0x10c Message Board

Well, YOU follow Minecraft. Marcus “Notch” Persson, having moved on from Minecraft development a year back, has been focusing on an ambitious space sim 0x10c. Except, not any more. We knew that back in April Notch had put the game “on ice”, citing creative struggles. They don’t seem to have gone away, and now – as spotted by US Gamer – he’s told some people via a Team Fortress 2 livestream that he’s given up entirely. But some fans plan to make it anyway.

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REPORTER: “Mr Notch, you just made several quadrillion dollars and simulated a nigh-infinite terrestrial expanse where nearly anything is possible via the wide-eyed machinations of human ingenuity. What are you going to do now?”

NOTCH: “I’m going to Disneyland space! Only it’s more of a space-themed hacker heaven. But it’s also kinda like Firefly somehow. Or something.”

EVERYONE EVER: “Ooo! Wait, huh?”

Seeing as Minecraft is basically a series of unending, entirely re-moldable Earths, a giant leap into the stars makes sense for Notch, and he’s got some intriguing ideas backing it up. But allow me to echo the confused dog head tilt of everybody else in saying, er, how? How will all those elements fit together? What will I actually be, you know, doing? Turns out, Notch himself is part of that very same everyone, and for now, he’s stumped. As a result, 0x10c‘s frozen in carbonite for the time being, and Notch feels no need to rush its development into high gear.

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Markus “Not”-”Minecraft”-”ch” Persson* has released some footage of his work on Elite-style space game, 0x10c (pronounced “Notch’s New Game”), in which you control the pilot aboard a working spacecraft, filled with varied and vulnerable systems. PCG quotes Notch as saying: “The goal is to have it feel a bit like Firefly. You can try to land on a planet but you mess up and, instead of having the ship just explode like it would in real life, the landing gear gets broken. Then you have to try to fix that by finding resources. Instead of the adventure being flying from here to here, it’s: I set the destination, oh god I hit a small asteroid and the cloaking device broke. I think they really nailed that kind of emergent aspect in FTL.” The silent video shows lasers, lights, and some other stuff. And if it’s got lasers, that means one thing: it’s got pew! pew!(more…)

Yesterday, we ran the first part of my chat with Minecraft creator and needer-of-no-introductions Notch, wherein we largely talked about life after Minecraft and what he’s been up to recently. But there’s more to this world than Minecraft (at least, until we discover our entire world is actually a block-by-block Minecraft reconstruction of the real world), so today, we’re forging ahead into the future. And also the present, but the other thing sounds cooler. So read on to see Notch discuss copycatting in games, his ideas for non-games ala Proteus, a virtual reality version of Minecraft, Steam, Windows 8, and heaps more.

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Information about Notch’s recently announced space exploration game 0x10c has been slowly emerging from stasis. The fine fellow tweeted a screenshot of the forthcoming game, showcasing “Flashlights, for spelunking and fixing broken ships!” featuring two spacemen (who resemble the Soldier from that low-res TF2 model pack quite a bit, come to think of it. Notch stealing content! Proof that Notch is more evil than EA!) standing in a creepy dark room with what looks to be the much talked about 16bit Basic computer in the background. But there’s more! That screen from the tweet was linked on the official site as 006.jpg, and if you cunningly replace the numbers with 001 to 007, more screens are revealed. I’ve put them below for your convenience. Im’ a propa investelagativ jurnlist

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This man would like to take you to space.

Notch hinted not too long ago that his next game would be set in space, an idea that undoubtedly sent minds racing as to what kinds of crazy crap the Minecraft creator might come up with when working within the boundless stretches of the universe at large. Still, I doubt anything was expecting anything quite this specifically bonkers.

0x10c is the name of Notch's next game, a space-faring "hard science fiction" game that puts players in the role of one of many human astronauts from an alternate universe where the space race never ended. As the back story here goes... you know what? Let's just use Notch's own words.

In 1988, a brand new deep sleep cell was released, compatible with all popular 16 bit computers. 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 0x0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0x0001 0000 0000 0000 years.

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.

Get all that? I hope so, because I don't think I'm smart enough to dissect it any further.

Players will control a ship that works via a generator with a fixed wattage. Certain technologies will require a bigger drain on your ship's generator than others. Notch cites the example of a cloaking device, which would require so much power that you'd have to shut down most computer systems and dim the lights just to make it work correctly.

The on-board computer you'll be using is "a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU" that you can use to control all your ship's functions. Notch plans to release full specs for the computer soon.

As for actual gameplay, Notch promises everything from lots of engineering and advanced economy systems to full-on combat against AI and rival player ships. You can see the full breadth of what Notch has thus far announced at the official 0x10c website. Similar to Minecraft, Notch plans to release an early version of the game publicly in order to have players help shape the ultimate direction of the final product.

Markus Persson’s put a name and a description to the Elite-inspired space game he’s been teasing Twitter about recently, and it’s pretty obvious this is going to be a full-fat endeavour rather than another micro-project. 0x10c is the game’s name, how it’s pronounced is anyone’s guess but I’m gonna go with ‘Derek’. It’s a reference to a programming error that caused space travellers (from an alternate 1988 where the space race hadn’t ended) going into deep sleep to stay under for billions of years.(more…)

We're not even going to pretend we know how to say the name of Markus "Notch" Persson's next game: 0x10c. According to what info he's placed on the new game's website, it's "a space game" that will launch in a manner similar to MineCraft -- releasing in an early state so players can help shape the final end product.

The story revolves around a fictional parallel universe where the space race never ended, and corporations and wealthy individuals ventured out into the unknown. After an error occurred in the computers governing human sleep cycles while ships ventured out into uncharted space, humans woke up in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD, finding little-to-no civilization remained.

Each ship runs on a fixed wattage CPU, so any action will drain the ship's systems. Balancing wattage will be a core component of the game. "The computer in the game is a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU that can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish." 0x10c promises space battles, salvaging supplies from derelict ships, an advanced economy system and ... duct tape.

Finally, the site says the game will likely charge a monthly fee for joining the Multiverse, since Notch and crew will "emulate all computers and physics even when players aren't logged in."