Pixel Friend Forest

My friendships visualized as a living, breathing forest.

The whole forest from above: hundreds of pixel trees in oval groves with painted signs, a blue river weaving between them

854 people I know, one tree each. Every name in this demo forest is invented.

STROLL THROUGH THE FOREST

Friendship takes work. Like a tree, it requires nurture, effort, and time to grow.

I've lived in 17 cities, 8 states, and 3 countries. Along the way, I've made countless friends. However, the nomadic life often meant cycles of hellos and goodbyes. Coupled with my goldfish memory, that made it hard to keep up with friends. I'd forget who got married, who's on their 5th situationship, who's on an ayahuasca retreat in Mexico, and who's still struggling to keep their pet basil plant alive.

So I decided to build this Friendship Forest. "But Laura, why not just make a personal CRM?" I'm sorry, this ain't LinkedIn. Friendships aren't pieces of data to keep track of. They're living, breathing organisms. Like... trees!

Taking inspo from my childhood love of Animal Crossing, I built a forest that houses every friend of mine as a tree. The deeper our bond, the bigger the tree. Special people like my fiancé and my family get pink and gold trees. And each friend-tree resides in a grove based on how I met them, where they live, or what interests we share.

A giant pink willow towering over the smaller trees in its grove
The giant pink willow is my fiancé!
The forest re-sorted by city, trees arranged on a world map layout with city names
Where my friends are located
The forest re-sorted by interest, with groves labeled Travel, Hiking, Comics, Pickleball and Reading
What my friends are interested in

Profiles

Clicking on a friend-tree shows their profile: who they are, what they do, a timeline of our interactions and chats, and other important info. All of it was gathered by exporting my social media, emails, and text messages from the last decade. A golden web shows what other friend-trees are connected to this one. Trees for friends I haven't connected with in a while turn brown and wilted, while the ones I've been seeing a lot lately are covered in blossoming flowers.

A person panel: name, occupation, city, interests, a prose introduction, and a dotted timeline of shared moments
Each friend-tree has an evergrowing profile.

Animal Crossing

Channel your inner Tom Nook and explore the forest freely! The forest truly comes alive in this mode, where you can visit all of the groves, talk to friends, water wilted trees, chase after critters, and even fish.

web
mobile

Since the game was fed all of my chat messages, the friends I talk to sound like themselves and bring up recent topics. After watering a wilting tree, you'll be prompted to send a nudge to that friend, rekindling the friendship.

Chat with friends in the forest
Water friend-trees that you haven't reconnected with in a while to receive a nudge.

Unfortunately, some friendships come to an end. And those deserve an honorable chopping.

TIMBERRRRR!

Watch as the forest changes with each season and celebrates holidays! You can customize your character and add a little dragon or unicorn as your buddy, too. This was by far the most fun part to design and build.

springThe same grove in spring: nearly every canopy speckled with pale pink blossom
summerThe same grove in summer: the blossom gone, canopies clean green
autumnThe same grove in autumn: every canopy turned gold, orange and rust
winterThe same grove in winter: snow capping the canopies and the ground gone pale
halloweenFriends in witch hats and a bedsheet ghost carrying trick-or-treat baskets, with cobwebs strung between the trees behind them
holiday seasonSnow on the ground and the canopies, candy canes and string lights in the trees, a deer nearby
lunar new yearFriends dressed in red and gold with a red lantern hanging in a tree
dragon boatsA red and gold dragon boat with paddlers racing down the river past friends standing on the bank

Automation: my forest at my fingertips

This forest updates itself by importing my newest contacts and chats every night. A job on my Mac mini wakes up, reads the day's new iMessages past a watermark, and hands them to Claude to rewrite the profiles of whoever I talked to. Then it rebuilds the forest data, regenerates the page, re-encrypts it, and pushes.

I also wanted a rundown of a friend right before we hang out. Remember my goldfish memory? I didn't. The forest texts me right before any hangout it finds on my calendar and reminds me of the last topics that friend and I discussed.

A Telegram message from the bot 30 minutes before a hangout: who the friend is, when we last saw each other, and four suggested things to bring up

I can also text it: "Who lives in NYC?" "What does so-and-so like?" Or "I just met someone new. Add them to my friendship forest." It responds instantly.

Asking the bot who a friend is, and getting back a summary of how you know them, their interests, and when you last met
Texting the bot about a person just met, and the bot confirming it added them as a new friend with the connection noted

Check it out!

I've built an anonymized demo forest for you to play around with! I intend to open-source it soon so anyone can make their own friendship forest with their own data.

SEE DEMO