NUTS

A squirrel-infested forest harbours unsettling implications

Developer Joon, Pol, Muutsch, Char & Torfi

Publisher Noodlecake Games

Format PC Origin International

Release 2021

Jonatan Van Hove didn’t set out to make a game about spying on squirrels. The concept for Nuts arose from a sense of untapped possibility in the simple act of looking at and recording 3D environments. “I can create an empty world and put a camera in there and it just works,” Van Hove tells us. The choice of a forest backdrop reflects Van Hove’s admiration for seasoned indie developer Pol Clarissou. Clarissou is a connoisseur of virtual vegetation: his projects include a study of moss and an otherworldly tree mod for Skyrim. Together, he and Van Hove (aka Joon) have cultivated a landscape of moody, flat coloured silhouettes that fade eerily into the distance, trunks and boulders mixed with artificial objects such as ruined churches.