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⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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Here's a small review of a very interesting indie game project.
Imagine Minecraft+Factorio+Rimworld, but:
That's what this game in development is about.
Of course, it only resembles Minecraft superficially: it's a game based on voxels and the mining/building metaphors are similar, but in fact, the more nuanced mechanisms and gameplay differ significantly, not to mention that it's written entirely in C++ using a homebrew 3D graphics engine.
A lot of attention is paid to the graphics and AI: there are advanced algorithms and techniques at play when it comes to textures, pathfinding, collision, shading and lighting, fogging etc. All of this provides for some pretty athmospheric visuals.
A scientific mission to Mars went awry when your starship crashed into the ground, rendering the droids inside... should I say - unconscious?
...Are the droids ever conscious? What is consciousness? But I digress.
The player is the first droid to somehow wake up. The task is to carry on with the mission - to build a base, and so on. The player is supposed to "wake up" other droids and become their commander. Using a special remote control (which needs to be fixed after the crash first) you can issue tasks to build or to mine. Similarily, you can build and mine yourself.
Another interesting idea about this game is that it's not that easy to just mine loads of stone and carry it. The inventory is very limited. This is on purpose - how is a little droid supposed to carry mountains of minerals and metals? You will have to unload into the containers from time to time... which need to be crafted first, of course. Same with other droids. While a bit tedious, this adds to the experience of hardship of surviving on an alien planet.
Crafting, too, is done differently compared to how it's done in Minecraft. There's no crafting table, instead there are special instruments - factories - to smelt metals, work on minerals and produce valuable artifacts.
The game is under development, so you can take a look at the video devlog and accompanying articles describing the technical issues and ideas behind the project (especially useful to read if 3d and game development are your cup of tea).
The video will give you a better idea of the game and its visuals.
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Keith Aprilnight (aprilnightk@tilde.team)