Slashdot Mirror
Minecraft Creator's New Game Called 0x10c
silentbrad writes "As announced last month, Notch — creator of Minecraft — is working on a sandbox space game (no, not the Mars Effect April Fools joke, though it's similar). "The game [0x10c] is still extremely early in development, but like we did with Minecraft, we expect to release it early and let the players help me shape the game as it grows. The cost of the game is still undecided, but it's likely there will be a monthly fee for joining the Multiverse as we are going to emulate all computers and physics even when players aren't logged in. Single player won't have any recurring fees. ... The computer in the game is a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU that can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish. Full specifications of the CPU will be released shortly, so the more programatically advanced of you can get a head start.""
May appeal to some, but...
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Seriously? You think a site like /. doesn't have readers that might be interested in a game that contains
a VIRTUALIZED CPU THAT CAN BE FREELY PROGRAMMED?
What are you, some sort of reddit user?
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
the built in 16 bit cpu description on the 0x10c website is very interesting.
course he mentions a monthly fee for this one, so it won't be a 1 timer like minecraft, but definitely something to keep eyes on. Just hope he FINISHES it, and doesn't do like Minecraft where he writes half of it, gets bored and quits to move on to some other project.
I can only imagine how godawful this would be if written in Java. Minecraft was bad enough on that front. I don't want to know what an emulated CPU would do in a JVM...
Bit-coin fortune, here I come.
there's already a lot done,
see reddit.com/r/dcpu16/ for the first reactions...
and the first questions on stackoverflow are already coming in - stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/dcpu-16
nt
With the first link, the chain is forged.
so what? what's special about this vs a hundred other '80s/'90s cpu emulators?
Also? RTFA.
Here's the CPU:
http://0x10c.com/doc/dcpu-16.txt
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
I disagree with your tone. I particularly (and universally) despise the statement "who the hell cares?" because it contains an arrogant implication that you speak for everybody.
That being said, I agree with the sentiment that Slashdot ignores good indie games, but my agreement is not for the reasons you think.
You might ask "but what about Mojang"? Mojang is a multi-million dollar game studio that has shown it can tangle with the big boys. Its flagship product has sold millions of copies. It sells products across multiple platforms. It's been the star of a cover article in every major game magazine. It's not "indie" by any stretch of the imagination.
Slashdot ignores nearly ALL indie game developers, with the exception of iphone app developers.
Thank you for recommending "Town", I'll check it out.
There's tons of games with scripting support. Hell, if you are a programmer (like you would have to be for this), you can do this for practically any game. Get ollydbg, debug some and patch any existing game to run commands automatically. It's much more interesting too.
Either you and the site is very bad at marketing itself, or SimCity + DF isn't a very appealing combination. I think I'd rather play one or the other, instead of a lukewarm mixture of the two.
I'm surprised we haven't seem more of this already. I guess the success of WoW has really dumbed down the MMO scene. Back in the day I played around with writing a BBS door game like Trade Wars 2002, but the behavior of your deployed fighters could be scripted and they could perform actions while you were offline. 0x010c looks awesome. We need more games like this.
i dont understand... 16 bit is like the snes. would the game be like a snes game?
Uh, Mojang definitely is "indie". Indie does not mean small or low budget, it's short for independent, as in, independent of the major publishers. Mojang self publishes, hence they are "indie". One hit game does not make them a major publisher.
On the site it's 0x10 (16) raised to the power of c. That's not meaningful here but since it's in a parallel sci-fi universe all bets are off.
I was kinda wondering how 0x10C (268) could have any meaning. 0x10^c makes a lot more sense for something sci-fi.
How many games run the scripts on the server, even when you're not logged in?
Program Intellivision!
No, the 16-bit CPU is inside the game. This will be like a game SNES.
Took me a few minutes to figure out, but the title is actually 0x10^C, which is 16^12 in decimal, which is 281,474,976,712,644, which is the year the game is set. Clever!
Well, the simulated processor is 16 bit, but that just runs the code you write to control your ship and such, as I understand it. Read carefully: "The computer in the game is a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU that can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish."
That means as part of the game, the game provides you a computer to work with, and that computer is 16 bit. There's a whole game going on outside that computer.
Program Intellivision!
How long before GCC can target the DCPU-16?
It is a girl and by the sounds of it a young one. It almost sounds trollish too. I for one love dwarf fortress. The interface is terrible, but the game play is on par with the most advanced rts out there. Of course it is all opinion so troll lo lo lo la
Seriously Slashdot, who the hell cares? There are many better indie games in development.
-whipcrack- Back. To. Facebook! -whipcrack-
actually if this was posted to /r/gaming, i don't think anyone would say "who cares"
It's very similar to the basic models of the PDP-11. 64K of 16 bit words, two-address instructions, operands can be registers or memory. It should be possible to modify a PDP-11 C compiler to compile for the thing.
