Markus-Persson
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Notch launches Drop, inspired by Super Hexagon, Fez and letters
In lieu of his Ludum Dare game, Notch today launched a Unity game called Drop, available online for free. Notch is, of course, the mastermind behind Minecraft, and Drop is a quick exercise in rapid wordsmithery, spinning and catchy tunes.Notch attributes inspiration for Drop to Super Hexagon, the ceiling of his apartment and the ending of Fez, and after playing for a little while, that all sounds about right. We would also throw in a vibe from Pippin Barr's 30 Flights of Loathing and Pottermore's Spells game.If you have some time today, maybe make nimble your fingers and give Drop a go. But first try to say that sentence five times fast.
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."
Notch no longer involved in Psychonauts 2 funding
Markus "Notch" Persson, who has made a fortune as the developer of indie game Minecraft, is no longer interested in financing Psychonauts 2. Persson's involvement in the project began last year when he offered to fund the project. Although he noted reservations at the time, it appears those issues have grown over the past year to the point where he won't be funding the project."I somewhat naively thought 'a couple of million' was two million. I had no doubt in my mind that a Psychonauts 2 would earn that money back easily. Turns out [Double Fine] wanted 18 million dollars, haha," Persson wrote on Reddit last week. "I don't have the time at the moment to even try to get educated enough to make an 18 million dollar deal. Perhaps in some distant future when I'm no longer trying to make games, I could get into angel investing. I've made one private investment into a game so far, at $100K, and it's frankly a lot more work than I thought."Psychonauts developer Double Fine tells VentureBeat that it's currently focused on its funded Kickstarter project. The company states it hasn't budgeted out a sequel and will "likely explore alternative funding methods that will require multiple sources to make it a reality."
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.
You light up my life: What Steam Greenlight is for indies, from indies
Steam Greenlight isn't for everybody. Literally – five days after pushing Greenlight live, Valve implemented a $100 barrier to entry in the hopes of eliminating the barrage of prank game ideas by people who don't "fully understanding the purpose of Greenlight."Before the fee, it was difficult to know what Greenlight was going to mean for the indie community, since its "new toy" sheen hadn't yet dissipated. It's even more difficult to gauge what Steam itself wanted Greenlight to accomplish, with or without the fee.In its launch announcement, Valve says Greenlight will serve "as a clearing house for game submissions" and "provides an incredible level of added exposure for new games and an opportunity to connect directly with potential customers and fans." If that sounds a lot like Kickstarter, it's because it sounds a lot like Kickstarter. This isn't a bad thing; it equates Greenlight to something that has run the online course and has experienced public showdowns and successes, something known.While a few developers benefit from the high-speed, viral-hinged community vetting of crowd-sourced creative sites, even more have failed. Still, sites such as Kickstarter truly can help raise awareness for a legitimate project, even if that interest doesn't transform into cash. In this sense, Greenlight has an advantage, in that it's not trying to raise money. It only wants attention.Developers want their games to reach astronomical levels of awareness as well, and recently this translates into a fixation on one particular service for the success or failure of their projects – Kickstarter, and now, Greenlight. Hundreds of pitch emails switch from titles such as "Snappy the Turtle, a new indie adventure game" to "Kickstart Snappy the Turtle" or "Vote for Snappy the Turtle on Greenlight." This shifts the focus away from the game itself, in both the mind of the developer and the person receiving the emails.Since most people receiving the emails are video games journalists and potential publishers or fans, it's safe to say they don't particularly care about Kickstarter or Greenlight – they care about the game. So should the developer, more than anything.Those who have succeeded on the development side offer a unique perspective on Steam Greenlight. We asked a few what they think about the service, the $100 and its impact on indies: Adam Saltsman, Markus Persson, Edmund McMillen, Christine Love and a group discussion among Rami Ismail, Zach Gage, Greg Wohlwend and Mike Boxleiter. Their thoughts are below.
Notch responds to Guncraft: 'I'm a huge fan of clones'
Before PAX started up in Seattle last week, even before the booths were assembled in the convention center, we heard about Exato Games' plan to attract Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson's attention to its own Guncraft. "Notch, come have a beer with us," John Getty said through Joystiq last week. So how did that go?At least on Saturday morning, when Joystiq sat down to chat with Notch, that beer hadn't yet been shared. "I saw some video going on, and it looked like Minecraft with guns," Notch told us, "which seems like a fairly interesting game if you don't make it fantasy." But he hadn't stopped by the booth, and it didn't sound much like he planned on doing so.Notch that there was no drama between the two developers, however. "I'm a huge fan of clones," he said. "I think clones is how games evolve, I'm a huge proponent of patterns." At the same time, however, Notch says he's "been through hell and back" enough to know how trademarks work, and he's a fan of protecting those as well. "I think trademarks are great, because you can go this is our product, this is your product and it can all be seen by consumers."That's Notch's real response to Guncraft's attempts to get his attention. "A lot of people will come up and say, 'Oh, so Guncraft is actually your new thing?' They're kind of maybe sort of kind of maybe implying that we're connected somehow, and we're not," Notch said to us. "It's just a clone. If they want to make a clone, that's awesome, as long as it's clear we're not related in any way."
