Mojang details space sim '0x10c'

You'll get to program your own spaceship's computer and patch things up with duct tape in 0x10c, the new game from Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson

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You'll get to program your own spaceship's computer and patch things up with duct tape in 0x10c, the new game from Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson. After muttering about a space sim in March and revealing the name yesterday, developer Mojang launched the website with heaps of details.

The site explains that 0x10c takes place in the far-flung future, after a computer bug kept early space travellers in suspended animation for umpteen billion years. With the universe we know winding down and preparing to die, you'll get to roam around, mining, trading, and looting, getting into space battles, and landing "seamlessly" on planets.

Ships are run off generators, and you'll need to balance power usage to keep things operational. "A cloaking field, for example, might require almost all the power from the generator, forcing you to turn off all computers and dim all lights in order to successfully cloak," the site says. Should your ship get damaged, you'll need to fix it up, with materials including good old duct tape.

That old grey tape will briefly fix anything, Persson said on Twitter, noting that he hoped for a robust engineering aspect.

There's a heavy technical side to 0x10c too. The game actually emulates the CPU running your ship, which you can program and create software for yourself. Have a gander at the CPU's specs if you fancy studying up on that. Persson confirmed that players can swap programs, and even maliciously create viruses.

0x10c will pack both single-player and multiplayer, but you may need to pay to go online. "The cost of the game is still undecided, but it's likely there will be a monthly fee for joining the Multiverse as we are going to emulate all computers and physics even when players aren't logged in," the site explains.

Mojang plans to release the game like Minecraft, first launching it in a basic state of playability and updating as it goes. We should remember from Minecraft's development that grand plans often end up scaled down or take longer than we might hope, but it's all awfully exciting on paper.

From The Chatty
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    April 4, 2012 12:45 PM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Mojang details space sim '0x10c'.

    You'll get to program your own spaceship's computer and patch things up with duct tape in 0x10c, the new game from Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson

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      April 4, 2012 12:50 PM

      How will this work for completely illiterated people on computer programming? I'm all scared.

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        April 4, 2012 1:12 PM

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        April 4, 2012 1:13 PM

        I wouldn't worry about it. It really depends on the fictional computer language they come up with as I doubt it will be anything like the contemporaries we have now. Remember that Lego has sort of forged ground here with the lego mindstorms. This probably won't be anything that complex.

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          April 4, 2012 1:21 PM

          [deleted]

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          April 4, 2012 4:15 PM

          [deleted]

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            April 4, 2012 5:09 PM

            [deleted]

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            April 4, 2012 5:47 PM

            I have a feeling there will be a high level language over top of that. I really don't think most people will want or have the patience for assembly programming. Granted assembly programming would be the easiest to implement and some what faster.

            I did a Google search earlier and found some people who already wrote a C and Lua interpreter for that architecture.

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              April 4, 2012 5:53 PM

              He may just leave it to the fans to write high level language compilers that output his language. C, Java, Perl, etc... An extra layer of "game" to the game.

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                April 4, 2012 5:56 PM

                Pretty much this. I know I could see myself trying to write some of that stuff. I've tried doing some of that for the x86 architecture on my own but it would be nice to target something a little simpler since I'm only doing it for fun.

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              April 4, 2012 6:00 PM

              [deleted]

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        April 4, 2012 1:18 PM

        there's lots of engineering stuff in Minecraft that you don't ever have to do if you don't want to. I'd think they'd stick to that style of just putting stuff in for everyone.

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        April 4, 2012 1:19 PM

        there will be a wiki and you just grab what you need

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        April 4, 2012 1:21 PM

        Could be as simple a visual drag-and-drop code blocks. Nothing overly complex. I'm sure he doesn't want to write a true runtime interpreter.

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      April 4, 2012 1:20 PM

      A significant part of the appeal of minecraft is that anyone can have a good time. I hope the game is still fun if you choose not to engage in coding. I certainly hope it doesn't confer an advantage on players who happen to be programmers.

      • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
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        April 4, 2012 1:22 PM

        I think one glance at the name should tell you this is no Minecraft. He's going full nerd this time.

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          April 4, 2012 1:23 PM

          That doesn't mean the game should only be fun for one subset of people. Plenty of people who don't code enjoy space sims.

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            April 4, 2012 1:28 PM

            There are plenty of space sims for people who don't code.

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              April 4, 2012 1:31 PM

              I hope the "programmers who enjoy space sims and have the time and interest to program applications within a game" audience is very large, if that's the attitude notch is taking.

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                April 4, 2012 1:35 PM

                I think the attitude Notch is taking is "I have shitloads of money and can spend some of it making the kind of games I wish someone had already made."

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                  April 4, 2012 1:41 PM

                  More power to him, because this is -exactly- the game I've wanted for years. A hard-core future space simulator, like Microsoft Flight Simulator, but for space and with easier plugins.

                  Now to talk the PMDG guys into making a ship for this...

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                    April 4, 2012 1:47 PM

                    I agree. Whether he can make good on all his promises or not, he's basically trying to make exactly the kind of game I want to play but don't have the resources to do myself.

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        April 4, 2012 1:34 PM

        [deleted]

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      April 4, 2012 1:42 PM

      minecraft in space with individual/group owned planets is what I want

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      April 4, 2012 1:50 PM

      Gameplay in a dying, metal poor universe doesn't sound much like fun. Change the setting to a younger version with more resources.

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        April 4, 2012 4:02 PM

        We are in a dying, metal poor universe right now.

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        April 4, 2012 4:21 PM

        Heavier elements are typically created in supernovas. So the older the universe, the more common heavier elements would be, no?

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      April 4, 2012 3:54 PM

      So you are way in the future, presumably on a ship that is more advanced than today's technology, Yet you are modifying software in some extremely limited subset of assembly language? One would expect a 3rd-gen programming language at minimum.

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        April 4, 2012 4:01 PM

        Ah I read that its from 1988; Either way, I can see this failing massively under the shadow of minecraft; It seems already like it is suffering from the second-system effect; And a very few would find "hard science fiction" fun.

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          April 4, 2012 4:18 PM

          >travel to neighboring system
          ETA: 8 years at current sublight speeds.
          >engage sleeper pods

          HARD SCIFI FOLKS

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          April 4, 2012 5:58 PM

          Who cares? The ones who are likely to find it fun will appreciate it and the ones who aren't will ignore it. Not every game needs to be ground-shatteringly popular. In fact some of the most interesting indie games I've played have rather small user bases.

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      April 4, 2012 4:13 PM

      i hope writing viruses is part of the game

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        September 7, 2012 12:04 PM

        If ships aren't networked then you can only infect your own ship, right?

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      April 4, 2012 5:04 PM

      This sounds so amazing, can't wait!

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      April 4, 2012 5:08 PM

      I like this sort of game.

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      April 4, 2012 5:46 PM

      I remember playing a game called CROBOTS, or something like that, back in the 90's. Where two people would write AI code in a C-like language and feed their code to the game to control their bot. Then the game would play out the battle and determine the winner. Then the engineer would take their code and keep refining it to perform better.

      It was very entertaining to make a game out of coding.

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      April 4, 2012 5:54 PM

      Is notch the new Peter Molyneux?

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      April 4, 2012 7:44 PM

      Very interesting idea. I look forward to seeing where this goes.

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      April 4, 2012 8:14 PM

      OH it's 0x10 to the power of c, not 0x10c. 10 hex to the power of light speed! 0x10^299,792,458m/s! 16^186,282miles/second!

      What a name.

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