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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsGod is a Cube [crowdfunding] [demo] [Windows/Linux/Mac] Programming Puzzle Game
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Author Topic: God is a Cube [crowdfunding] [demo] [Windows/Linux/Mac] Programming Puzzle Game  (Read 11685 times)
King Kadelfek
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« on: October 18, 2014, 08:09:01 AM »



God is a Cube is a programming puzzle game where you control nanomachines (small robots) by creating Artificial Intelligences made of graphical symbols.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VrRv0nVz-g




The game is in a late Alpha stage, and there are around 50 levels split up into 5 different chapters with their own specialty and their own difficulty curve.







Reviews


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wFev6ptiY


Support the game
You can get the game on the official website through the Humble Widget.
I made a mini-crowdfunding to help to make the game better:



Get the Demo
If you want to try the game first, I just release a whole new Demo.
You can download the latest version of the Demo here:
(when asked for a login, write whatever name you want, your TIGSource username by example)


I'm looking for feedback about the campaign, and the Sandbox Mode / Level Editor. And if you have questions, I will be glad to answer them.  Smiley
« Last Edit: July 21, 2017, 06:45:07 AM by King Kadelfek » Logged

_bm
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« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2014, 12:01:45 PM »

Woah...
The further I scrolled down the more confused and interested I became! This looks really interesting and not what I expected when I saw the title.  Shocked
Good work! I'd love to see more images from the game.
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King Kadelfek
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« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2014, 12:36:25 PM »

This looks really interesting and not what I expected when I saw the title.  Shocked
Thanks, but what did you expect when you saw the title? XD
I tried to make it simple, because it's a god game with only cubes.
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« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2014, 12:44:55 PM »

It's really cool to watch the cubes build structures themselves.

Some lovely isometric/orthographic stuff, does the first person gameplay use a perspective camera?
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« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2014, 01:42:25 PM »

This looks kinda cool. It has a nice color scheme. Gameplay seems interesting too.
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jmptable
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« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2014, 09:09:49 PM »

This is a game I've always wanted to make, but better, and real! I'm enthralled. Both of your examples from technology were built within 1 minute walking distance from where I live. My friends and I have discussed at length the various bits of engineering that are required for dealing with things like this and how we might play around in the same realm, but we have too much other work to get started. If you release something for this before January (when my school has a month long holiday devoted to personal projects) then I know a few dozen engineers who will play it to death and enjoy every second.
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King Kadelfek
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« Reply #6 on: October 20, 2014, 10:51:21 AM »

I have the habit to answer everyone and to make huge walls of text. So don't hesistate to ask questions or to say what you prefer in the game, so I can give you a full answer. Smiley



Some lovely isometric/orthographic stuff, does the first person gameplay use a perspective camera?
The First Person gameplay uses a perspective camera. When you are possessing a humanoid body, it's a gameplay close to a basic Minecraft, and when you are possessing a cube you have the same moveset and you can "walk" on the walls and the roof.
When you are using a god view, you are greatly advantaged to build things on the surface, but greatly handicaped to see anything below the surface. That's when the possession becomes helpful.

It was the same thing in Dungeon Keeper. You have great power on "your part of the map", but you can't do anything at locations you can't reach. Using the possession, you can move freely and reach further locations.
You can watch this video to see what I'm talking about:






This looks kinda cool. It has a nice color scheme. Gameplay seems interesting too.
Thanks. I'm using a mnemotechnic list of colors, thanks to their pronunciation. There are 16 levels of colors, such as "White-One", "Two-Blue", "Three-Green", "Four-Orange", etc. Besides, it's close to the color scheme from RPG with white items < blue items < green items, etc.
With 2 cubes / objects of one level, you make a cube / object of the next level. You can build some kind of factories which combines cubes for you.



This is a game I've always wanted to make, but better, and real! I'm enthralled. Both of your examples from technology were built within 1 minute walking distance from where I live. My friends and I have discussed at length the various bits of engineering that are required for dealing with things like this and how we might play around in the same realm, but we have too much other work to get started.
I see what you are saying, and I feel the same. I'm trying to make a virtual version of these technologies, and I'm creating the whole caonsidering they are "real". So I now have different kind of 3D printers using moving cubes, falling cubes, etc.

The AI itself is made of cubes. When you open a creature, you can see its internal 3D circuit. A "motor" cube connected to a "forward" cube means the cube moves forward. A "detection" cube connected to a "forward" cube and a "wall" cube, then to a "change direction" cube and a "left direction" cube means the cube is able to detect obstacles and change direction.

