Notch hinted not too long ago that his next game would be set in space, an idea that undoubtedly sent minds racing as to what kinds of crazy crap the Minecraft creator might come up with when working within the boundless stretches of the universe at large. Still, I doubt anything was expecting anything quite this specifically bonkers.

0x10c is the name of Notch's next game, a space-faring "hard science fiction" game that puts players in the role of one of many human astronauts from an alternate universe where the space race never ended. As the back story here goes... you know what? Let's just use Notch's own words.

In 1988, a brand new deep sleep cell was released, compatible with all popular 16 bit computers. Unfortunately, it used big endian, whereas the DCPU-16 specifications called for little endian. This led to a severe bug in the included drivers, causing a requested sleep of 0x0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0x0001 0000 0000 0000 years.

It's now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction, with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.

Get all that? I hope so, because I don't think I'm smart enough to dissect it any further.

Players will control a ship that works via a generator with a fixed wattage. Certain technologies will require a bigger drain on your ship's generator than others. Notch cites the example of a cloaking device, which would require so much power that you'd have to shut down most computer systems and dim the lights just to make it work correctly.

The on-board computer you'll be using is "a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU" that you can use to control all your ship's functions. Notch plans to release full specs for the computer soon.

As for actual gameplay, Notch promises everything from lots of engineering and advanced economy systems to full-on combat against AI and rival player ships. You can see the full breadth of what Notch has thus far announced at the official 0x10c website. Similar to Minecraft, Notch plans to release an early version of the game publicly in order to have players help shape the ultimate direction of the final product.

Notch hinted not too long ago that his next game would be set in space, an idea that undoubtedly sent minds racing as to what kinds of crazy crap the Minecraft creator might come up with when working within the boundless stretches of the universe at large. Still, I doubt anything was expecting anything quite this specifically bonkers.

0x10c is the name of Notch's next game, a space-faring "hard science fiction" game that puts players in the role of one of many human astronauts from an alternate universe where the space race never ended. As the back story here goes... you know what? Let's just use Notch's own words.

In 1988, a brand new deep sleep cell was released, compatible with all popular 16 bit computers. Unfortunately, it used big endian, whereas the DCPU-16 specifications called for little endian. This led to a severe bug in the included drivers, causing a requested sleep of 0x0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0x0001 0000 0000 0000 years.

It's now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction, with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.

Get all that? I hope so, because I don't think I'm smart enough to dissect it any further.

Players will control a ship that works via a generator with a fixed wattage. Certain technologies will require a bigger drain on your ship's generator than others. Notch cites the example of a cloaking device, which would require so much power that you'd have to shut down most computer systems and dim the lights just to make it work correctly.

The on-board computer you'll be using is "a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU" that you can use to control all your ship's functions. Notch plans to release full specs for the computer soon.

As for actual gameplay, Notch promises everything from lots of engineering and advanced economy systems to full-on combat against AI and rival player ships. You can see the full breadth of what Notch has thus far announced at the official 0x10c website. Similar to Minecraft, Notch plans to release an early version of the game publicly in order to have players help shape the ultimate direction of the final product.

Yeah

Notch promises a lot of things. Just sayin'.

what happened to scrolls?

what I don't even

Monthly Fees for a Notch game, lol

So... Scrolls? That looked kind of cool, but seems to have vanished post-legal-nonsense.

This looks cool though, deffo be keeping an eye on it!

I dont think I will be playing. It sounds a lot like EvE 

So Futurama the video game. Got it

ok   I'm hooked.  So they'll be generator storage banks where the people who can't max their generators can store more for later, right?

Hey, at least he's shooting for...the stars.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Too lazy to make the CSI Miami meme for this shitty joke.

It's now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD

What

See you all in two years when Jeb has taken over the project!

Game sounds crazy

@Fasckira: @MonkeyMitcho: Scrolls was never designed by Notch. It was designed by his friend and bankrolled by Mojang AB. This is what Notch is actually working on rather than what he's funding the development of.

I think the premise is kind of hilarious, considering I've never seen anyone have the basis of their story revolve around a computer register input incompatibility. 0x10c is still an odd name though. Depending on the input style, it is either

0x0001 0000 1100 or 0x1100 0000 0001. Neither one of those is the number mentioned in the story, so I wonder what it is supposed to mean.

Cool cool.

