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Notch explains decision to axe 0x10c, concentrate on 'smaller' games
When Marcus "Notch" Persson cancelled 0x10c, he laid the blame at the feet of a "weird creative block" that hampered his game development. In his blog, however, he has revealed that it was the sheer weight of fan expectation that killed the highly-anticipated space-sim. The Minecraft creator was so concerned about becoming "another under-delivering visionary game designer" that he'd rather ice the project than do a George Lucas. Instead, he's going to concentrate on producing smaller games away from the public eye, adding that he's looking forward to playing Project Trillek, 0x10c's spiritual successor, when it's done.
Minecraft creator scraps '0x10c' spaceship game, but fans run with concept
After suffering a "creative block" with development of his 0x10c project, Markus "Notch" Persson has definitively killed the idea, saying he has "no future aspirations" for it. The keenly anticipated game involved space travelers who wake up after an eons-long hypersleep and have to deal with enemies and other problems aboard their spaceship. He broke the news to disappointed fans on a livestream, but some have decided to keep the idea alive via community effort called Project Trillek. While they'd drop the whole cryosleep bit, the team would keep the concept of a crew navigating space and managing their craft with a 16-bit CPU, Minecraft-style. We're glad it's not dead yet, but whether it can survive the vacuum of a Notch-less space remains to be seen.
Notch shelves space game 0x10c, but its legacy lives on in fan project
Markus "Notch" Persson, creator of the legendarily successful Minecraft, has shelved his spaceship management/space exploration/space-y stuff game 0x10c, but a group of dedicated fans wants to bring it back... kind of. 0x10c was put on ice back in April due to a "creative block," but Persson told viewers of a Team Fortress 2 livestream this week that it would never be coming off said metaphorical ice, as he had no future aspirations for it. Naturally, some fans were upset. Others took it upon themselves to make sure the game was made, even if they had to do it themselves. Shane Dalton, Project Lead of the 0x10c revival, told USGamer that he and his team "didn't really look into" why Notch cancelled the game. "We just sort of looked at the project and were like, 'Okay. This is a community project now.' We're not using any of his old code, his name or anything," he said. Dalton's team also isn't using the game's name, and instead will be referring to it as "Project Trillek" for now. Dalton and his team also have no plans to monetize the game once it's released. All that seems to be staying the same between 0x10c and Project Trillek is Persson's core gameplay concept, where humans must navigate space and manage their spaceship, which features a fully-functional 16-bit CPU. Update: It has come to our attention that the team behind Project Trillek does not plan on using 0x10c's original story concept. The text of this article has been updated accordingly.
0x10c 'on ice' due to creative block
0x10c, Mojang co-founder and Minecraft inventor Markus Persson's first-person spaceship management game, has been put on the back burner until the developer can rid himself of a "weird creative block," Persson told Polygon."It's just some kind of weird creative block that's been going on for too long," Persson said, "and [0x10c] is going to be put on ice until we can fix that. I'm very excited about the actual game. We have two prototypes going on now. It's not really fun yet, but it feels like it could be fun because there's nothing to do in there yet." Persson also said that another developer has been brought in to assist with the project and ensure that the game is actually made, regardless of whether Mojang ever actually releases it. Should it prove fun enough to be released, however, a potential launch is still a "ways off."
0x10c may charge monthly subscription for ship ownership
In a recent interview, Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson says he's thinking more and more that 0x10c, the Minecraft mogul's space-based PC title, may use a subscription-based monetization plan when it's ready to be sold. The idea's not cemented just yet, but Notch expects to have a multiplayer mode with the game called "the multiverse," and there will likely be cost associated with keeping all of the virtual ships running on a real server.Each ship will require a "generator" to keep it running, so Notch's current idea is that "one subscription gives you one generator." Presumably, he says, multiple players could run around inside one ship, so you may pay a subscription and then invite your friends to join you on your vessel. But someone will have to pay to keep the game going.Notch also talks a bit about how construction will work in the game: Players will likely build a ship's external features first, and then organize various components inside for different layouts or more options. And Notch says there will be "mining," in that players will have to find resources in the galaxy to use as parts, but he says it definitely won't be Minecraft-style. As Notch told us at PAX, work is definitely well underway, and we should see more very soon.
Minecraft creator Notch's 0x10c is aiming at a monthly subscription fee
Minecraft has had a substantial impact on gaming in general and MMOs in specific, which means that Markus "Notch" Persson's next project is going to be watched closely by a lot of people. So it's interesting to note that in a recent interview he discusses giving 0x10c a sort of shared living space in an MMO style as well as mentioning that the game may very well charge players a regular subscription fee. Notch freely admits that it's a matter of making money off of the game, and it's meant to be a flexible approach. If free-to-play is more palatable than a subscription model, he's willing to experiment with that as well. The interview talks extensively about keeping the game's playing field level regardless of the business model as well as potential actions in an almost-MMO space; if you're curious to see what the game might look like, head on over for all the details.
Latest 0x10c test footage adds a second player into the mix
Markus "Notch" Persson continues his video series documenting development on his new space sim, 0x10c. Today's video update focuses on multiplayer, showing off "base functionality" in an environment populated by two players.They shoot each other with laser guns to no avail in the video above but, hey, it is only test footage of an extremely early build. It's kinda Notch's new thing – this latest test video follows last week's update, which focused on player bobbing, lighting and gun implementation.