A basic player doesn't have to know any of this to play the game. He just build a basic "move forward and turn left when there is an obstacle" program and he clicks on a cube to load the program make it alive. A basic player is interested to destroy enemies cubes, because he will gather ingredients (such as "motor" cubes), so he will not have to build them himself.
But an advanced player can create its own 3D electronics, which is interpreted when finished and transformed into pseudo code inside the engine.
A basic player just use the interface to increase abilities ("I click on this button to put a better battery"). But an advanced player desactives the interface to build whatever he want ("I add a second battery because it have a better ratio total energy / cost).

It's a very engineer / robotics thing, but I'm doing it for several reasons.

First, the "price" of the cube is real. It's not me who decides that this cube costs X resources, it's a real cost calculated from basic programmation cubes needed. A cube able to move, to detect enemies and to shoot lasers will cost much than a simple moving cube.

Secondly, the number of working devices can be limited. It's not me who decides how many systems are usable at the same time, it's a real cost calculated from basic programmation cubes currently functionning.
If you put low quality electronics, it costs far much less but is really slow. It can be ok though, because better electronics is faster but eat much more of your ingame CPU per second. I'm making it so you are free to make abuses by using Level 15 detectors (which costs 2**15 -32,768- Level 0 detectors) if you want, but it takes so much ingame CPU that you will not have a lot of other systems working at the same time.
You can of course upgrade your ingame CPU. A lot.

I'm talking about electronics, but it's in fact some king of "software" loaded inside the cube. So you get the software back when the cube finishs its task normally. And you lose the software if the cube is killed.
The cubes which never finish their tasks (such as an always ready to work Crafting Table) keep the software, so they are like a normal crafting game.
Softwares usually exist in several versions (white, blue, green) made with electronics of the same color. You can combine 2 softwares of the same color to obtain a software of the next color (which is better because made of better electronics).

I'm working a lot to make this totally invisble for a normal player. I want to make it as easy to understand that a simple RPG. Basic players will just look at the description of the object and see "costs 15 Concentration when active", then they will say "I have 20 Concentration maximum so 15+5=20, I will still have room for my 5 Concentration basic system". That simple.
I will provide the basic softwares / tools / cubes with their interfaces to make all the game, and I think that even basic players will be able to make some modifications, such as boosting an existing cube with an additional battery taken on an enemy. But like Minecraft-redstone, it's completely facultative.


If you release something for this before January (when my school has a month long holiday devoted to personal projects) then I know a few dozen engineers who will play it to death and enjoy every second.

My roadmap is to provide basic screens / videos for the 3 gameplays, then I will work on other parts such as the 3D electronics. I have a theorically working 3D electronics system, with a complete example. I will be able to make at least a visual representation soon.
About releasing something before January, it's complicated. I'm making a game using parts of several gameplays, so if I release just a part of the game it will look like a sub par version of an existing game. That's why I avoided to put First Person screens, or else everyone could say that I'm making yet another Minecraft clone (you can't imagine how many people are making Minecraft clones) (well, I learnt to make voxels making my own Minecraft clone, so it's not a critic).


The Creative Mode?
Maybe it could be ok to release parts of the Creative Mode? Like Minecraft, it's a mode where you have infinite resources and can build whatever you want, without major problems caused by enemies killing you. There is no real gameplay, no goals. It looks closer to a tool than a game, but as Minecraft almost everything you use is the stuff from the survival game.
Maybe if I put in big words "Creative Mode", people will understand that like in Minecraft there will be a really playable Survival Mode?

@jmptable
I still have to think about it, but you can already talk about the game to your friends. If there is an interest about a Creative Mode allowing you to build virtual robot cubes that you program using cubes, I could release a free demo as soon as I can.
You can show them this topic, this particular post (where I'm talking about 3D electronics) and this Imgur album with contains all pictures (there is a "see more" button at the end of the page to see all 50+ pictures, not only the first 10):
http://imgur.com/a/oJQWr?gallery

I have a Facebook page for the game, so I can keep track of how many people are interested by the game:
https://www.facebook.com/godisacube
(I have currently 1 like, so there is still plenty of room for your friends to like it Wink )
« Last Edit: October 20, 2014, 11:03:00 AM by King Kadelfek » Logged

acatalept
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« Reply #7 on: October 20, 2014, 11:23:02 AM »

