Minecraft Creator's New Game Called 0x10c 206
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.""
I do enough of this in my day job. (Score:3)
May appeal to some, but...
Minecraft + Eve Online = 0x10c (Score:2)
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,
Re:Minecraft + Eve Online = 0x10c (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
will be interesting to see [...] what npc content will be put in, if any.
So long as I get a proximity, heads-up groan... I'm sure it'll be fine.
Re: (Score:2)
He's looking to create his version of Eve Online,
I saw no mention of any purported galactic spreadsheet empire.
And as far as the Inception reference, I'd be more interested in a utility that allows me to exit out to the next highest emulator level. Probably need a Valentine Michael Smith to write that one, though.
Re:Minecraft + Eve Online = 0x10c (Score:4, Insightful)
Agree, I wish he had finished Minecraft before boredom set in. Makes me wonder if he'll do it again. Won't be buying during alpha or beta this time around...
Do you really think Mojang is going to have a shortage of developers who would be willing to continue maintenance on something like 0x10^c? As long as the money keeps coming in, it will be maintained. Just because Markus Persson moves on to another project should be irrelevant.
16 bit processing while i'm off line? (Score:5, Funny)
Bit-coin fortune, here I come.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're new around here, aintcha?
the ingame-CPU is quite interesting (Score:3, Informative)
there's already a lot done,
see reddit.com/r/dcpu16/ [reddit.com] for the first reactions...
and the first questions on stackoverflow are already coming in - stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/dcpu-16 [stackoverflow.com]
how about curing cancer first? get some priorities (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
How is it interesting?
A student that has taken an architecture class could have easily come up with a better instruction set and architecture.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say it's interesting because I haven't seen it done like this before, inside an online game.
Re: (Score:2)
It hasn't been done yet, this is merely a project idea.
It is likely it won't do half of what he'd like to do.
Programmability (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose you're right that there's not much of a market for complex games like this. But if the average player didn't have to deal with writing any code then it could work. The code guys might be the equivalent of the game's crafters, and people buy (using ingame currency) software from them.
Re: (Score:2)
Your thinking of EVE online.
I suppose you're right that there's not much of a market for complex games like this. But if the average player didn't have to deal with writing any code then it could work. The code guys might be the equivalent of the game's crafters, and people buy (using ingame currency) software from them.
Information wants to be free. Which leads us inexorably to the conclusion that the game will be filled with pirates.
SPACE pirates! Or the more culturally sensitive term, "atmospherically challenged infringers" perhaps.
Damnit, I want to play this game now.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm - when I was a kid I thought Omega was fun. Never heard of OGRE. Omega featured the ability to have tanks communicate as a team, though some of the instructions were buggy and I remember having to code workarounds (acknowledging a communication didn't work, so when a tank got a message it asked another tank to send it what was essentially an NOP signal). Tanks had sensors, weapons, movement, etc.
Actually, 0x10^C (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Re:Actually, 0x10^C (Score:5, Informative)
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 if you want to get ever more precise and pedantic. 16^12 is actually 281,474,976,710,656 not 281,474,976,712,644. While it is true that the game is set in the year 281,474,976,712,644, the way that number is arrived at is by adding 1988 to 281,474,976,710,656 to get 281,474,976,712,644. The concept is that in 1988 the cryo units for travel were accidentally set for 281,474,976,710,656 years due to an endian mistake.
Re:Actually, 0x10^C (Score:5, Funny)
The concept is that in 1988 the cryo units for travel were accidentally set for 281,474,976,710,656 years due to an endian mistake.
What I find amazing is not that such a simple mistake could be made, but that the cryo machines and the 16-bit computers running them were able to run for over 10^15 years!
Fucking nice job on the hardware, guys! But next time don't leave the drivers for the interns to write...
GCC cross-compiler? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Forget gcc, I want to see it implemented in redstone.
It's like a PDP-11 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Where did you get the 64k? The spec says:
* 16 bit unsigned words
* 0x10000 words of ram
* 8 registers (A, B, C, X, Y, Z, I, J)
* program counter (PC)
* stack pointer (SP)
* overflow (O)
That's 32 words, or 64 bytes, not kbytes.