Minecraft creator shows test footage of '0x10c' space sim, dishes early details (video)
Gamers have been waiting on tenterhooks for Markus "Notch" Persson's next offering, titled 0x10c, and while the Minecraft creator has detailed some aspects of the upcoming game, even he's not sure exactly how it'll end up. Newly released video footage (after the break) shows a first-person shooter aboard a spaceship, and the creators told PC Gamer that they'd "really like for stuff to go wrong," so that players can use creativity and resource-gathering, Minecraft-style, to fix it. Persson also said that the ship would contain a fully-programmable 16-bit computer (which sounds a bit like a recent Minecraft mod), and that multiplayer would be added early in the development. Apart from that, though, the team admitted "we don't know where 0x10c is really headed," and that they shouldn't "raise too many people's expectations." Based on the rampant speculation so far, it seems like that ship may have already sailed.
Notch releases test footage of 0x10c
Markus "Notch" Persson has been pretty forthcoming with the development progress on his follow-up to Minecraft, the space-based adventure 0x10c. We've seen some screens and a fan-made trailer, but today we have some early prototype footage.Yes, the above video of 0x10c is meant more as a test than your usual gameplay trailer – Notch is testing physics, bobbing and guns in this early build. Still, it's great to see he's making progress despite recent hiccups.
Notch still working on 0x10c, despite a few stops and starts
Speaking to Joystiq at PAX last weekend, Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson told us that while most of his days lately are taken up with "just discussing how to do stuff" ("and then Reddit," he added slyly), work continues on the 0x10c space game he announced a while ago. Oh, and in case you're still wondering how the title is pronounced, Notch calls it "ten-to-the-C.""I have the game world fleshed out, all the soft stuff, like the setting," he says. "And I have the emulator for the CPU, which is probably the most complex part of it, all written. I had a prototype for walking around and trying out all of the graphics styles, but that wasn't really fun. So I kind of took a break to recharge my batteries and deal with some personal stuff, and then I'll probably start over again when I get back to Sweden." Starting over again means he'll just rework the graphical engine on the game, and "rethink how the rendering is done, how the physics is done for the character."The team working on 0x10c did have a building interface in mind for players to design their own spaceships, and Notch said it was heavily based on the popular 3D Construction Kit. But the interface wasn't fun, he told us. "We had something kind of inspired by [the Kit], with cubes you could remove corners from to make angles, but it turned really annoying when you tried to build anything."And Notch also confirmed that the game, whenever it is ready, will be released to the public in the way Minecraft was, in various states as it's being built. Notch says he got the idea to release games that way from the old roguelike genre, of all places. "The first version they release is just you can walk around in the dungeon and that's it, that's the extent of what you can do. That's where I got it from." That release schedule, he said, works well for games that fall back on sandbox or user-generated content. "If you're making like The Walking Dead or something, because it's story driven," he said, then obviously a half-finished version won't work. "You're just going to ruin it for people in the other versions."
Notch wants 0x10c, Minecraft to support Oculus Rift
Furthering the notion that developers just love the Oculus Rift, Minecraft maestro Markus "Notch" Persson has revealed his excitement for the device. Taking to Twitter, Notch stated he is "very excited" for the device and "can't wait to start playing with it."Furthermore, he's already promised that his upcoming project, 0x10c, will support the device so long as it works with Java. Finally, he's interested in seeing Minecraft feature Rift support, though the decision will come down to Minecraft's current lead designer, Jens Bergensten.For our part, we're hoping Minecraft never supports the device. Creepers are scary enough when they're not coming right at you.
We wish the guy narrating this unofficial 0x10c trailer narrated everything
If we had a set of pipes like the guy narrating this fan-made 0x10c trailer does, we'd sit around narrating our own game trailers, too – that, and making voicemail greetings for all of our friends.
Notch explores 0x10c with more early screens
Notch has been a busy fellow, and understandably so: he recently announced his next project, 0x10c. After unveiling the first preliminary screen for his work-in-progress, he uploaded several others to the game's official site. The link to the screens section isn't visible on the front page, so you'll want to drop this link into your address bar and change the .png file number accordingly. There are currently a total of seven (007) screens.Above you can see a stoic miner staring out a window as his ship passes by what appears to be a large asteroid. Not every screenshot is as thrilling as the one above, but you're free to do some mining of your own in our gallery below.%Gallery-153065%
First 0x10c screenshot shines light on less cubic, more triangular human characters
Not that these fine lads in adventure gear aren't boxy, but they're a sight less cube-like than Notch's previous work in Minecraft. 0x10c is an alternate-reality title, examining the historical timeline that would have been had the space race never ended and our astrological exploration expanded exponentially, until a group of humans awake from cryogenic sleep in the year 281,474,976,712,644 AD to find civilization has disappeared.The screenshot shows off "flashlights, for spelunking and fixing broken ships!" Notch tweeted. Something about that description sounds familiar, but we can't put our finger on it. Minecraft had spaceships, right?
Is Notch's 0x10c an MMO?
Markus "Notch" Persson has let slip the fact that he's working on a followup to Minecraft. The title -- jokingly referred to as Mars Effect a couple of weeks ago -- is now known as 0x10c, and it's got enough geek cred to make our hearts go pitter-patter. First of all it's hard science-fiction, and second of all, it has an ambitious feature list that boasts an advanced economy, space battles, seamless planetary landings, and "lots of engineering." It's also got a nifty ship system wherein players will need to manage a generator and wattage to power various onboard systems. Finally, there's a fully functioning computer within the computer game. Notch says that the "emulated 16-bit CPU can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games [...] while waiting for a large mining operation to finish." The only question left in our minds (other than when can we play it) is whether or not it's an MMO. The website hints at single- and multiplayer functionality "via the multiverse," and it also mentions a monthly fee.
Notch's new game is '0x10c'
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."