Mind-blowing concept ("the AI itself is made of cubes"?!), and I really like the visuals.  Can't wait to try wrapping my head around the playable version... though I fear I may fail that particular IQ test miserably Wink

Good luck!
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Kyle O
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« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2014, 04:58:47 AM »

 Addicted  This is really great. The level of detail you are going into is astounding. Have you ever played Dwarf Fortress? The big question that comes to my mind is how accessible do you plan on making this game?
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« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2014, 08:58:54 AM »

Quote
The AI itself is made of cubes... I'm talking about electronics, but it's in fact some king of "software" loaded inside the cube. So you get the software back when the cube finishs its task normally. And you lose the software if the cube is killed.

This makes me wonder - if the circuits are made of cubes, are they the same kind of cubes that make up the island planets or the ships? If not, how would you obtain the special circuit cubes in the game? If they are the same, then could you make a nonworking circuit inside of a cube in order to store a bunch of material in a small space?

Quote
Softwares usually exist in several versions (white, blue, green) made with electronics of the same color. You can combine 2 softwares of the same color to obtain a software of the next color (which is better because made of better electronics).

Does this mean that after building a circuit it becomes a single piece of software that can be moved freely from one cube to another? And "software" implies the ability to have multiple copies. If I make a circuit can I put it in as many cubes as I want without remaking it?
What do you mean by better? Lower CPU usage?

Quote
Maybe it could be ok to release parts of the Creative Mode?

Certainly don't rush, but it sounds like a creative mode would be plenty to spark interest. On a more basic level, just having a specification for the circuit aspect of the game would start people seeing possibilities and getting excited.
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King Kadelfek
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« Reply #10 on: October 22, 2014, 05:56:33 PM »

Can't wait to try wrapping my head around the playable version... though I fear I may fail that particular IQ test miserably Wink
Depending on how you play it, it can be an idle game: you click on blocks and gather energy, to make further steps in the skills tree, to make stronger clicks.
All systems I'm talking about are means to get energy and cubes faster, but the most basic ones (just wait, or just click somewhere) are still effective even at greater levels.
But of course, you will have to wait a looooot of time to max your whole skill tree. XD





Addicted  This is really great. The level of detail you are going into is astounding. Have you ever played Dwarf Fortress?
I played Dwarf Fortress. I mean, I tried. No mouse support kills all accessibility. So let's say my experience is made of friends talking about the game and stories I read on the Internet.
I like the way the game is designed. It's a "total concept". The universe and the mechanics are designed first, the gameplay is designed at the end. The game itself could be "playing" without the player.
Of course, I don't intend to make a self playable game, but as you know, the level of detail and the synergies are what makes these kind of games great. Sadly, we have to wait that the whole system is made before the game become playable.

The big question that comes to my mind is how accessible do you plan on making this game?
In this post, you can see that I admire Dwarf Fortress level of detail, but I despise their lack of accessibility.
My purpose is to make a game accessible by the tool you want to use.

In Photoshop, you can use only the pencil. In Word, nobody force you to use styles or copy paste.
In God is a Cube, if you want to play only as a god or only as a Minecraft entity, you can. Because you are fine with puzzle games does not mean you have to go first person. And because you are a Minecraft lover doesn't mean you have to play a god game.

God is a Cube is designed more like a MMO where your class is choosen depending on you actions. You are not a mage because you choose to be a mage, but because you are using magic. If you want to use only magic, it's your choice, but puting a small number on points in armor could still be a good idea.

The final form of God is a Cube should be a "fast start" where you choose to be a god, a first person entity or the pilot of a space ship.
There will be interfaces which help you to get the basics of the game (let's say you want to add a room in your spaceship, there will be a button for that). Where you are fine with how the stuff work, you are free to disable the interfaces to put cubes like you want where you want.

I'm not saying that God is a Cube will be 3 full games combined into one. Rather that you can play only one class if you want. The automation and AI will be here to compensate the fact you don't play part of the gameplay (auto moving cubes will repair your spaceship if you don't want to use the God view or the first person view to repair it yourself).
I'm working at the mechanics to make it so that even if you play only one third of the full gameplay, you still have a lot of different experiences to make. But let's be honest: you will play the game like a rogue like (I mean you will die a lot) if you really persist to use only one kind of gameplay when another one could be better... or you will have to be really good with your chosen gameplay, which is also possible.
I personnaly think the constraints are a good way to experiment every third of the gameplay at its fullest, so I will make it so you will always have a tool to help you.

