Past Master

You may remember Adam Aequotis Berry from his role in the creation of the shiny metropolis of Westpoint - his latest effort, called Catalné, spurns the modern world for a vanished past, and an idealised world of quiet rural life.

“Medieval is a massive interest of mine,” says Adam. “Ever since I was a little kid, I was interested in making bows and arrows, making model castles. I kind of realised one morning, ‘Hang on, I can make this sort of stuff in Minecraft as well!’ It has re-awoken my childhood a little bit.”

“It’s kind of based upon a bit of a childhood fantasy,” he continues. “It’s a massive forest - extremely tall, very dense - you can get lost easily in it. There are little villages dotted within, little streams, lots of detail - the kind of things a child might imagine but recreated in a realistic way, so it’s got realistic architecture, realistic farms and such.”

But it’s not just the textures which make Catalné feel like a credible and romantic location - it’s Adam’s method: starting with the landscape - a rolling terrain of heavily forested hillocks and open plains, tiny streams carving through the lot - and having that inform how the human settlements have grown.

It feels less like the rugged landscape of Yorkshire, where Adam lives, and more like a scene from southern Europe. Adam says he took Catalonia as an inspiration - in honour of a close friend’s homeland.

“It’s a place known for its independence and free thinking,” says Adam. “So I thought: That works nicely!”

It certainly does! Go take a stroll into a perfect medieval past yourself.