While most MMOs are quest-based and involve some sort of conflict and grind, The Endless Forest [official site] simply isn’t. Instead, The Endless Forest is about playing as a carefree magical deer spending time doing deer things with other deer. Each deer is another player, and this antithesis of modern MMO design has attracted 170,000 registered players in its 10-year existence. Now developers Tale of Tales want to take the game further as it enters its second decade, and they’re asking for your help.

They’ve launched an Indiegogo campaign asking for €40,000 (about £36k) to remake The Endless Forest in Unreal Engine, shedding the limitations of their current archaic setup (it was made with Quest3D). They’re planning for this to keep it ticking along for another decade and be the foundation of future expansions.

The campaign is using ‘flexible’ funding, meaning they still get the money if they don’t hit the full goal. If that happens, they’ll put the money towards making what they can, or perhaps adding new content to the original version, or simply paying The Endless Forest’s server costs.

The original version of The Endless Forest is free to play (but not that kind of free-to-play) and Tale of Tales assure that the remake will remain free as well.

If role-playing as a Magical Deer with others online sounds delightful to you, give The Endless Forest a try. It’s hardly a crowded genre but, curiously, the makers of Shelter released their own woodland playground, Meadow, only the other week.