By the way, the solo campaign will almost always force you to use only one kind of gameplay (god, first person or spaceship), in order to make you discover all advantages of each kind of gameplay.

Note: I'm often saying "you can play the game like that". It doesn't mean you have to play the game like that, or I'm making the game to play only like that. It means that I'm providing the tools to play the game like that, and you are free to use them or not, depending of your personal tastes or the situation. It's like Photoshop, you are free to make pixel art with the pencil, or to use the other tools.
I'm designing the game in "the contrary order": 1-Universe -> 2-Mechanics -> 3-Tools -> 4-Gameplay. The conception is currently between 3 and 4, and the development is between 2 and 3.


This makes me wonder - if the circuits are made of cubes, are they the same kind of cubes that make up the island planets or the ships?
In the whole game, 1 cube = 1 cube, no matter the size of the cube. The cubes are 1 meter large on islands, and only a few centimeter / one inch inside your body.
Circuits are made of:
- action cubes (move, detect)
- information cubes (direction left, object wall)
- crystal cubes (to link action and information cubes)

You can find crystal cubes naturally on the islands, as well as inside creatures next to action and information cubes (the creature own IA's cubes).
You can put action, information and crystal cubes directly on the island, they will become 1 meter large to fit the space. It's usefull to make 3D electronics at a great scale, to link factories (buildings which combines cubes) and containers.

3D electronics is like Minecraft-Redstone. Except that you can put this redstone inside a cube to facilitate manipulation.
It's like using the Little Blocks mode for Minecraft.
You can look at this video to watch a working example:




In God is a Cube, you can build a cube to have a defined purpose (such as opening a door), without even looking inside to see how its electronics is working. I will provide basic usage cubes, such as laser towers, and even an interface to make adjustments, such as "equiping a better battery". Players will be free to disable the interface to make their own -better- adjustments or to download other ready to make cubes.
In order to download these player custom creations, I not intend to make some kind of Steam workshop, but a simple text to copy paste or an image. The image version is some kind of Yu-Gi-Oh! / Magic card, with a picture of the final result, a small description and data encoded inside the file.


If not, how would you obtain the special circuit cubes in the game?
You can build the action and information cubes using other action and information cubes for the complex ones, or basic energy cubes for the simple ones.

I have to determine how many cubes it will cost to make the basic information and action cubes, but it will be a low cost, maybe a generic one (such as x cubes for an action cube and y cubes for an information cube).

Complex cubes are made of several cubes. You can combine the directions Forward + Forward + Forward to get a cube which will look 3 cases forward.

A whole 3D electronics circuit / software is itself a cube, that you can combine to other cubes.
So when you want to add functionalities to an existing software, you can make a new software containing the old one with your additional cubes. It's the black box principle, where you don't have to know what is inside to use it.
It have advantages and inconvenients. The major inconvenient is that you can surely achieve the same result by creating a whole new software, combining directly all needed cubes and so avoiding redundances and costing less cubes.


If they are the same, then could you make a nonworking circuit inside of a cube in order to store a bunch of material in a small space?

You can, but I will provide containers to put all the same objects into one space. It will be some kind of 3D box with the object displayed on each face, with numbers to display how many copies of the object are inside.
The nonworking circuit you are talking about is in fact a chest.

In God is a Cube, "using a chest" is in fact "browsing the content of a cube". As a Minecraft entity, you can browse 1 meter large cubes, which will be displayed as several layers of 2D list of cubes.
You can browse these chests (and therefore there are considered like chests) because they contain an object (some kind of magnifying glass) which make them act as a chest.

For a basic player, it's just a chest, and they don't even see the magnifying glass (and they don't care). They just click on the interface to build automatically a chest for X cost, they don't have to know how is working the chest.
But as an advanced player, you can use the pagnifying glass to edit the content of a cube (its software) like a chest. Basically, you will see the 3D electronics like several layers of 2D electronics.

One of the purpose of the game for engineers is to make 3D electronics as 2D electronics (when possible), because it's easier to build (faster and cheaper). I have a working example I will show in less than a few weeks.


Quote
Softwares usually exist in several versions (white, blue, green) made with electronics of the same color. You can combine 2 softwares of the same color to obtain a software of the next color (which is better because made of better electronics).
Does this mean that after building a circuit it becomes a single piece of software that can be moved freely from one cube to another?