The Guild Counsel: Gender choice and guild drama
There are many reasons for guild drama, but one of the most challenging comes from a single choice that we make before our characters even see the light of day. In MMOs, character creation can consist of full customization, or it can simply be a choice among some pre-sets, but the majority of games give you the choice to pick your gender. Even if you select a non-human race, there are usually male versions and female versions. For many players, this is a no-brainer, and they play as their own gender. But many others opt to go cross-gender, and that can lead to drama later on, even if it's unintended. In this week's Guild Counsel, let's look at the topic of gender to see why it can be so problematic and how guilds can avoid potential drama from it.
Minecraft creator warns locked down Windows 8 could be 'very bad' for indies, stays wary of Steam too
Microsoft just isn't getting much Windows 8 love from the game community, full stop. Following Blizzard and Valve anxieties, Minecraft developer Notch (the man on the left) is himself cautious about the shift to the Windows Store and the seeming discouragement of third-party outlets. Despite sharing an affinity with Microsoft for square-shaped worlds, he sees any further lockdown of Windows 8 as potentially "very very bad" for indie game developers and overall competition in the gaming business. Not that Notch is singling out the OS for concern: he's also maintaining his resistance to Valve's Steam and doesn't want the Portal creator to "rent games" instead of selling titles that buyers can keep forever. While Notch isn't adverse to producing games for closed systems when it's the only choice, he's joining a growing chorus of those worried that openness is on the endangered list.
Notch: Minecraft occupies a genderless world, even for that guy
Minecraft mastermind Markus Persson, better known by the sexually ambiguous alias "Notch," has cleared up the matter of gender in Minecraft's boxy world with a blog post. Simply put, there is no gender in the game, even for Steve, the default character. "He" got "his" title when Notch jokingly answered a question regarding the main avatar's name with "Steve?""The human model is intended to represent a Human Being. Not a male Human Being or a female Human Being, but simply a Human Being," Notch writes."The blocky shape gives it a bit of a traditional masculine look, but adding a separate female mesh would just make it worse by having one specific model for female Human Beings and male ones. That would force players to make a decisions about gender in a game where gender doesn't even exist."Notch touched on this subject at GDC, during his fireside chat with SpyParty's Chris Hecker. Making a female character model wouldn't only be strange-looking, as Notch said then, but it would be completely unnecessary in a genderless world. Even the animals are neutral (rather than neutered)."Cows have horns and udders (even if I've later learned that there are some cows where the females do have horns), and the chicken/duck/whatevers have heads that look like roosters, but still lay eggs," Notch writes. "For breeding, any animal can breed with any other animal of the same species."Notch notes that this particular post serves only to provide official clarification on gender questions in Minecraft. Oh, also: "As a fun side fact, it means every character and animal in Minecraft is homosexual because there's only one gender to choose from. Take THAT, homophobes!"
Minecraft sells 6 million on PC, 'around 9 million' across all platforms
Minecraft's ability to churn through the bank accounts of all the cosmos continues unabated, having sold six million copies on PC to date, according to a tweet from Mojang mogul Markus Persson. Factoring in XBLA, Android and iOS sales, the figure is "around nine million," according to Persson, a number that Mojang's Daniel Kaplan puts a tiny bit more specifically as "maybe 9.2" million.If you've been affected by Minecraft's unwavering grasp on the gaming universe, make sure to listed to the Mailbag portion of this week's Super Joystiq Podcast, wherein Joystiq's feature content director Xav de Matos, managing editor JC Fletcher and editor in chief Ludwig Kietzmann discuss various methods for breaking Minecraft addictions.
Deja Review: Minecraft (XBLA)
We're of the firm opinion that your time is too precious, too valuable to be spent reading a full review for a game that was already reviewed many, many years ago. What's the point of applying a score to a game that's old enough to be enrolled in the sixth grade? That's why we invented Deja Review: A quick look at the new features and relative agelessness of remade, revived and re-released games. Minecraft on Xbox Live Arcade is surreal. It's like eating jelly on eggs while watching a baby play in a lion cage: It doesn't belong where it is, but now that it's there you can't look away and, for some reason, there's a surprisingly delicious taste in your mouth.Minecraft's shock value as an XBLA breakout isn't a result of it not making sense on the platform – in fact, it plays almost like a native title. It's surprising because Minecraft was never supposed to be big enough for a high-profile XBLA port. It's a voxel-based PC-only sandbox game with choppy graphics and no defined goal, which some argue makes it the opposite of a "game." Minecraft was never supposed to be a hit. It wasn't supposed to sell more than 5 million copies, generate $80 million or be played by more than 25 million people. It wasn't supposed to turn Markus Persson's developer persona, Notch, into a millionaire, a fashion icon, or a common name among Swedes and gamers alike,But Minecraft has done all of these things, and now it's made its way XBLA. And just as it has everywhere else, Minecraft surprisingly succeeds.
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."
Notch hopes to be working on one of three games by summer
Recusing himself from regular Minecraft duties has apparently freed up quite a bit of time in Markus Persson's schedule, so much so that he's currently in the process of deciding which of his three ongoing development projects will be come his next game. "I'm kinda halfway through one, started somewhat the engine on one and prototyping a third, so I hope to pick a project by this summer," Persson told VG247 after accepting the BAFTA Special Award at last night's proceedings. He also commented on the future of Minecraft, saying that he is "not really a huge fan of making sequels" and will instead continue reiterating and adding to the existing title.We're gonna go out on a limb and guess that since none of these three projects are a Minecraft sequel, at least one of them has to be a Cooking Mama-esque haberdashery and hat repair simulator. [image credit: Mojang]
