Notch Wants To Make a Firefly-Inspired Sandbox Space Game

silentbrad sends this snippet from PCGamer: "After stepping back as lead designer of Minecraft earlier this year, Notch has been considering what to do next. ... While he's still deciding exactly what he wants to work on, he told us that he'd quite like to do a sandbox space trading game like Elite, 'except done right.' Notch is aiming for something with a bit more character than the classic trading sim. Instead of being the spaceship, you'd be a character inside the spaceship. 'I want the space game that's more like Firefly,' he said. 'I want to run around on my ship and have to put out a fire. Like, oh crap, the cooling system failed, I have to put out the fire here.' He hasn't decided to make the game yet, and doesn't mind if someone else takes up the reins. 'If someone steals the idea before me, that's totally fine. I just want to play that game,' he said."

Comments

amazing

[msheekhah]

I want that game

Re:amazing

[Ihmhi]

I agree that Minecraft is missing a lot. When jeb took over, however, the game has been noticeably improving. Patches are coming pretty consistently now and they're really changing the game for the better.

I think Notch is better at the initial idea than the long-term execution. He's like a Stage 1 rocket booster - he gets the idea off the ground and pretty far, but don't depend on him to make it all the way to the end.

For the reasons above, I doubt his ability to finish something good. Start it? Sure. But put out a finished, quality product? He seems to have a hard time doing that.

Re:amazing

[SexyHamster]

Are you kidding?
Minecraft is nowhere complete. It has 1% of the content a game like that should have. Personally I will never give Notch another cent. He starts games, makes promises, and then doesn't finish them. Minecraft was an innovative concept, nothing more. Notch did nothing with it. Nothing. Now all the players of Minecraft are relying on modders to make the game fun. It shouldn't be that way.

You're right. What minecraft really needs is a few romance options some poorly written plot elements and an epic ending where the ceiling collapses and everyone dies.

Re:amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Because one must have created a similar, superior product before criticising or forming an opinion. NIckelback is fucking awesome and you can't say otherwise until you personally publish your own albums. Plan 9 from Outer Space was a fucking awesome movie and you can't say otherwise until you personally create your own films. The Ford Pinto was a fucking awesome car and you can't say otherwise until you personally build your own cars. GWB was a fucking awesome president and you can't say otherwise until you become president.

See how stupid you sound?

Re:amazing

[Rowan_u]

Coding isn't just about writing amazingly optimized code, or running as close to the metal as you can get; or heck, it isn't even about not crashing. The whole reason for Java and the other high level languages is so that less analytical geniuses and more artists/thinkers can get into programing. Notch is a perfect example of a regular guy, who isn't really the greatest coder or artist, but never-the-less, still managed to outdo every single 100+ team dev house. Why? 1. the balls to buck absolutely every convention. 2. the presence of high level abstracted languages and libraries for him to build on. 3. the willingness to borrow from what comes before (Infiniminer, Dwarf Fortress, Gary's Mod) 4. pure damn luck. Notch is a phenomenon, not simply because minecraft is an amazing game, but because we love a rags-to-riches storyline :)

Notch

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Is Notch his real name or just his street name on... developer... street...

Re:Notch

[Anonymous Coward]

Markus Persson (pronounced closer to passion, than person)

Vegastrike

[Culture20]

It's been an oft-asked for feature in Vegastrike. And they've already got the flying around in space and trading stuff covered. Maybe he could do the "I'm just a space janitor" portion that no one seems to want to do?

Oolite -- Open source Elite

[BDZ]

In case there are Elite fans out there who haven't heard of it; check out Oolite http://www.oolite.org/. It's an open source version that is nicely done. Available on Linux, MacOS & Windows.

Sounds similar to a game on Kickstarter just now.

[Anonymous Coward]

FTL
It is a spaceship roguelike where you actually control the ship up close, rather than directly.
Glad it got funded, these guys sound pretty good and the idea sounds solid.

Would like to see him have a try at it. So little actual decent space-trading games that are full-on, large or even fun.
So many of them are just a plain chore to get in to, and you can lose everything just like that.
Quite literally a second job to get in to in order to even play most of them.

Re:EVE Online

[realityimpaired]

I thought EVE Online already was the sandbox space/trading sim "done right"

Will it let you burn the land, or boil the sea?

It's called Sundog

[bfwebster]

Wayne Holder and I did it 27 years ago for the Apple II. ..bruce..

Re:I could go for that

[mccalli]

I loved the idea of Elite but the implementation (particularly the later ones) was always a bit off for me. The crew based thing would be quite a bit of fun. Have a game that is part space shooty, part RTT or TBT crew management.

I want a remake of Psi 5 Trading Company. That's a great game which I still play now and again - for those that don't know it, you're the Captain of a freight-carring star ship and you command your crew. You can do nothing directly, all actions occur because you've instructed your crew to carry them out.

I'm a massive Elite (original, never got into Frontier) fan too - have a look at Oolite for a modern remake.

Cheers,
Ian

Will the game star Summer Glau?

[Arancaytar]

That, I believe, is pivotal to its success.

Re:and this is why...

[Richard_at_work]

Unfortunately, the first semester of any Computer Games Development degree course is filled with kids who think just that - I like playing games, I have an idea, I would have fun building what I like to play. The second semester of those courses are usually much less full...

The gory details of creating games usually murders the fun of playing them :(

X Rebirth

[gbjbaanb]

It's called "X: Rebirth" and is a follow-on to the quite successful X series of games (the current version being X3:Albion Prelude). These are pretty much Elite type trading/fighting sandboxes, but with multiple ships, remote controlled fleets (ie you can buy traders and set them off on autopilot trading for you), fighting (of course, but with wingmen ships or just sent your fleet of frigates or carriers to defend your trading sectors from the bad aliens, robot aliens or pirates), plus missions to keep things interesting - both small "transport a passenger to x", and large "follow a whole set of missions in a series to do something major".

What's a bit special (and controversial in the X community) is that the new game will be based around a single spacecraft (previously you could decide what kind of ship to pilot) but that has different 'rooms' to play from - so your co-pilot can be set to fly while you remote-control your combat drones or play the stock market or whatever.

Read more on the developer's forums

Nobody's quite sure exactly what it'll be like, but I think we can be confident Egosoft will pull the rabbit out, X3 served me very well for over a year, and I still didn't manage to finish all the plot missions. You can buy X3 on steam or impulse (or whatever impulse is called nowadays) for next to nothing, it cost me $10 in a special offer that seems to be repeated regularly.