Cubes are like computers without hard disk. Softwares are like CD-ROMs. If you have 2 softwares to make cubes move, you can move 2 cubes at the same time. Then you get back your "CD-ROMs" and you can put them in 2 another "computers".

What do you mean by better? Lower CPU usage?

Better cubes are faster. Instead of taking several seconds to make a decision, the electronics circuit will be run through faster and the cube will think faster.
I'm still not sure about CPU usage, but lower energy usage will surely be ok. I talked about more CPU needed, but it's because your cubes run faster: more decisions per second, so more CPU. But the task is done faster too. If I'm making it so the CPU cost is the same, the total CPU cost will be the same, no matter how fast (or slow) the work is done.
But with a really high level circuit, the CPU demand will be high (a huge CPU spike), so you will have to have a good CPU.

Note: I'm talking about the ingame CPU, your real life computer CPU should be fine, even on an old computer. A lot of things are calculated only once, and I'm working with worst case scenarios. I prefer to put limits into the game, rather than creating a system which can lag in some situation.
In God is a Cube, it's normal to see a cube making a several seconds pause in order to calculate a very complex path. But you have so much things to do and so much cubes to care about, that you are happy that your computer runs fine.

I created the whole ingame CPU stuff so people will look for efficient ways to make things, rather than using only the easy pathfinder cubes. When your cubes just have to move on a forward line, you will use dumb cubes moving in one direction or cubes looking at symbols on the grounds (you can put arrows on the ground, like some kind of sandbox puzzle game). These "dumb" cubes will cost almost no CPU, especially compared to highly intelligent pathfinding cubes.


Certainly don't rush, but it sounds like a creative mode would be plenty to spark interest. On a more basic level, just having a specification for the circuit aspect of the game would start people seeing possibilities and getting excited.

As I said, I have a working example. As you say, it will be better when I will show it. :p


And "software" implies the ability to have multiple copies.

You can make a copy your CD-ROM, so you have 2. Smiley

I looked at a lot of solutions so the whole system can work, and the one I think is working is to consider the following:
- the softwares are made of physical cubes, and are therefore physical
- the softwares are a 16x16x16 space inside a single cube (it's a 16x16x16 small cubes space "inside" a 1x1x1 big cube space)
- you load the software inside any cube, and get it back automatically when the task is done
- you can take back the software from one of your cubes when you want, then the cube become inert
- if the cube is destroyed, the software is destroyed (the cube can loot part of its electronics as action and information cubes)

As I said, 1 cube = 1 cube, no matter the size. So in fact, a 1 meter larger cube is not made of smaller cubes, like I show in this picture:



But rather the whole space is used (there is no wall or ground made of cubes). I will make another schema to show this correctly.

When you want to take the software cubes from an enemy cube / a cube which are not yours, you can destroy the cube (so it loots some software cubes), or you can edit it (using the right tools).

I'm making the system so you can physically enter the 16x16x16 space inside a cube, in order to edit / destroy it / pick the cubes you want.
Here is the example I'm working on:
- on the island, an enemy cube generator is generating cubes to build a structure
- you enter inside the enemy cube generator using one of your moving cube (your cube "get smaller")
- you are now a cube inside a 16x16x16 enemy structure
- you destroy inside laser towers which protect its inside world
- you follow the 3D electronics between the various softwares
- you find the cube containing the 3D map of the structure to build
- you enter inside the cube containing the structure
- you are now inside a 64x64x64 enemy structure
- you move to an important part of the structure, and edit it by destroying and adding blocks of your own
- now the enemy cube generator will destroy and add some cubes on the structure it is building on the island, accordingly to the new 3D map it contains

It's like changing the DNA of a cell. That's an important part of having physical softwares and worlds inside cubes.
Instead of having "an object X which does Y", you have a completely working program made of cubes.

On a basic level of understanding, the softwares are just a 3D structure you can edit. But if you go deeper, it's a real world you can explore and interact with.
Because if you think about it, if you can build real size Redstone and little blocks Redstone, why couldn't you become smaller to explore the world containing the small Redstone?

I don't say it's easy to understand, but I'm making it functional. Worlds made of cubes inside worlds made of cubes.
It's like Inception, but with cubes.




If I make a circuit can I put it in as many cubes as I want without remaking it?

The circuits provided by the game are official ones. They are usually made of one color of cubes (white only cubes for the white version by example). Official recipes for combining are just fusion of 2 existing circuits.
So a One-White only circuit will be superposed to another One-White only circuit and therefore become a Two-Blue only circuit.

