29 replies to this topic

[swiftcoder]

So I'm a little sad about Notch's new 0x10c project.

Mostly, I'm sad that I'm not the one developing it. There's been a half-finished design document for a very similar concept lying on my hard drive for the past couple of years. *sighs*

I'm curious however, whether you think that there is a market for a game that seems to consist heavily of assembly programming an emulated CPU? I know that many players of MineCraft/Dwarf Fortress/LittleBigPlanet build the most crazily elaborate mechanisms (pretty sure I've seen a CPU emulator in at least one of the above). But technical skills on that level can't actually be a majority of the player base. Can they?

[JTippetts]

Personally, I think the programming aspects of it will inspire a small but particularly fervent branch of the hardcore, and the rest of the playerbase will either ignore it or simply download programs others have written, and not try programming themselves. The same contingent of players that used redstone to build elaborate machinery, computing machines, and even crude CPUs. That particular segment of the Minecraft community was tiny but very visible due to the sheer "coolness" of what they did. For every one guy with the tech skills to build a CPU out of torches and redstone, there are about 5,000 players that spend their time building penises out of obsidian or saddling and riding pigs. I think we'll see the same in 0x10c.

I'm interested to see how well this game does. To me, it's immensely appealing, but to my Minecraft-playing nephews, it's "meh". But then, they fall firmly in the "riding pigs" camp.

[Waterlimon]

Most of the player base cant probably use it, but reading the site, i think you are able to go without. Instead, the computer is something that will keep long time players who have learned to use it playing, and it will also attract people who have knowledge of programming/scripting.

Normal people like building mechanics out of components and stuff (i think), but if you know how something like that works, you can get as much fun out of it and it will probably be a lot simpler and cheaper to run.

Also it will get more people interested in programming, which probably is good (dem doing awesome stuff i wanted to do after 10 years >:c).




inb4MinecraftEmulatorInDCPU-16orWhateverItWasWith8BitRedstoneComputerRunningPong



I wonder if there will be player communication, allowing us to design fancy encrypted communication protocols, create an internet and hack into our enemies systems.

[Mike.Popoloski]

I've been contemplating a ship-building game for a while now. I considered allowing players to write scripts to drive behaviors, but I was more interested in developing components and letting players put them into their ship.

It's kind of annoying that if I develop it now I'm going to look unoriginal.

[laztrezort]

I also have some old code/design ideas that sound somewhat similar to this idea - although I'm not really clear on what exactly the gameplay would be from the description. Is this the type of game that all programmers have thought about creating, but never got around to it?

I don't know about general appeal, but personally I'm interested in where this is going.

[Waterlimon]

I've been contemplating a ship-building game for a while now. I considered allowing players to write scripts to drive behaviors, but I was more interested in developing components and letting players put them into their ship.

It's kind of annoying that if I develop it now I'm going to look unoriginal.

Im making a game where you can build machines out of components. Though its complex so im not sure if itll ever get done (i couldnt figure out a simpler game idea that would give me motivation :c)
It also should have editable terrain... The components are going to be ones that input and output stuff (which might be transferred into lets say thrust if the output isnt connected to an input) Like a processor would take in a large amount of signals and output something, and a motor would take in energy of some sort and output torque into a joint component.

The aim is to make a playground where you can do anything, with some form of multiplayer (probably just for friends as i think i need to trust the clients for computing the components and stuff ).

[swiftcoder]

I also have some old code/design ideas that sound somewhat similar to this idea - although I'm not really clear on what exactly the gameplay would be from the description. Is this the type of game that all programmers have thought about creating, but never got around to it?

Mine was a tad more specific than that.

Early designs called for a scriptable 'data core' at the heart of each ship, which could be controlled via a (visual drag-n-drop) scripting language to modify AI behaviour and communication protocols, simple firewalls, etc.

Plus I have already implemented landing on planetary surfaces, basic space combat, etc. - not that I'm ever likely to finish said game, but c'est le vie.

[laztrezort]

Mine was a tad more specific than that.

Yeah, I had never gotten over the preliminary hump of actually designing the language, but I did have a fairly fleshed out idea of ship design and combat mechanics (which were inspired by the old Traveler and Star Frontiers rpgs). This was many years ago, though, and I'd never revisited the project since. Also, being just an armchair programmer myself, it would surely be much too big of a bite for me to take on.

[Bacterius]

but c'est la vie.

I agree, only a few select people will be either able or willing to take advantage of the CPU emulator (few people have the knowledge, few people have the experience, and even fewer people have both - and then how many of this crowd will actually be playing the game?). But I suppose you'll see websites such as "planet0x10c.net" (or maybe universe instead of planet) pop up which will offer downloads for stuff other people have done, so it will probably work out well in the end.

