While Minecraft trundles along under the very capable custody of Mojang’s Jeb, Notch prods at his newest petri dish, space life sim 0x10c. This latest footage shows off the game’s lighting and physics, and little else. Early days, remember.
I’m picking up a System Shock 2 vibe, but likely that’ll all change once Notch goes and puts stuff in it.
0×10c takes its premise from Planet of the Apes, if Planet of the Apes had been inspired by slightly impenetrable programming jokes rather than the hopelessness of the human condition. In the game’s universe, the space race rattled on until 1988, when a “deep sleep cell” compatible with “all popular 16 bit computers” was launched into the unknown.
“Unfortunately, it used big endian, whereas the DCPU-16 specifications called for little endian. This led to a severe bug in the included drivers, causing a requested sleep of 0×0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0×0001 0000 0000 0000 years,” said Notch in his initial announcement.
“It’s now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction, with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.”
0x10c will be – as far as we can work out – a first-person space ship maintenance sim, with much of the gameplay revolving around the rerouting of power to various bits of your ship. A cloaking field, for instance, will need the lights and fridge turned off first. There’s more planned, though – we’ll also reportedly be able to land on planets, and mine or pirate our way through distant galaxies.
In a move that shouldn’t really be surprising – given the peripheral genius regularly conducted using redstone in Minecraft – 0x10c’s on-ship computers will be fully-functioning 16-bit machines, capable of everything that implies. Mojang’s servers will keep these virtual PCs running even when players log out.
The expensive consequence of which is that – while it will be released in alpha and continually updated a la Minecraft – 0x10c’s online Multiverse will be paid for by a monthly subscription model. Single player won’t have any recurring fees, however.
Here’s a bullet-pointed list from Notch of what else you can expect:-
- Hard science fiction. Update: GAH, NO! I’m focusing on fun gameplay instead. I still want to get corrected on glaring scientific errors, though.
- Lots of engineering.
- Fully working computer system.
- Space battles against the AI or other players.
- Abandoned ships full of loot.
- Duct tape!
- Seamlessly landing on planets.
- Advanced economy system.
- Random encounters.
- Mining, trading, and looting.
- Single and multi player connected via the multiverse.
Which bullet point excites you most about Mojang’s next game? Let us know in the comments.