Why Most Overgrown Terrain Looks Wrong (And How to Fix It)

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]If you want something to look overgrown, you can't just put plants on concrete.

[00:00:05]This is what actually works.

[00:00:09]Now, this started as me fixing seven old tiles and turning them into a new kill team board. Believe it or not, the inspiration for this was The Last of Us Part Two, just with less mushrooms, abandoned concrete, rusting metal, and nature slowly taking everything back.

[00:00:26]But what I didn't expect was that everything would click into place on the very first tile. Because once that worked, the rest of the world stopped being seven separate builds and just became different ways of applying the same idea. And that's what actually makes overgrown terrain believable because it's not about adding plants, it's about giving them a reason to grow.

[00:00:52]So this was the first tile. Originally, it looked like a big outlet. I was thinking of the scene in The Fugitive where Harrison Ford dives out of it, but low to the ground. It took up loads of space and barely any of it was playable.

[00:01:07]You had the river, which you couldn't really use, the outlet, which you couldn't really use, and about a third of that towel actually worked. So, I stripped it back. Kept the idea of a sewer, but turned it into a raised structure with an industrial walkway over the water. That alone made it better, but it didn't quite feel right still. The moment it changed was when I added the tree growing out of the crumbling concrete structure itself.

[00:01:35]Because plants don't grow where it looks good, they grow where they can. That's in places of water, of damage, and of weakness. That tree became the starting point. And the closer to the water, the heavier the moss. the growth spreads out from there. And once that was in place, everything else made sense. And that's where it all clicked. This isn't about placing plants. It's about giving them a reason to exist. And once I had that working, every other tile followed the same logic.

[00:02:13]So the next was the corner river tile.

[00:02:15]Originally just a right angled corner of water, lots of dead space and nothing happening and no way to cross it. Then I wanted to make it a bit more interesting, so I added some concrete and some broken pipes. Next, I had to work out where stuff would grow, not randomly, but where it would make sense.

[00:02:36]There were spaces and gaps and cracks where the concrete joined or had broken places where the water would sit naturally and that's where the trees grew out of and that's where the growth starts and also by the pipes and upright section not just for detail but that's where water would gather. So that is where things would grow. And once those things were there the plants don't feel placed anymore. They feel inevitable.

[00:03:09]The bridge tile was a bit different.

[00:03:11]Originally just road across water with a couple of sides on the bridge, basically a long firing lane. So I needed to fix the gameplay element to it first. So I put a walkway across the river somewhere else. So there was an alternative place to cross. I also needed to fix the firing lane element of this by putting some sort of obstacle in the way. So, I placed broken trees at one end of the bridge, and that was the central part of our growth. But the key here wasn't about adding loads of plants. It was about layering dirt and moss and grime and then the plants growing out of that.

[00:03:51]So, anywhere that I was thinking of putting a plant, I also had to add the spread around it cuz otherwise it would just look stuck on. So, it's not about adding more plants. It's about making each one feel like it's affecting the area around it.

[00:04:11]These two tiles started basically the same. Concrete, river, edge to edge. I then applied the same rules to both of them. On one, the growth comes from the cracks along the side. trees pushing up through, lifting the concrete, widening the river slightly, and plants spreading out from those points. On the other, I went in a completely different direction. I added a raised section, much like the sewer outlet. I added steps, a tree growing out of one side, destroying the edge of the structure, pipes, water flow, growth coming out of broken pipes, and nature slowly taking back that tile. Whilst less overgrown than some of the other tiles, it's still following the same rules. Same system, completely different results. And that's the important part. You don't need new rules for each tile. You just need to think about new ways of applying the same rule.

[00:05:14]This one was one of the hardest tiles. I actually started it fairly early, but I finished it near the end because I couldn't work out what it was meant to be. I had the fallen tree and I had the growth opportunity, but something felt off. So, I put it to one side and didn't think about it whilst I got on with some of the other avatars. And I realized it's because I was working backwards. I was trying to build around the tree because in terms of the physical build, that's how I would have to do it. So, I went back to the idea of what was there originally, added simple walls, and suddenly things started to make sense.

[00:05:52]The tree falls, it hits the building, it causes collapse. That means that you've got lots of space for water to get trapped in, and now growth has somewhere to spread from. I continued that same idea to other areas of the board. I added another small building at the other side of the tile with a tree destroying that one as well. And now it felt like nature was winning.

[00:06:28]And this is where it all comes together.

[00:06:30]This was originally just a road tile with some broken tarmac and you know a bit of grass growing out of a crack because at that time wow I thought that was nature doing something.

[00:06:43]I had this piece of driftwood that looked perfect for a root ball and built a tree from that. Added roots broken sections and some of these tile began to have a story. The treerees fallen, it's broken apart. It's torn up the ground.

[00:06:58]is hit a building on the way. It's created cover. It's created roots around it. It's created line of sight breaks.

[00:07:05]And now everything grows from that.

[00:07:08]Grows from under it, around it, up near the walls nearby. You can look at this tile and understand exactly what happened. Once all of those things come together, it stops feeling like tiles and it begins to feel like one place, one abandoned environment where nature has moved in and isn't leaving. And that's really the difference. It's not about adding plants. It's about giving them a reason to grow. Do that and you don't just get an overgrown board. You get something that actually feels like it belongs somewhere.