right. However, there is a large unlit slide, made out of a hollowed-out tree, that is clearly intended to have been used for Donkey Kong to slide down, on the left. This slide not only goes unused, but the camera will not even scroll far enough to the left to see it when it is approached.

There are also unique glow-in-the-dark mushrooms under the slide. Mushrooms that glow in the dark also appear in the Cave world, but use a different model (which is also seen inside the very first tree in the first Forest level).

Finally, Mangoruby itself, a plant/snake creature that can fly by wiggling its leaf limbs, is fought inside another dead tree that is filled with water:

There are structures here that are likely made by the Tikis, unlike the houses in the Forest, due to them being visibly staffed with Tikis during the battle; although they may simply have taken over existing architecture.

Now that we've taken a look at all the levels in the Forest (except the K level, which takes place entirely inside a temple and is thus irrelevant to the discussion of the location), there is something missing in them that was prominent on the world map:

These small trees that looked exactly like firs are nowhere to be seen. Every single tree in the Forest has a visible trunk, and the visible crowns are all quite short in comparison to the trunks. Perhaps these were intended to be juvenile versions of the Leafy Redwoods and, as I speculated, they were not implemented after the initial design for them was changed.

Let us recap. To create a coherent fantastic forest location, the developers:

-created a completely new species, the Leafy Redwood, which takes inspiration from Donkey Kong Country backgrounds, the real-life redwood trees, and adds both elements from other trees such as the leaves, as well as original elements like the idea of leaves sprouting from the bark. The trees are optimized to be used for platforming by offering small platforms that are made from carved trees and their branches, as well as large areas that are made by hollowing out dead trees. This allows nearly the entirety of the platforms in the world to somehow involve the trees, in stark contrast to most platformers;

-created a species of parasitic fungus that is an explanation for the abundance of dead trees and can also be used for platforming;

-created a species of symbiotic vine to go with the trees and gave it both platforming and indicative purposes;

-filled the forest area with signs of civilization in the form of hanging houses, wooden platforms and idol carvings that also connect to the other areas of the island (Tiki totems, crab and DK carvings);

-populated the area with enemies that are also reflected in the area's design (Chomps in an area with Chomp carvings; spiders in an area with spider nests);

-finally, added some other plant/fungus species to be used sparingly in select areas for flavor.

The reason I wrote this article is because all of this effort is very easily overlooked. If you look back at the screenshots above, almost the entirety of the Forest world uses the same color scheme, which along with the non-obvious details I have pointed out, can cause a lot of players to feel that the area is "samey" and boring. It took myself many years after first playing the game to truly notice much of what I discuss here. I hope that perhaps, this article can help someone gain an appreciation for the work of environment designers that is so easily missed in favor of concentrating on gameplay.

Thank you very much for reading.