No indication of how I/O works, or if there are timers or interrupts. If you're supposed to control a spaceship with this, they're going to need those. PDP-11 I/O was done by putting devices on the same bus as memory, and storing into their device registers. But the spec here says that you have 64K words of memory; no portion of the address space is reserved for I/O. So they may use the unassigned opcodes for I/O.
Assembly is "scripting" now?
What I thought was the most interesting paragraph:
The possibilities of this CPU and generator are... Fascinating. For instance, users players (see, lines are already blurring) can exchange programs, so you can expect a lively scene of people exchanging programs. There's a nefarious side to this as well - Notch will not stop anyone from making viruses, so even computer security becomes an element of play. A virus could, for instance, disable a ship's weaponry or shields.
With a concept like this, there is no middle ground. It'll either be incredibly great, or painfully bad. No possibility in between.
Uh, Mojang definitely is "indie". Indie does not mean small or low budget, it's short for independent, as in, independent of the major publishers. Mojang self publishes, hence they are "indie". One hit game does not make them a major publisher.
That definition doesn't seem to go with the popular definition. If all that's required to be an indie studio is to self-publish, then EA is an indie studio.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
The onboard computer in your spaceship, in the game, is 16-bit.
Precisely. INCEPTION.
I said there's scripting support in many games. AND THEN there's also assembly and debugging.
Yes, that is fairly interesting. I had noticed it also, and wondered how it might work.
It implies there will be some mechanism for the "computers" to exchange data and programs. (Since it looks like a bog standard von Neumann architecture, there's very little distinction.) For viruses to really take off, though, they need to exploit some vulnerability that's common to many programs. So, either these computers will have some baseline of common software that they come with, or there will be some widely popular 3rd party programs written by a handful of gamers, or some combination of the two. I imagine that third case is the most likely.
This has shades of Core Wars to it, actually. I wonder if that was an inspiration?
Program Intellivision!
A different point of amusement: The processor's capabilities and speed are roughly equivalent to the processor in the Intellivision. Most instructions are 1, 2 or 3 machine cycles long, but the processor apparently only runs at 100kHz. The Intellivision's CPU is 895kHz, but instructions take 6 to 14 cycles. The Intellivision is slightly faster, but lacks hardware divide/multiply and has less flexible addressing modes.
So, on the whole, it looks like "Intellivisions.... In..... SPACE!!!!!!!"
Program Intellivision!
I wouldn't waste your time on towns it isn't much more than a standard resource gather and build sim with some sight tweaks, isometric 3d and poor Gameboy like graphics and animation. Even the tutorial is misleading as the instructions on how to do stuff aren't what you actually need to do...
No real innovation at all.
If you ask me parent is somehow connected to Towns and is bitter he can't produce good games while others can...
[The Universe] has gone offline.
I think there's a big middle ground: Incredibly great, but only if you're in the small niche it appeals to.
1. That doesn't make any sense. By that definition, all major game studios would be independent.
2. Mojang is not a small time player anymore.
3. "Indie" definitely does indeed refer to small time self-owned business encompassing a very small group of people (I usually don't even use the word "studio" unless they actually have a physical studio). There is no other sensical definition.
4. I've been a part of an indie development shops. Mojang is not an indie development shop.
How long until there's a virus that starts crashing players' ships?
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
I thought that was a given. If you're not in the niche, it doesn't even make it to suck. It's be incomprehenseable, and unplayable.
and the first questions on stackoverflow are already coming in - stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/dcpu-16
O_o
mfw those weren't all posted 4/1.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The reason EA is not Indie is because they are a publisher. Other, smaller companies make games for them. For example, DICE made Battlefield 1942, but EA funded/published it, because EA has the money and name to get it out there.
Mojang is indie because they made the game, AND they published the game. DICE, had it funded and published Battlefield 1942 themselves, they would have been the big Indie publisher on the block at the time. Now, if Mojang starts spending their money to fund other developers, and publishes a game for them, then they would be on the road to becoming a major publisher.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Where did I say it was innovative? It's more like it combines all my favorite games together. What I understand the authors don't like the comparison to other games so making that comment while being "connected" to them would be stupid, but nevertheless it's still a great game. There is another similar, and multiplayer game called Haven and Heart, but sadly it is quite buggy. If they would improve the interface etc it would be great.
i dont understand... 16 bit is like the snes. would the game be like a snes game?
You're lost, aren't you? Don't worry, little kid, your parents will come by to get you back to Reddit soon.
how long till someone ports dos to their ships computer?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
I fail to see how the word "independent", from which the corruption "indie" derives, has any relevance to the size of the group of people directly involved.