Well this went over my head!

With my already existing knowledge of theoretical physics and astronomy in general, thinking about 281 trillion years and the rest of the universe being lost to red shift just serves to depress me.

@nERVEcenter said:

With my already existing knowledge of theoretical physics and astronomy in general, thinking about 281 trillion years and the rest of the universe being lost to red shift just serves to depress me.

Hey, that sounds like a pretty good run to me.

@MonkeyMitcho: It wasn't being made by Notch, but by another part of his company

Oh MAN, this sounds like the PERFECT game for engineers!!

@nERVEcenter said:

With my already existing knowledge of theoretical physics and astronomy in general, thinking about 281 trillion years and the rest of the universe being lost to red shift just serves to depress me.

Because it's inaccurate or because it's just sad?

Make more Minecraft.

@nERVEcenter said:

With my already existing knowledge of theoretical physics and astronomy in general, thinking about 281 trillion years and the rest of the universe being lost to red shift just serves to depress me.

You should send him an empathetic and understanding letter that would make him want to read the whole thing on why he's wrong, or better phrased, "to a closer understanding of modern astronomy".

Honestly, I think that would work.

I heard it was going to have a monthly charge... In that case, DO NOT WANT!

Well, this sounds ambitious at least.

If it allows me to do disassembly/hex editing/coding/etc with stuff in the game, I am legitimately excited for it.

Not even a fan of Notch or Minecraft or anything (nor do I dislike either, just don't care too much about them).

@EmuLeader said:

0x0001 0000 1100 or 0x1100 0000 0001. Neither one of those is the number mentioned in the story, so I wonder what it is supposed to mean.

"causing a requested sleep of 0x0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0x0001 0000 0000 0000 years". I took it as the 'c' in '0x10c' meaning 12 in hexadecimal. Move the 1 twelve places to the left. On the other hand, maybe I'm grasping at straws....

Hah, that's a pretty funny premise, especially since I could totally see a programmer from 1988 making a simple mistake like that. Good thing we actually test computer hardware now before it's shipped!

Fully functional 6502 processor in a game. That is so awesome and crazy I don't know what to do.

I didn't care much for Minecraft but this looks really interesting, i shall keep my eyes peeled for it.

This seems legitimately awesome. Let's hope it turns out.

Seriously? I'm a perpetually stoned humanities major and the sciencese didn't seem that dense: "your astronaut's sleep machine broke. you wake up at the end of the universe," seems like the long and short of it.

He must have read Poul Anderson's Tau Zero, which is also about a ship getting stuck in the incredibly far future after the rest of the universe has redshifted beyond the cosmic horizon, possible also well after the heat death of the universe. In that case it was an experimental near-light speed bussard ramjet engine that malfunctions though.
 
Incredibly awesome concept, kinda put off by the subscription idea, but that all depends on how much he'll be asking for.

@EmuLeader said:

I think the premise is kind of hilarious, considering I've never seen anyone have the basis of their story revolve around a computer register input incompatibility. 0x10c is still an odd name though. Depending on the input style, it is either

0x0001 0000 1100 or 0x1100 0000 0001. Neither one of those is the number mentioned in the story, so I wonder what it is supposed to mean.

If you look at the actual logo the C is written as an exponent. So you have 0x10^C, which is hex for 16^12, which is 281,474,976,710,656. This is very close to 281,474,976,712,644 AD, the year the game is set in.

I wonder how you're supposed to say the name though. Sixteen to the twelfth?

@EmuLeader said:

0x0001 0000 1100 or 0x1100 0000 0001. Neither one of those is the number mentioned in the story, so I wonder what it is supposed to mean.

"causing a requested sleep of 0x0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0x0001 0000 0000 0000 years". I took it as the 'c' in '0x10c' meaning 12 in hexadecimal. Move the 1 twelve places to the left. On the other hand, maybe I'm grasping at straws....

@EmuLeader said:

I think the premise is kind of hilarious, considering I've never seen anyone have the basis of their story revolve around a computer register input incompatibility. 0x10c is still an odd name though. Depending on the input style, it is either

0x0001 0000 1100 or 0x1100 0000 0001. Neither one of those is the number mentioned in the story, so I wonder what it is supposed to mean.

Yeah. I like the "1 << 12" idea from another post, but that would be even worse as a title.