Of course, it depends how ubiquitous the CPU emulator is in the game. I mean in Minecraft redstone wasn't everywhere and you could get by without using it or just using it to power a dumb iron door in the simplest way possible, so it made it possible for a large audience to play the game without being reminded every second how much of the game they are missing (which would probably be a turn-off for many people)

[SimonForsman]

I've been contemplating a ship-building game for a while now. I considered allowing players to write scripts to drive behaviors, but I was more interested in developing components and letting players put them into their ship.

It's kind of annoying that if I develop it now I'm going to look unoriginal.

Hehe, i've had the same idea aswell, its not an easy one to implement though (Takes alot of work) and might possibly only have a niche appeal so the financial success of it is questionable (as with all "new" ideas). Most aspects of 0x10c have been done before though, (It sounds a bit like a cross between Space Rangers and ATRobots) so its not really groundbreaking in any way. (It might become the first game with a programming element to really hit the mainstream market though)

[JamesMintram]

I wonder if someone will create a CPU for the language in Minecraft? (Or even if it is possible?)

[MJP]

I think someone would have to pay me a lot of money for me to want to crank out some 16-bit assembly that gets uploaded on virtual floppy discs.

Maybe that will be a new market that emerges from this game: freelance programmers-for-hire to make you an awesome spaceship program.

[swiftcoder]

I think someone would have to pay me a lot of money for me to want to crank out some 16-bit assembly that gets uploaded on virtual floppy discs.

It will take a whole week for someone to produce a compiler for this...

[Koobazaur]

Yeep, I can see python-to-0x10c or even c++ to 0x10c coming out after some time.

[ChaosEngine]

Yeep, I can see python-to-0x10c

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

c++ to 0x10c coming out after some time.

Possible, but a lot more work. C++ is notoriously difficult to parse.

[Krohm]

Mostly, I'm sad that I'm not the one developing it. There's been a half-finished design document for a very similar concept lying on my hard drive for the past couple of years. *sighs*

100% agreed. Me and a friend tried to design a graphical scripting system (similar in concept to hydraulics and Abstract Shade Trees) in the past. We didn't have the time to make it work, much less to develop the world running around it.

I think this is very hardcore. I still don't understand why someone would want to spend his time this way when he can learn something real instead. Such as a real language in this case. Or a proper DCC tool. ?_?

[Hodgman]

I think this is very hardcore. I still don't understand why someone would want to spend his time this way when he can learn something real instead. Such as a real language in this case. Or a proper DCC tool. ?_?

I'm not sure why... but it is a form of 'play'.
In Minecraft when I discovered redstone wires, I spent a whole day building a tape-deck large enough to encode the string "Welcome! ", a motor to rotate the tape, a 4x3 pixel LCD to display the scrolling text, and a 3x3 pixel font... It was a really useless exercise (like everything in Minecraft ), but for some reason it was a fun exploration experience, like getting your first electronics kit or BASIC interpreter as a kid.
If you translate this experience over to a multiplayer world where these creations are actually useful to gameplay, I imagine it's only going to work better. If there's the option to trade in-game currency/items with other player in exchange for their programs, then the small group of players who do find this fun will have even more incentive to build these contraptions.

[SimonForsman]

I still don't understand why someone would want to spend his time this way when he can learn something real instead. Such as a real language in this case. Or a proper DCC tool. ?_?

Most of the problem solving skills transfer between fields, things aren't worthless just because they are learned in the context of a game and learning programming in the context of a game can be alot more fun than doing it the traditional way, as this will use a low level language players will learn how to break a problem down into extremely tiny chunks which is a very valuable skill to have even when doing high level programming(Breaking down a big problem into small chunks isn't all that different from breaking down a small problem into instructionsized chunks).

[Bacterius]

I think this is very hardcore. I still don't understand why someone would want to spend his time this way when he can learn something real instead. Such as a real language in this case. Or a proper DCC tool. ?_?

See I was thinking the other day about some kind of concept where you actually script your own AI, e.g. you control a bunch of characters and you can script their own individual AI using some kind of language (like choose a default target, what do to if the healer is being attacked, and being able to communicate with the other character's AI's and giving/receiving orders, etc...). Kind of like robocode but less academic.

Perhaps playing such a game would encourage some people to actually give a shot at learning programming? I don't know, it was just an idea floating in the back of my head... it's probably been done before (as 99% of ideas have) but it may have some educational value even if there's no business profit in it. Many people don't realize they have a talent until they're inadvertently drawn into it.

[japro]

I think this may actually be better than the visual programming approach. Basically I would assume the people that are capable of programming this kind of assembly will be creating components/programs that will end up on community sites for use by the non-programmer-people. So the "hardcore" guys get to hack in their game and get recognition for it and everyone else can have fun with a ever expanding game and new "modules" or whatever.

Also: I totally had the idea to program components and build space ships from it too . I think it's a pretty obvious concept for programmers to come up with actually...