When you edit a circuit, it becomes a custom circuit. Therefore, it's no longer part of any further recipes.
You will have to give it another name, and a version number. You will be able to share it on the net (using the picture or the text option). People will use your software, which will work exactly like you made it.
If your software is somewhat broken, you will want to create a new version. But because all sofwtares are physical, people will still be using the old version.
It can be a voluntary decision: let's say you create an IRL version of the microwave where you can put metal, it doesn't mean careful people will have to change their old perfectly fine microwave.

About creating software / circuits
The plan and the way to build a circuit are two different things. The 3D electronics is the final result, but because it's physical it can be build using a lof of different means.

When you are creating stuff automatically in your inventory (the Factorio way), they are using the 100% safe "falling from heaven" method, which costs more that the moving cube version.
Your factories (the buildings combining cubes) can use different methods to build circuits. They can use 3D pathfinding to calculate one time how to build this circuit, then create and move circuit cubes to create the whole circuit.

If your circuit is made of 1 cube which is 3 cases at the right of the cube generator, the factory will create one cube, put inside the instructions "Right+Right+Right" then the cube will move to its final position.
There will be several kind of factories, such as optimised ones for 2D electronics.
I will provide a basic interface to edit some part of the factories, such as adding more cube generators.

I would like to remind that I'm designing the game around a technology made of cubes.
The generators inside the factories are the same that the ones you use on the island to build structures.

This could be the inside world of a factory (a 16x16x16 space), and the green building could be a 3D electronic circuit:



And yes, you can also be physically inside a factory and build things yourself. At the end of the building phase, the final 3D structure become an object which is put inside a container.

Everything in the game use the same technology and exists physically, no matter which "size" it is.
You think that you are in the uppest level of space, but maybe you are just inside a cube. A cube inside a cube.



It's like some kind of relativity law.
"If cubes are at the same size that the cube which contains them, it means that every cube is the possible container of a whole world made of cubes. If anything is made of cubes or containing cubes, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, both physically and immaterially, so God is a Cube."


People say I'm crazy, but I'm making video games so it's ok.
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« Reply #11 on: October 22, 2014, 06:47:10 PM »

Waaaaaaa, that's pretty cool !
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King Kadelfek
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« Reply #12 on: November 07, 2014, 04:48:54 PM »

Here is the first draft for the 3D electronics, the Minecraft-redstone-on-steroids used in God is a Cube.

This circuit is an AI for the cubes which means "move forward, or turn right if there is an obstacle".



You find this kind of circuits inside every living creature. By killing the creature, you loot parts of the electronics, so it will cost you less resources to build your own circuits. You build your own circuits just by selecting a recipe. I will provide basic recipes and circuits for basic tasks.
If you like redstone stuff, you will be glad to see that you can edit the 3D electronics to make a lot more things.

These 3D circuits are also used to program machines and factories, you can find them as totems, and even on the walls of some big buildings.



A 3D circuit can be written a lot of different ways.







The most compact form is the better. It costs less cubes and it's faster to build.







It's like magic hieroglyphs. You know, in a sci-fi / heroic fantasy temple, when stones start glowing and suddenly something happens? It's the same thing here, but for real. It's not just shining stones, there is really energy flowing inside the walls from hieroglyph to hieroglyph, then suddenly "something happens".
You can also hack the system by replacing stones on the walls to create another behaviour, or to force the system to help you instead of trying to kill you.
And if you don't like redstone, just break everything, the whole machine / system will no longer be functional.


The pseudo code generated by the 3D structure is functional. The cubes move like intended.
I still need to create a data format to virtually put these circuits inside of a cube. These cubes will be the first "animals" of the game.

Next, I will work on the first "plant" so I will have a very (very) rough ecosystem.




Waaaaaaa, that's pretty cool !
Thanks. If there is something you like, please tell me. Wink
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Savick
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« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2014, 04:55:38 PM »

Looks cool, but it didn't really grab me as something I would play. I'm not sure.
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« Reply #14 on: November 08, 2014, 03:03:30 PM »

Automated construction is beautiful!

The circuits are a not easy to understand. Are they based on some kind of cellular automaton?

Don't you afraid that making everything built of small cubes may be very computationally intensive? Because so much can be automated, the player may try to build really huge things. Are you going to put some limitation on what size of structure is allowed? Or maybe limit available resources?