They should yell at the programmers who stored a variable in a 128-bit type on a 16-bit computer, too.

Either that or Notch needs to use the standard 'b' prefix for Binary and not '0x' which is used to denote Hex.

Sold at, 'hard science fiction'.

Notch stinks

@EmuLeader said:

I think the premise is kind of hilarious, considering I've never seen anyone have the basis of their story revolve around a computer register input incompatibility. 0x10c is still an odd name though. Depending on the input style, it is either

0x0001 0000 1100 or 0x1100 0000 0001. Neither one of those is the number mentioned in the story, so I wonder what it is supposed to mean.

0x denotes hexidecimal, 10 in hex is 16, c in hex is 12,

So 0x10^c translates to 16^12 in the decimal system. 16^12 = 281 474 976 710 656.

In the story something happened that led people to be "lost" or "sleep" or some shit. The first people to wake are now doing so in the year 281 474 976 712 644AD after 16^12 years.

So I guess the event that caused this "sleep" occurred in 281 474 976 712 644 - 281 474 976 710 656 = 1988.

Of course I could be totally and utterly incorrect.

He's totally going to get sued again. That's way too close to 0x10d.

He's got initial specs of the computer up on that website and, oh man, full on assemblers. He's taking his Lego design to the next level and creating a game that allows you to create a game at a granular level. It eschews being user-friendly, but on the scale that Notch is popular, it could usher in an age where young kids are happy to learn assembly, C, C++, and so on.

It's like on a scale of creative madness, you have Minecraft, LittleBigPlanet, and then this.

Exciting.

@Ravenlight said:

Make more Minecraft.

Notch hasn't worked on MC in quite some time. That game is now supported by Jeb and some of the Bukkit team who have been hired by Mojang. They are doing a great job with it too. Updates are being released pretty much every week with new features. In fact I think 1.2.5 went live today!

Sounds educational. I'll be keeping my eye on this for now.

Sold at, 'hard science fiction'.

@countinhallways said:

@EmuLeader said:

I think the premise is kind of hilarious, considering I've never seen anyone have the basis of their story revolve around a computer register input incompatibility. 0x10c is still an odd name though. Depending on the input style, it is either

0x0001 0000 1100 or 0x1100 0000 0001. Neither one of those is the number mentioned in the story, so I wonder what it is supposed to mean.

0x denotes hexidecimal, 10 in hex is 16, c in hex is 12,

So 0x10^c translates to 16^12 in the decimal system. 16^12 = 281 474 976 710 656.

In the story something happened that led people to be "lost" or "sleep" or some shit. The first people to wake are now doing so in the year 281 474 976 712 644AD after 16^12 years.

So I guess the event that caused this "sleep" occurred in 281 474 976 712 644 - 281 474 976 710 656 = 1988.

Of course I could be totally and utterly incorrect.

Sounds plausible to me. I'm going to go with my "stupid programmers using 128-bit types (long long long int?)", then.

@fisk0 said:

@Napalm said:

Sold at, 'hard science fiction'.

Yeah, that's too rare, this game seems like it'll be built around scientific concepts, rather than having the dev team ask a scientific advisor every now and then in how they could handwave something they've already determined they want to do, plausible or not, with sciency sounding explanations. I kinda feel Mass Effect did a lot of the latter (though I've only played part of the first so far, so I guess it might get better).

Mass Effect is pretty much Star Trek-level science. If the plot needs something to happen, there will be some technobabble to explain it. Which is fine! But don't expect hard science.

So, Alex, when's the "Phil Fish's Next Game is..." article going up?

@phantomsnake said:

@EmuLeader said:

I think the premise is kind of hilarious, considering I've never seen anyone have the basis of their story revolve around a computer register input incompatibility. 0x10c is still an odd name though. Depending on the input style, it is either

0x0001 0000 1100 or 0x1100 0000 0001. Neither one of those is the number mentioned in the story, so I wonder what it is supposed to mean.

If you look at the actual logo the C is written as an exponent. So you have 0x10^C, which is hex for 16^12, which is 281,474,976,710,656. This is very close to 281,474,976,712,644 AD, the year the game is set in.

1988 less, which is where the story starts.

Sounds alright, any space game is a welcome space game these days anyway. It looks like the single player doesn't require any kind of monthly fee, just the multiplayer component.

Still disappointing, would be way better as player hosted and cooperative crews imo.