Re: (Score:2)
?
0x implies hexadecimal, not binary. 0x10000 = 65536 words = 128KB of memory.
Re: (Score:2)
it is hexadecimal, not binary
Re: (Score:2)
No interrupts nor timers, memory-mapped I/O.
Re: (Score:2)
Prediction: It will be awesome, or it will suck. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Security? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why not just create a scripting language? (Score:3)
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.
Re:Why not just create a scripting language? (Score:5, Informative)
Because that doesn't fit with the plot or mechanics of the game?
The plot is that the space race never ended, so in 1980ish we had ships equipped with 16 bit computers and cold sleep chambders. An endianness bug caused people who wanted to sleep for 1 year to sleep for 0x10^C years (which is where the name comes from), so now you all have to rebuild stuff.
The mechanics inolve writing programs that will be run offline; your computer in-game will execute a particular number of cycles per second. With a low level assembly language, Notch can (and does) define precisely how many cycles each instruction takes. How would you do that for a scripting language with API hooks? It would end up being ridiculously complicated.Doing it in assembly like his lets people hand-optimize their stuff a lot easier, especially when (as you say) the high-level languages will be quickly available anyway.
Basically, doing it your way would be fairly blah.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I just don't buy that a significant percentage of players will have the patience to hand-optimize assembler. And an event-based scripting language could certainly handle situations where you want the ship to do X at time Y with circumstances Z.
Anyway, the high-level OSes and scripting languages will be born, but they won't get much further. A high percentage of Open Source projects are abandoned before maturity [robertogaloppini.net], and I can imagine that people will abandon this thing in droves once they figure out ho
Re: (Score:2)
I always read people complaining endlessly about not enough difficulty or complexity in games. Here you go, here is a fucking 16 big cpu, write assembly to run your ship. Then every one gets pissed off.... Make up your minds. A "real" cpu in the ship is geeky and fascinating, a made up scripting language is a made up scripting language. He could also let you run ship systems by pushing keys on your keyboard, but that layer of difficulty in doing things is supposed to be the whole point of the game.
I rememb
Re: (Score:2)
Why do people build redstone circuits in Minecraft when there's a mod that allow to write scripts in a little computer block?
Because they have fun.
Just started on it. (Score:3)
I'm writing a really useful navigation package [battlestarwiki.org] for players' ships.
I was hoping for a HP 48 (Score:2)
Oh well.
Did Bioware Know it Was a Joke? (Score:2)
I'm looking forward to punching trees to get the wood for my first spaceship :-P
Re:Towns (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Towns (Score:5, Informative)
Also? RTFA.
Here's the CPU:
http://0x10c.com/doc/dcpu-16.txt [0x10c.com]
Re:Towns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Assembly is "scripting" now?
Re: (Score:2)
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?
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, yes there are more numbers between 1 and 3 than between 1 and 2 or 2 and 3.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Towns (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Towns (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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 po
Re:Towns (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Towns (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re:Towns (Score:5, Interesting)
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!!!!!!!"
Re: (Score:2)
how long till someone ports dos to their ships computer?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The onboard computer in your spaceship, in the game, is 16-bit.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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...
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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
Re:Towns (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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 p
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.edge-online.com/news/mojang-turns-publisher [edge-online.com]
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re:Not Java. Please not Java. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure notch is able to write terrible code in every language.
Re: (Score:2)
+5 funny, but actually true. It's mindboggling to think that the guy who ripped off a vastly superior game in what looks like some Kindergarten-level JavaBabble made such an enormous amount of money. I just don't understand how the world works sometimes.
People like things that you don't like?!
Idiots!
Re:Not Java. Please not Java. (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
You mean like redstone computers that ALREADY EXIST? There's plenty of turing-complete implementations. And notch wasn't even TRYING to do that with minecraft. So please eat your words, immediately.
You're just showing how ignorant you are about software languages.
