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[Utopia]

Hello guys,

We are proud to announce, that the first step before releasing our game is done.
We have built a Voxel engine that we will use to create our game. Its the first time we are releasing something.

Here are some ingame screenshot/vidéo :













We would like to stabilize the engine before going further and really implement the gameplay elements.
We need your help for this, to know how its running on your computer. For this purpose we have released a "Sandbox mode" of our engine.
We appreciate all kind of feed back, they are valuable information !

Our engine has been created in order to give good performances, even on mid/low end computer. It is possible to travel very fast, without seeing landscape being created (Would give the possibility to add true flying gameplay mechanism).
It is also very flexible, and is giving the possibility to easily add/modify world content. (Creating yourself voxel elements, setting landscape generation algo, ...) :













You just need to register to our website, and you will have access to game installation and forum.

Minimum hardware/software :
Software : Windows vista/7/8
Hardware : GPU supporting DirectX 10.0 minimum.

http://www.utopiarealms.com/

Thank you for your feedbacks !

For those interested, some more info on the engine.

Utopia is based on "s33m3 engine".
Its a specially developed directX layer for the game, around SharpDX API.
Everything is written in C#.
Its being developed for nearly 2 years now, in our free time, and it is our first release.
It was a good opportunity to learn directX, and game programming in general.
Its FUN !

Side note on the Voxel world by itself :
We are aware that we will be cataloged as "Again another #$[@ Minecraft clone", I must say that its minecraft itself that give me the envy to develop this. Its a game I like a lot.
Our goal is not to do a minecraft clone, but to go somewhere else with a different gameplay. While keeping the destructible world feature possible.
We didn't go "HD", because we have already limited our users base by choosing Windows only and directX 10 minimum API (no Windows XP possible). This way we hope that middle to low computer hardware will be able to use the engine itself.

No matter, it is a great experience that we want to share with you.

s33m3

[siskavard]

Why wouldn't I just play Minecraft instead?

[Quicksand-S]

I'm curious what sort of gameplay you intend to have in this game, since you say it's not like Minecraft. All I see as I skim through the video is exploring, mining and designing (kinda like "crafting"). What will make this game special?

[Shadow99]

Id be interested to see a 3d voxel based platformer. :\

[Eendhoorn]

It really is too similiar to minecraft. I think that just changing textures would already differentiate it enough.
I can't judge the gameplay because I'm getting an error during the setup;

An error occured while installing the dependencies. Please restart the computer and run the setup again or install the following dependencies manually:

DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010)

I love "voxel" sandbox games and I do believe that you guys made a big effort to create something unique. The visuals just don't communicate that at all, hope you guys find a way to set yourselves apart !

[bitMasquerade]

People have said it before me: It looks way too much like Minecraft.

The landscape perlin noise,
the red button mushrooms,
the bottom quick tool bar,
the mining equipment and voxel collecting focus,
the cactuses,
the snow as small blocks hovering over the voxels,
the tree shape and structure,
the sand/stone/grass/dirt/wood basic resource hierarchy,
the meter scale voxels

All of it mimics minecraft.

The uniqueness of style of minecraft, and that it is the first big voxel game puts a developer working on a voxel engine in a tight spot to keep critics from yelling clone.

To see voxels (post minecraft) done right, look at Cube World (in dev: http://wollay.blogspot.ca/) or voxatron (http://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php). Both manage to differentiate from Minecraft by using completely different gameplay, focus, and style. Look at the landscape and trees of Cube World. Note the RPG focus of Cube World, and the arcade shootemup focus of Voxatron. Accept that Minecraft has cornered the voxel resource collect & build game, and make something different.

Also, keep in mind that voxels should be thought of as a game mechanic: what does voxels add to your game? Is it there for style? destructible terrain? some other reason entirely? Remember why you added voxels in and focus on making that aspect strong. Voxatron uses voxels for a stylistic 3D pixelized look reminiscent of oldschool shootemups such as smash TV, while allowing interesting terrain destruction during battle to emphasize the carnage; Cube World uses voxels similarly for 3D pixalized style, but instead to reflect the 8-bit era RPGs like Final Fantasy. Also, for Cube World's the emphasis on RPG exploration, voxels provide a convenient method of quick generation of terrain to explore.

So, why are voxels in your game, and how will your game be different than the current stock (minecraft)?

[Utopia]

Hello !

At first tx you for your various remarks.

We put our effort at this moment into the "voxel engine" itself, in order to have something we can base our future game-play on it.

So our first focus was mainly on engine reliability, flexibility and performance (even on low system). We try to keep landscape generation performance very high in order to give the possibility, if needed, to travel the landscape very fast without seeing the landscape being generated.
That's the reason of my post, we want to "test" our engine on various system in order to collect precious information.
In order to "attract people" a little bit, we have quickly created a sandbox mode, similar to minecraft one (reason of the same feeling). This mode doesn't reflect at all the final game-play.

You could ask, why did we not simply create a mod based on minecraft ? While I find minecraft idea and realization pretty great, I still have big problem with its stability and computer resource needed to have it play nicely. So in our free time (indeed, this is a done mainly after our working day), we have decided to create our own vision of it.

The base engine by itself is very flexible and it will be possible to customize the game very easily without "modding it". (From in depth landscape generation, entities, textures, sounds, ...)

Concerning the game-play we are heading to :

Each player will have its own "Island", it will be a private and peaceful place, like a Home territory. Player will be able to build his own "castle", town, ...
But also all kind of "Item" factory chains (Think of The settlers or Anno for factory chain sample).
By items we could have food, tools, armors, weapons, vehicules, ...
Portal to your private landscape will be able to be open for other persons on invitation only, with special rights.
The "problem" of those islands, will be that they won't have precious resources. Those resource needed for crafting interesting stuffs.

This will lead us to the "Wild world", where those precious resources will be present, but other players too ! These lands will be dangerous, and you could be killed here and lose everything you have on you. We intend to see player fighting for resource controlling, teaming together to defend places, or simply "hunt"

Here is our main view on it. A single server will serve both "private and public worlds". But it could be very interesting to create inter-server events if possible (server A against server B), ... all those kind of possibility.
As you see we have enough ideas for the rest of our life :p

s33m3.

[Impmaster]

So you're saying that your real game is nothing like Minecraft, but that it just uses a voxel engine that you want everyone to be able to use? If so, fine. But your description sounds exactly like Minecraft. Maybe put a spin on it? Make voxels in spaaaaacee. Voxels in a parkour game. Voxels for a destruction game. But don't do creation. That's Minecraft's realm. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe your idea is really special, but you haven't shown us enough. Tell us what the actual game will be like.

So our first focus was mainly on engine reliability, flexibility and performance

Don't build the engine before the game!

[Utopia]

I can understand that people are sick of seeing "minecraft clone".
But I don't agree that any future "voxel game" will be doomed because its Mojang's sandbox.
With this type of thinking we will still be playing Wolfenstein 3d.

Concerning our recent "engine focus" :
I like coding a lot, playing game too. Three years ago I decided to build my own layer around DirectX (using Sharpdx), just for the sake to understand how it is working, and because I like it (Same goal as XNA/lwjgl).
Then little by little idea came : Why not try to make a game with it ?

This explain the "focus" put on the technical side until recently, because we are using a tailor made engine for voxel gameplay.

I respect your view when you say : "Don't build the engine before the game!".
But I prefer : "Don't build a house on sand".

s33m3