Oh, wait, hang on, is this some sort of hipster-logic thing that's supposed to work on the weak-willed and easily-jealous consumer? That'd explain why it sounds like hastily-constructed retcon gibberish to me. Sorry, hipster mind tricks don't work on most of us here, maybe we should've warned you before you made a fool of yourself.
does it run linux?
Or you could make a program that works amazingly well at what it does, but with a backdoor to malfunction at a critical point (bonus points for doing so in a way that makes it difficult to detect the source, like cause a weapons control program to make the engine malfunction). Lots of malware spreads that way, and for good reason (it's easy: the user spreads it for you). More of a trojan than a virus specifically: unless there is some method of semi-automated communication between the ships, though, a true virus seems hard to do.
Unless the server architecture itself has some sort of vulnerability that allows you to circumvent the normal gameplay and install software that way. That would be... interesting, to say the least.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
People are already working on an OS for the system, so probably not very long.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
In the end this is all you're going to use your emulated CPU for - scripting events. And while people will argue until their throat hurts that scripting is so much more limited than a real CPU, please remember one crucial fact: this IS NOT a real CPU.
This is a simulated CPU crafted by the game designer, and any use you get out of this CPU will be limited by (1) the architecture/memory and (2) the I/O provided to interface with various aspects of the game.
Why not just use a scripting language with defined interfaces and put a limit on the maximum program length (to simulate the intended limitations of the 64k ram, etc)? There's no reason you can't design-in similar limitation to keep players on their toes. You will also entice an entirely new set of players into the game who can comprehend how a simple script works, but stare glass-eyed at you when you mention non-maskable interrupts or twos-complement arithmetic.
Besides, everyone knows that some community member(s) will release a high-level language and compiler (of questionable quality and support) as soon as the game is launched, so why bother making this pretty CPU emulator if few players will ever see? I say the creator should just save himself the trouble of player backlash about a crappy community-supported IDE that he can't fix, and just do it himself.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
I made an post on reddit detailing the swarm that I hope to make. Slashdot seems like a better place to get feedback from though, so please feel free to tear apart my plan!
http://www.edge-online.com/news/mojang-turns-publisher
Yeah, I had considered the trojan route also. I'm guessing there's enough people looking over others' programs that trojans won't last too long in the wild. But, I guess it just depends on how subtle the trojan is.
The difference between a backdoor and a coding error might only be found in the programmer's intent and not the code itself. For example, consider a buffer overflow that leads to arbitrary code execution: It's a coding error if the programmer didn't intend for that, but a backdoor if the programmer intended to exploit it later.
Program Intellivision!
I'm writing a really useful navigation package for players' ships.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
at least report something new and interesting ...
This was recently announced. Can't get much newer than that. Announced by the author of a fairly popular game, and it has programming, and space... Pretty darn interesting.
There is a difference between programming and in game computer, and scripting the game.
There is an infinite amount of numbers between 1 and 2. There are an infinite amount between 2 and 3. Are there more numbers between 1 and 3? How is programming in one one game more or less interesting than scripting in another game?
Not many people realise that Stuxnet was Notch testing out his early ideas for the game.
Where did you get "less than 512 bits"? The linked description has 64k of 16bit words. 128KB.
Oh well.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I'm looking forward to punching trees to get the wood for my first spaceship :-P
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They are a publisher, but they also develop games.
I should know, as I worked at EA for 6 years, specifically on sports titles.
Cheers.
-jamman
Actually, yes there are more numbers between 1 and 3 than between 1 and 2 or 2 and 3.
More of a trojan than a virus specifically: unless there is some method of semi-automated communication between the ships, though, a true virus seems hard to do.
A pedantic point on terminology, viruses can use human interaction to propagate, like in the old days when they used to travel on floppies. If it spreads automatically without any interaction, it is typically called a worm.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Will it support lambdas, auto, and initializer lists?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It really depends on how the IO for the processor works out. It seems pretty likely that we'll end up with people who directly link sensor inputs to program IO decisions. You'll probably have a whole generation of things which can be buffer overflowed if you cause the right environment to exist around them.
Which will be hilarious.
...could a Beowulf cluster of DCPU-16s run Linux?
It is a girl and by the sounds of it a young one. It almost sounds trollish too. I for one love dwarf fortress. The interface is terrible, but the game play is on par with the most advanced rts out there. Of course it is all opinion so troll lo lo lo la
The only fun part about DF is the arcane interface. Once you've figured it out, there's no more game. It's like fun-through-obscurity, and it doesn't work any better for fun than it does for security.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
They are a publisher, but they also develop games.
I should know, as I worked at EA for 6 years, specifically on sports titles.
Cheers.
-jamman
There's a special place in hell for you, jamman.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
I thought EA was that hell.
You can make a "one-to-one" mapping of the numbers between 1 and 2 to the numbers between 1 and 3 and also in the opposite direction.