Very interesting work!
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« Reply #15 on: November 08, 2014, 04:43:45 PM »

It started by looking like Q*Bert, ended with some spiritual and deep imagery that broke my brain.
Interested.
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« Reply #16 on: November 10, 2014, 03:49:13 PM »

Don't you afraid that making everything built of small cubes may be very computationally intensive?
In fact, far away small 3D objects will be replaced by 2D sprites. Here is a basic example of this kind of trick:



This is an object of the inventory. You can think it's in 3D but because you see it from only one angle, a 2D picture will be used. When you take the object and make it turn, it's replaced by a 3D version.
I will also using "real boxes": a cube where each face is a view from a different angle. This is what will be used to display islands from far away. Then you enter "the box" and see what is really inside.

A lot of things will be visible only when you are looking to them from very close. Some cubes have a lot of cubes inside them, but you can only look inside one cube at the time.
That's why there is no "pixel per pixel" editing. Because each cube would turn into a huge pack of polygon otherwise.

And for the logical part, things like 3D electronics are processed only once, then the pseudo code generated is used.
My purpose is to make the game run even on old computers like mine (from 2006): Windows XP, 2 Go RAM, video card with 256 Mo RAM, Dual Core. By example, the physics engine is only 20% completed, so for the first demo, spaceships will be limited to 16x16x16 cubes.
I prefer to put hard limitations in the game and find a better way to use the gameplay mechanics, rather than making a game which could run only a few configurations.

One last point: the world is finite (not infinite like Minecraft). I'm amking the game so 256x256x256 cubes is the maximum size for an island.


Automated construction is beautiful!

The circuits are a not easy to understand. Are they based on some kind of cellular automaton?
Yes, it's some kind of automaton. Basically, the cube uses AI when it's not doing any action. It can move, it can shoot lasers, it can absorb energy, etc. I took a lot of inspirations from cellular automata, "game of life" and so.

I write another explanation on Reddit, so I will complete it to make a big post on this subject. Smiley

There are Action cubes (such as Move) and Information cubes (such as Direction Forward). When they are connected to each other (touching or linked by crystal cubes), they interact between each other.
Examples:
  • Move (the losange) + Forward = Move Forward
  • Detector (the eye) + Forward + Obstacle (the wall) = Detect an Obstacle forward

Then you have the Brown-0 and White-1 cubes (the squares with the vertical and horizontal lines) which act like gates, so the result of the detector goes on one part of the circuit or the other one.



The final result is this one:
  • if there is an obstacle detected forward, turn right (the left part of the circuit)
  • if there is no obstacle detected forward, move forward (the right part of the circuit)

Each Action cube is processed only one time, from the In Cube (at the top) to the Out cube (at the bottom). But the trick is that each Action cube look for Information cubes in all directions. So you can by example connect the Move and Detector cubes to the same cube Forward, as showed there:



This way, you spend one less cube. By exploiting the electronics rules, you can make really compact versions of a circuit.



For now, I think there will be two ways to use a circuit:

  • put a mini circuit inside a cube (you take it back when the task is done, and you lose it if the cube is destroyed)
  • build a big circuit as a huge antenna to send instructions to a lot of cubes (everything keeps working until someone break your antenna / radio totem)

The structures creating cubes will be either be simple looking cubes (with electronic cubes inside), or huge temples (with electronic cubes outside on their walls).

It's really special, even to me. I am creating the technologies like 3D electronics or automaton moving cubes to fulfill a purpose, but then I am discovering many more usages.

I will make a video to explain in details how each cube work, with working examples (with cubes moving accordingly to their programmation).


Because so much can be automated, the player may try to build really huge things. Are you going to put some limitation on what size of structure is allowed? Or maybe limit available resources?
You have a "Concentration gauge", which is some kind of ingame CPU. Each moving cube is like a program which eats part of the CPU. So you can use a few very CPU expensive tools, or a lot of basic tools.
The purpose is to force the player to use less consumating tools instead of the super expensive. Of course, the ingame CPU costs are based on the estimated real CPU costs.

To send cubes in a straight line, the player will use a simple "move forward" program, instead of a complex pathfinding program.

About this:
3D electronics = Redstone
Circuit = working 3D electronics, with a purpose
Program = think about it like a "CD-ROM" containing a virtual circuit, which you can load inside a cube

The program itself is a cube (containing a small world with just the circuit). So instead of a huge circuit, you can just put one Program cube on the world. Then you connect this cube to other cubes, and you have a more complex circuit made of several circuits.

