New Mojang Game: Mars Effect

[castlewise]

You can find the webpage at: http://marseffect.net/

Notch says the game is still very early in development, but here is a list of things we hope to include:

Hard science fiction.
Lots of engineering.
Fully working computer system.
Space battles against the AI or other players.
A game ending that makes sense.
Abandoned ships full of loot.
Waist high walls.
Seamlessly landing on planets.
Advanced economy system.
Mining, trading, and looting.

Another article here: http://techzwn.com/mars-effect-announced-by-notch-a-free-roaming-space-sim/

My reaction: Hopefully not April Fools.... but it probably is.

 

[castlewise]

Actually, one of the most interesting bits is the emulated 16 bit computer on the spaceship. Apparently it will be fully programmable. Notch posted some specs on his blog.

Spoiler

TITLE: dcpu specs, classified, not final
TO: redacted
DATE: 20120328
VERSION: 4

16 bit architecture
0x10000 words of ram (128kb)
8 registers (A, B, C, X, Y, Z, I, J)
program counter (PC)
stack pointer (SP)
overflow (O)

all values are 16 bit unsigned and are set to 0 on startup

opcodes, 16bits: bbbbbbaaaaaaoooo

oooo: - all values are stored in a
0: -RESERVED-
1: SET a, b - sets value of b to a
2: ADD a, b - adds b to a, sets O
3: SUB a, b - subtracts b from a, sets O
4: MUL a, b - multiplies a by b, sets O
5: DIV a, b - divides a by b, sets O
6: MOD a, b - remainder of a over b
7: SHL a, b - shifts a left b places, sets O
8: SHR a, b - shifts a right b places, sets O
9: AND a, b - binary and of a and b
10: BOR a, b - binary or of a and b
11: XOR a, b - binary xor of a and b
12: IFE a, b - skips one instruction if a!=b
13: IFN a, b - skips one instruction if a==b
14: IFG a, b - skips one instruction if a<=b
15: IFB a, b - skips one instruction if (a&b)==0

aaaaaa, bbbbbb: - brackets = memory lookup of value
0-7: register value - register values
8-15: [register value] - value at address in registries
16-23: [next word of ram + register value] - memory address offset by register value
24: POP - value at stack address, then increases stack counter
25: PEEK - value at stack address
26: PUSH - decreases stack address, then value at stack address
27: SP - current stack pointer value - current stack address
28: PC - program counter - current program counter
29: O - overflow - current value of the overflow
30: [next word of ram] - memory address
31: next word of ram - literal, does nothing on assign
32-63: literal value 0-31 - literal, does nothing on assign

assembler example: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=qb7k8fNa

END_CLASSIFIED_TRANSMISSION

(Again, hoping not an April fools joke)

 

[Andy Shandy]

I now heartily await the news of Half-Life 3 and it's imminent release! =P

 

[Melon Hunter]

Copyright April 1 2012? That obvious? Unfortunately, I think this is a fairly elaborate April Fool's joke.

 

[castlewise]

Yeah, its probably a joke, or at least parts of it are. Notch was talking about a space-sim game a couple of weeks back and hes gone through some trouble to make his 16-bit cpu. So maybe some of it is true.

 

[Goofguy]

April Fools for sure. A name and font like that? A dead give away, really.

 

[Savagezion]

Yeah, gotta say this one is pretty obvious. Just read that article, it's oozing satire. I do like the "An ending that makes sense" as irony. Minecraft's 'ending' makes no sense.

"After playing around with names like 'Elight', 'Wind Commander', and 'Steve Online', we finally settled on the very catchy name "Mars Effect".

EDIT: Here ran by this today, seemed appropriate.

 

[IMGF]

Copyright April 1 2012? That obvious? Unfortunately, I think this is a fairly elaborate April Fool's joke.

Yeah, I wish he'd been a tad more subtle with it. Would have been more entertaining that way.

 

[number2301]

Obvious April fools aside, it'd be great if the rest were true!

 

[burningdragoon]

"Mars Effect" is obviously an joke. Notch has been working on stuff recently. He posts about fairly regularly on Twitter at least... or it's a very elaborate joke.

 

[spectrenihlus]

Will it have a proper ending?

 

[wintercoat]

You can find the webpage at: http://marseffect.net/

Notch says the game is still very early in development, but here is a list of things we hope to include:

Hard science fiction.
Lots of engineering.
Fully working computer system.
Space battles against the AI or other players.
A game ending that makes sense.
Abandoned ships full of loot.
Waist high walls.
Seamlessly landing on planets.
Advanced economy system.
Mining, trading, and looting.

Another article here: http://techzwn.com/mars-effect-announced-by-notch-a-free-roaming-space-sim/

My reaction: Hopefully not April Fools.... but it probably is.

 

[Lilani]

Notch: "Hey Bethesda, see what I did there?"

 

[Erttheking]

An April fools joke or a lawsuit waiting to happen. One or another

 

[skywolfblue]

Totally not an April fools joke. Nope. No way.

 

[DoPo]

Notch: "Hey Bethesda, see what I did there?"

Do you mean BioWare? Umm, because Bethesda also works, I just don't get it in this context.

 

[Lilani]

Notch: "Hey Bethesda, see what I did there?"

Do you mean BioWare? Umm, because Bethesda also works, I just don't get it in this context.

Yeah, I suppose it works with both. I sort of saw this as Notch poking some fun at Bethesda by putting Bioware in a similar (though facetious) situation.

 

[legendp]

You can find the webpage at: http://marseffect.net/

Notch says the game is still very early in development, but here is a list of things we hope to include:

Hard science fiction.
Lots of engineering.
Fully working computer system.
Space battles against the AI or other players.
A game ending that makes sense.
Abandoned ships full of loot.
Waist high walls.
Seamlessly landing on planets.
Advanced economy system.
Mining, trading, and looting.

Another article here: http://techzwn.com/mars-effect-announced-by-notch-a-free-roaming-space-sim/

My reaction: Hopefully not April Fools.... but it probably is.

Sounds completely original... wait a second. Nah it's good that they have a sense of humour, although the real april fools joke would be if this was real and not a joke.

 

[Rawne1980]

That's the second time today i've seen a Dev take a stab at BioWare.

Bioware, the butt of April Fools jokes for 2012.