TIGSource Forums

YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9-lJzFZ72I)
Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/901026204/lords-of-uberdark-3d-voxel-based-mining-building-g)

I didn't think this had any real chance of getting funded, but apparently Notch put a link on Twitter, and that seems to have given it some kind of start, at any rate.

Oh shit, grappling hooks? :durr: I'm hoping it makes it, but it's really hard to gauge... I guess getting 1000 bucks in a single day has a pretty high chance of getting it on the front page of kickstarter, which'll probably cover what ever is left after Notch's followers die down. :shrug2:

This is basically what I wanted to make after first playing Minecraft, but lack the skills to do so.

And now a year later and I see someone making it happen. I'm both very happy and sad.

The creator is the guy behind Egoboo and Soulfu. Shame he's now going to be known as one of many devs who jumped on the Minecraft bandwagon, sorry "made an open-world block building game."

If he succeeds and is known for this, that will only bring more exposure to him and his previous projects.  I really don't see a problem with taking minecraft ideas and extending/changing it in an interesting way like this appears to ... ?

This could be so much more than that with a bit of vision.  Hopefully he has that.

Oh I have no doubt it's going to be good, in fact it's the first Minecraft clone that looks interesting to me (sorry Terraria) and the dev isn't just some random kid either, he knows his shit judging from his previous games. The problem is that even (or maybe especially) if he succeeds he's going to be forever known as "a guy who jumped the Minecraft bandwagon," a poor man's  Notch. Idk maybe he's OK with that. I wouldn't be if I was him but I guess I'm just projecting.

If his future works are fantastic and unique enough, then he'll be able to break out of 'notch's shadow' with no problem. it doesn't really matter what game gets your name out there as long as it's out and it isn't a terrible game, imo.

The technology is cool but being based in "cubes" is one of the reasons I think Minecraft works so well, makes everything simpler and more accessible. Building stuff with that much freedom looks a little too complicated for most people to get used to. Let´s see if this end up being more than just Minecraft with round stuff.

But minecraft is the open gate, people train with minecraft would jump effortlessly and import their skill.

It doesn't look like he's going to make it with Kickstarter, but he seems to be OK with that; it sounds like he's going to move along all the same without the advance funding. :)
I didn't say anything in my original post, so I'd like to make it more obvious that I'm very excited about this!

I doubt he really cares. In my sporadic communication with him over the years, he has struck me as a fairly laid-back guy. My impression is that he's just interested in making cool stuff and getting people to buy it.
I could be totally wrong about that, though.

Yeah I read your interview with him.  ;)

I appreciate his attitude but if he's really planning to sell games, he probably needs to do a bit more promotion/marketing. Did anyone actually buy Soulfu?

Anyway, I'm not (yet) registered on Kickstarter but planning doing so and pledging some $15-20 in the next couple days. I heard KS is only for US citizens though. Is this true?

Why do game developers keep setting ridiculous Kickstarter goals

hes still a fourth of the way

Yeah, what are they even going to do with twenty thousand dollars?

Well, I can imagine if he wants to make it his living wage while he works on the game, but people need to be more realistic with Kickstarter's all-or-nothing model. Who knows, though. It looks like a neat concept (VOXEL TERRAIN), so maybe he'll get it.

Doesn't look like he's going to make it, $20k for a kick-starter, really?
 
He would have made it if he had set the goal to $6-7k.


Can you just make another kick-starter if the one you make doesn't reach it's goal?

Yea but you need to start all over

@CA: You can pledge from anywhere but only start a project from the US.

Yeah, goals like that are not at all unreasonable; work takes time, people need to eat, et cetera. But if hardly anybody has heard of you or your project yet, hoping to get so much money in so short an amount of time is not very realistic.

It looks like he'll just barely make it -- the project got a bunch of last-minute press and is at $19,386 with 20 hours to go.

Skeletal physics eh?  I'm buying this game.