For a number between 1 and 2, multiply it by 2 and then subtract 1. For a number between 1 and 3, add 1 and divide by 2.
Every number in each range has a unique partner in the other range, so the two ranges must have the same amount of numbers.
No, dumbass, there are not. Same "number" of numbers between 1 and 3 as between 1 and 2 or 2 and 3. Infinite = infinite.
Seriously Slashdot, who the hell cares? ...
wow, just wow.
With a name like Gamergirlie and being on slashdot and yet you say what you said.
Do you know what site this is? Are you truely a gamer? Shit, are you even a girl?
Or worse, are you like 12 years old and think the world started with what you remember?
"OMG! Games are fun unless they have great graphics and magic ponies!!!! And rainbows!!!!"
Notch is making games that make you think, let you be super fucking creative and honestly, kick ass. If dude isn't one of the best Indie Game Makers out there, then he should be. Most indie games are the same shit i've been playing since the 80's, but have better graphics, sort of. Rehashed platformers, shooters, and RPG games.
Seriously, you need to change your name and hang your head in shame, there's more then 1 type of game in town, girlie.
Be seeing you...
A different point of amusement: The processor's capabilities and speed are roughly equivalent to the processor in the Intellivision. Most instructions are 1, 2 or 3 machine cycles long, but the processor apparently only runs at 100kHz. The Intellivision's CPU is 895kHz, but instructions take 6 to 14 cycles. The Intellivision is slightly faster, but lacks hardware divide/multiply and has less flexible addressing modes.
So, on the whole, it looks like "Intellivisions.... In..... SPACE!!!!!!!"
Sweet, i still have an Intellivision II, control sucks, but i'm ready!!!
Wait, how do i connect it to the net?
Be seeing you...
You can make a "one-to-one" mapping of the numbers between 1 and 2 to the numbers between 1 and 3 and also in the opposite direction.
Nitpick: Unless you work a job at the department of redundancy bureau, don't verbally say "one-to-one" and "and also in the opposite direction"; they're synonyms that mean the same thing.
So because /. isn't reporting about a game that you like, that means 0x10c is trash? Honestly i've looked at towns and it IS just trying to be Dwarf Fortress, albeit with much less complexity. Dwarf Fortress is one of the most amazing tycoon game's I've played to date. The interface isn't bubble gum and candy wrapped for you, but honestly; I don't mind that. Get past that and you'll find game play far far richer than anything town's tries to hawk up.
0x10c has a programmable virtual CPU as an integral part of the gameplay. This is something new. This is something engineer type people would love. Towns only has the same thing done over again. Nothing original about it. This is why town's isn't reported on front page of /.
There are subsets of infinity. All the numbers between 1 and 2 is one subset. All of the numbers between 1 and 3 is a greater subset. Infinity doesn't behave like regular numbers.
Popular definition doesn't mean what you and your cohorts decided to make up one day. Independent absolutely means the producer of the media also funds their own distribution of the media. Whatever twisted logic you have come up with is absolutely wrong.
Nope, all intervals in the set of real numbers have the same cardinality. An easy way of making this more intuitive is to consider that for every number in the interval [0,1], it has an equivalent value in [0,2] which is twice as big. And, since you can choose a number with arbitrary precision, it is possible to generate every value in [0,2] by choosing the equivalent number from [0,1] which is half as big. Both of them simply have "uncountably infinite" members in one dimension. It's possible to have spaces with more members, if for example they have multiple dimensions.
Hell, even reddit loved the idea. I'm thinking this poster may be from 4chan or something.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Considering this is essentially a commodore 64, I give it about a minute.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
there are more numbers between 1 and 3 than between 1 and 2
For every number n between 1 and 3, I can find exactly one (unique) number to match it between 1 and 2. (Specifically, let f(n) = (n - 1)/2 + 1.) If there were more, that would not be the case.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
This is the same as which contains more numbers:
:)
A: 1,2,3,4,5,6,... or
B: 2,4,6,8,10,12,...
There is a direct one-to-one mapping from A to B:
f(x)=x/2
Therefore they have the same number of elements - aleph-0.
A mapping could also be made for every number between 1 and 3 to a number between 1 and 2:
f(x) = (x-1)/2
Therefore each contains the same number of elements.
Infinity, indeed, doesn't behave like regular numbers
There is no such number as 2 x aleph-0 because doubling aleph-0 is also just aleph-0 (see first example)
Similarly, the is no such number as aleph-0 + N (N being an ordinary number) because it is also just aleph-0.
The next number above aleph-0 is aleph-1, which is infinitely larger than aleph-0.
Not quite, in casual English, one-to-one could be a surjection/injection but not a bijection. E.g. if set A = {1,2,3,4} and B = {1,2,3,4,5}, then "b = a + 1" has a one-to-one mapping from A to B, but the other way (a = b - 1) doesn't, because A doesn't include zero.