I miss 90s Point-and-Click Adventures

Now I have no story of how this could actually be a game... but I do have a story about how this turned into a screenshot. I also have a cool story about getting lost in Seattle, but that can wait for another day. It was epic, though, so remind me when we're finished here.

I've always loved point-and-click puzzle/adventure games, but you notice that they are basically all set on a series of islands in the middle of the ocean. So, let's make an ocean:

That's beautiful. It looks like a swimming pool, but it will do. Now let's put in a free skybox for atmosphere:

Man, this video game stuff is easy. I don't know why people go to school for it. Anyway, I decide I don't really like the space in between the water and clouds. One solution is to put the camera closer to the water, but I won't show a picture of that one to you because it doesn't work and I hate it, plus I forgot to take a picture of it. The solution I come up with is this:

I tilt the water at an angle. True, for a real game this would probably be a bad idea (also, f*** gravity). But I am only concerned with making the picture look more like this:

You don't notice the difference, you say? They're practically similar? Well, YOU'RE practically similar.

Now it's time to add a bit of landscape. For the purposes of this project, I don't worry too much about the terrain being practical or useful for building civilizations upon. (Although, neither does anyone else who makes 90s-style point-and-click adventure games, but I digress.) After messing around with resizing, retetxuring, and adding the same tree 50 times, I get this:

Islands as green as your envious faces right now. Here's a view from above:

Here's one from underneath:

This one is not as pretty. Ah well, I learn a valuable lesson about camera placement.

Now all I have to do is put the two together, like so:

Or, in game view (spoiler alert, I guess):

Ah, what a beauty. I can imagine clicking on various destinations and being instantly transported to them to solve a series of increasingly ridiculous puzzles. Of course, I'm not too happy at how much I have to fake to get it to look right. Still, I made something that looks good, even if from only one angle, much like a plasma screen TV, or Snooki.