Re: (Score:2)
Programming is WORK, and if he's putting it in, he can decide what language he wants to work in.
I'm not seeing where he was holding a gun to Notch's head and demanding he not make it in Java. He was simply saying that he wishes it wouldn't be made in Java (for one reason or another). Nothing wrong with criticism or opinions.
Just as he's free to post his opinion, you're free to do the same. "Wow! I love it!" isn't the only thing allowed to be posted, you know.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not Java. Please not Java. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why the Java hate? I have the sneaking suspicion that half the people commenting have never used it, and instead rely on their experiences of web applets ten years ago and bloated software packages like Vuze.
Recent JVMs have come a long way and java code executes quite fast these days. Still not as fast as native c++ and friends, granted, but somewhere in the same ballpark. What you get in return is a higher lever language which takes care of annoying, time consuming details like managing memory and garbage
Re: (Score:2)
I have a suspicion that people who tend to defend Java do so because it's the only language they know to some greater extent; they learned it in college and got stuck to it.
Oh, and because instruction in the language probably came with unqualified aspersions against other, more mature languages; like "C is eveeeel because it has pointers!," and "C++ is a rat's nest, stay away from it!"
dZ.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they defend Java because it has benefits over other languages and the performance aspersions cast against Java were last true in the 1990s.
I learned and used lots of languages before Java, including C and C++. Those latter languages force you to spend a lot of time dealing with low-level issues, are in general dangerous, and yes, C++ is a rat's nest -- even most C++ programmers will admit this.
Re: (Score:2)
Please stop spouting this nonsense.
Post some evidence instead of "Java still sucks". There's plenty of evidence [wikipedia.org] for performance improvements in Java (yes, it's a Wikipedia link, and yes, it has references).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm kind of happy it's in Java. This means I'll actually be able to play it. He'll more than likely get a monthly subscription fee out of me, because of it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably not if it was wrote in C, because more than likely they wouldn't have a native client for my OS. You have to screw up pretty bad to make Java non-portable so I'm guessing it'll work fine. For years I ran Linux and duel booted Windows to play WoW (wine sucks horribly for WoW) and when it came time to buy a new computer I opted for a Mac. I get a real Unix OS and that ability to finally ditch Windows for good.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not Java. Please not Java. (Score:5, Funny)
And the 16-bit CPU is programmed with...assembly? Jesus Christ, please tell me that's not the only way he plans on letting people utilize it...
If you don't like it, nut-up and write a C compiler!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like it, nut-up and write a C compiler!
There probably will be a few different compilers of different languages available by the time this game hits the shelves.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like a pretty excellent project for a compiler/assembly class at university, actually.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't like C. Have Forth. https://github.com/MostAwesomeDude/cauliflower [github.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't really need a compiler to write programs for a device with less than 512 bits of memory. You can write the whole program by hand in less than the time required to launch a compiler.
Re: (Score:2)
DCPU-16 Specification
Copyright 2012 Mojang
Version 1.1 (Check 0x10c.com for updated versions)
* 16 bit unsigned words
* 0x10000 words of ram
* 8 registers (A, B, C, X, Y, Z, I, J)
* program counter (PC)
* stack pointer (SP)
* overflow (O)
0x10000 16 bit words is not 512 bits. I think they'll find a compiler quite useful.
Re: (Score:3)
The thing has 128KB of RAM, not 512 bits...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
so what? what's special about this vs a hundred other '80s/'90s cpu emulators?
Because if you read the article, you would have found out that you can use it to control your ship, or infect other people's computers with viruses. That sounds ridiculously fun for a space nerd programmer like myself.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How many of those are embedded in a video game and who's programming may aide or hinder your progress in the game?
Re: (Score:2)
just because Minecraft gets a few nutters who make whole computers out of redstone Rube Goldberg parts doesn't mean there's a general call for this.
True. I'm sure the game will be playable by non-programmers too if that's what you're getting at.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Given the recent Slashdot article where someone booted Ubuntu on an 8-bit chip...I suspect it will.