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'Sup, Notch: Why Guncraft got a booth next to Minecraft's at PAX
Exato Games co-founder John Getty makes no apologies about the inspiration behind Guncraft. Yes, it's based on Minecraft. Problem?Getty can afford to be flippant about Guncraft's origins because his game, while it resembles Minecraft, utilizes entirely different mechanics and goals, and it simply isn't a rip-off, he says. Guncraft spawned while Getty and his partner Alex Schlee were working on another game, Progenitor."Our artist and former programmer were having a talk about how Minecraft isn't objective-oriented enough," Getty recalls. "They thought that it would be awesome if it was like an FPS, which is an objective-driven genre, where you could also make use of the levels you intricately design. They also thought it would be awesome to be able to blow the crap out of said level, without getting banned from a server for trolling someone's masterpiece."I overheard the conversation and thought it was an awesome idea. After a week of drawing up some preliminary game-design documents, I pitched it to my partner, we both decided it was too good to pass up, and we postponed Progenitor in favor of Guncraft."Guncraft is now a Kickstarter success story, raising more than $16,000 in March to continue development, and it's heading to PAX Prime in Seattle this week – in fact, it's heading to a very specific place on PAX's show floor. Guncraft has a booth right next to Minecraft's.