I would like to make it so people can use high level Program cubes with a GUI, to create easily cubes.
And advanced players will "deploy" the high level cubes to eliminate redundances and make more compact versions.
The final result will be itself a Program, in the form of a cube (of course) which will be sharable (the card system I talked about in one of my previous posts). Basic players, who have no clue what all its electronic is, will read the descrtiption of this program, see that they want some of their cubes to do this, build automatically the Program Cubes thanks to the automatic recipes system, then click on their cube and VoilĂ ! They have a high level AI cube moving on its own, consuming Energy and Concentration, and doing what they want to do.

To put it simply, it's like a Minecraft where every item have its own redstone circuit inside, but you don't have to even know how redstone works to use the item. Like IRL technology. You don't know what is inside your TV, but you know how to use it.

I want to make it so that the only gameplay mechanic basic players have to understand, is that breaking an item loot electronic parts, sometimes valuable ones, and that these parts are used in the recipes of the items they want to build. And that all this stuff consumes ressources, like "energy" at each use and "concentration" during use.
It's a gameplay already available in a lot of games, it's just that in God is a Cube, the recipes are based on real components and the items are functionning from real electronic components.

The general gameplay of the game will be that a lot of players will use the basic official programs, and there will be some kind of modding scene producing "Mark II" versions and "made by Dark_Narooto95" versions of these programs. I think even I will have no clue about a lot of these programs work, I will just see that the cubes are moving / acting accordingly to the description written by the author.



It started by looking like Q*Bert, ended with some spiritual and deep imagery that broke my brain.
Interested.
I'm thinking about Q*bert sometimes, because Q*bert's pyramids-like are generated by some random tests. Smiley
By the way, enemies moving from cell to cell will be in God is a Cube, and I thought about adding slimes. I should make a Q*bert level just for the fun. XD
« Last Edit: November 10, 2014, 03:57:23 PM by King Kadelfek » Logged

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« Reply #17 on: December 04, 2014, 06:18:52 AM »

I made a long gameplay video showing some of the main features of God is a Cube:






God is a Cube is a game where you are a God, and you are a cube.

You are on planets made of cubes, where you create life and where you create factories, to extract all the natural resources of the planet. Your purpose is to transform the planet itself into a giant spaceship, to fight other players and devour bigger and bigger planets.

Every cube is alive. You can possess cubes, you can possess creatures made of cubes, to use their abilities. And you can change their DNA to change their abilities and change the way they think.

God is a Cube is a game where everything is made of cubes, from the galaxies with their planets to each creature's DNA.
From the infinitesimally small to the infinitesimally large, it is truly a game where God is a Cube.
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« Reply #18 on: December 04, 2014, 02:59:34 PM »

I'm making the system so you can physically enter the 16x16x16 space inside a cube, in order to edit / destroy it / pick the cubes you want.
Here is the example I'm working on:
- on the island, an enemy cube generator is generating cubes to build a structure
- you enter inside the enemy cube generator using one of your moving cube (your cube "get smaller")
- you are now a cube inside a 16x16x16 enemy structure
- you destroy inside laser towers which protect its inside world
- you follow the 3D electronics between the various softwares
- you find the cube containing the 3D map of the structure to build
- you enter inside the cube containing the structure
- you are now inside a 64x64x64 enemy structure
- you move to an important part of the structure, and edit it by destroying and adding blocks of your own
- now the enemy cube generator will destroy and add some cubes on the structure it is building on the island, accordingly to the new 3D map it contains

This reminds me of Inside a star-filled sky...
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King Kadelfek
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« Reply #19 on: December 06, 2014, 02:45:43 AM »

This reminds me of Inside a star-filled sky...
Yes, it looks like I have some common ideas with Jason Rohrer (the author of Inside a star-filled sky), because I also like his idea of having a home other people can break into (his other game The Castle Doctrine).

People look to really like this "going inside a cube" mechanic, then goind inside another cube, then going deeper. It's like Inception, but with cubes.

I just got a 500+ replies maxed out thread on 4chan /v/.


https://archive.moe/v/thread/274412972/


It was a crazy night, I spent 10 hours in a row answering everybody. Now the social counters are sky-rocketting (well, compared to the very small previous numbers).
« Last Edit: December 08, 2014, 05:35:21 PM by King Kadelfek » Logged

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