He already made it just FYI. He's at something like 21,000 now. Glad I contributed $10.

just watched the video, looks a bit boring lol

great news

Glad for him. Soulfu kicks ass, and the voxel terrain demo looks promising.

Exciting stuff!
He's planning on releasing the alpha version today, according to the most recent update he posted.

It's out already, just downloaded but not tried it yet. I could post some screens ITT but I guess I'd have to email Aaron first and ask him if he's OK with it.

Wow, his kickstarter got kicked off. I wish him good luck.

Is the alpha only available for those who backed the kickstarter?

Is it just a minecraft clone or is there anything more to it?

if you wear the inscribed rings when you get to the vast expanse of featureless terrain you can go to the upside down world and when you dig a boring hole for hours you get the good ending where you didnt give some guy 22 thousand dollars to poke holes in stuff

where can I buy the inscribed ring?

geez this is still in alpha!!! you'll have to wait for him to include facebook integration. the rings cost facebook credits.

looks impressive, but that's about it for me. "Minecraft" is such an easy name to use when describing this game. Why did Minecraft work? Simple graphics, simple gameplay, just simple. But effective.

When I first saw Terraria I thought "here we go again, start counting". While Minecraft made millions, it was still an indie title, because it was inventive, original and, well, not made by a games company (at the time). I don't like how people are using the Minecraft idea to make money. That's not in the spirit of indie development (imo).

Minecraft wasn't publicly funded before it was even released. This is really going to have to do something amazing.

not every game has to be a smashing success. if you read the kickstarter page you should have seen that it was going to go in an infiniminer direction. team-based game.

did you play terraria? it's pretty fucking different from minecraft.

this isn't minecraft

It doesn't even look anything like Minecraft.

But there is so many of them right now, voxel world building engine.

edit:
I mean they don't add much novel idea so far

I'm going to make an engine based on gas particles I'll call "fartels."

farticles

testicles

Grappling hooks, man!
But seriously: As Nix and Nugsy said.

Maybe some people are, but that's not what was intended with this (or whatever other not-a-Minecraft-clone; take your pick of them). Rather, it's more along the lines of:
"The core idea behind this (i.e. a 3D terrain editing sandbox) is a really good idea, but other things could be done with it. I'm going to try doing one of those things."
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not everything has to be a completely new idea. Plus, I don't think completely new ideas actually exist; everything starts out somewhere else. "There is nothing new under the sun", as Ecclesiastes says.


I messed around with the alpha build a little bit; it's pretty neat. As far as I could tell it doesn't have any of the lighting shown in the preview video, though, so tunneling around in the dark was awkward.

This is really cool, in my opinion. I can't wait to play it, a team-based mining/exploration game? I would play Infiniminer but it's basically dead..

That aside, 20k wasn't a very reasonable goal for an indie game, but he stated that it was for more game-work and less work-work. I'm sure 20k is more than enough, though..

I didn't say this was Minecraft, but if Minecraft were never created, I wonder if this would be getting the publicity it currently garners.

I'm all for extending ideas, and as Machine Saint said (ed.), completely new ideas aren't common. Most of my ideas are "inspired". I dunno. You could do a terrain game not based on mining, maybe you could make mud huts.

Exciting game concept.

it looks a bit ugly, I mean the terrain and the cel shading.

watched my brother play around with the pre-alpha release for awhile...

Yeah the graphics are kinda fugly right now...
It's really confusing about how deep you are digging, you could be digging into the earth and not realize you are 30 feet into the ground because everything is shaded the same, there are no shadows. There is no reference to know you traveled anywhere.

There are also tons of other weird problems. Most cropping up from trying to build freeform into 3d space...

This game does have tons of potential though. I'm anxious to see what this guy will do with the $22,853 he got kicked.

Agree about the digging problem. The building stuff feels much more dynamic than Minecraft but as a result it's kind of hard to build anything other than archways and floating stone penises.