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Photos from an inspiring trip in Japan

I've just returned from three weeks of vacation in Japan. Besides being great as a vacation – which was the only thing my partner and I planned for, really – it happened to also be inspiring for me as a game developer. I like to make games that take place at least partially in beautiful nature, give a sense of mystery and wonder that invites exploration, and that have environments that incorporate strong verticality. And in all of these respects, Japan delivers in spades.

Of the many hundred photos we took, I've selected a few dozen to share here, along three themes.

I had originally intended to include a section on distant mountains and atmospheric perspective too, but it turned into a larger topic of its own that I've written about in this post.

Mystical forest stairway

One highlight of the vacation was our day trip to the Risshaku-ji temple in Yamadera. It's a complex of multiple temple buildings stretching up a mountainside with spectacular views, but it's almost the path up there that I found most inspiring as a game developer – a 1000-step ascent through a mystical cedar forest with shrines and stone lanterns along the way.

The combination of the winding stairs and the extremely tall cedar trees gave not just a strong sense of verticality, but a weirdly strong sense of three-dimensional depth in general. Weird, because I have two eyes and always see the world in 3D, but this place made me feel the spatiality of my surroundings more strongly than usual.

On top of that, the sunlight filtered through the trees in that really beautiful way that makes forests look magical. The Japanese even have a word for it, komorebi (木漏れ日).

Update: I got a question on Mastodon about the weirdly strong sense of three-dimensional depth I felt, which made me reflect more on the reasons.

1. First of all, I think feeling small among huge shapes evoke a strong feeling of depth in general, but it may be diminished in familiar situations, such as being on a street with tall conventionally shaped buildings.
2. Second, distances feel greater when they're not horizontal. 100 meters down the (flat) street is nothing, but 100 meters up or down a steep incline feels huge.
3. Third, in most environments, you see mostly things close by (ground or wall) or mostly far away (horizon or sky) when looking in a given direction. But in forests, and inside huge buildings with many columns, you see near and far simultaneously, emphasizing depth.
4. Fourth, the cedar trees had huge tall trunks, which made it possible to see both high up in the air and far up the mountain side, without the view being obscured much by the tree canopies.
5. Fifth (and most speculatively), the sunlight being filtered through the trees produced little attention-grabbing highlights everywhere at various depths, which further enhanced the perception of depth.

So I think it's this powerful combination of multiple factors that reinforced each other: Huge uncommon shapes, verticality, seeing things both near and far simultaneously, partially unobstructed far views, and the lighting. End of update.

The forest path ends at the entrance to the temple area, which is marked with a Niōmon gate. A few red trees adorn the landscape here amid all the green.

The view at the top, past the forest, did have the advantage of gorgeous mountain views.

Nature and gardens

Sometimes, what's inspiring is the whole arrangement of elements in a place; other times it can be a single magnificent tree. Here's some more things I thought looked neat.

Strolling home from a restaurant in Morioka one night, we saw this lamp post half-embedded in a hedge in a small crater-shaped indentation. The hedge was blooming, and all the flowers were facing the lamp. The other similar lamp posts along the road were not embedded in the hedge this way, so this beautiful little scene probably started as a happy accident rather than being planned for.

Lived-in urban vibes

This is the one category which isn't directly relevant to my own games, as they don't take place in contemporary urban environments. But what can I say. I follow the artist Alariko (ArtStation, Bluesky) on social media, and I think his art has stimulated my appreciation for the beauty in the kind of lived-in, worn, quirky, cluttered urban scenes he expertly captures.

In Japan, these kinds of scenes can be found everywhere. Well, maybe not in posh streets or pristine gardens, but you never have to walk far to encounter it.