I'm creating a world simulation video game

posted on 2021-06-05

~~i opened a patreon~~ (there is no longer a patreon associated with my game, or in fact a game being made. see here.)

it can be considered to fund primarily my game, which is my current full-time activity; and secondarily this site.

considering this, i am making the present post to describe what my game is about.

World Simulation

my game intends to be a coherent simulation of a world, playable as a video game.

this means that i intend the game to have a full ecosystem with organisms subject to natural selection; NPC cultures, settlements, and societies; and a solid foundation to support all that while using computational resources as efficiently as possible.

the game will either be a decentralized collection of singleplayer games and dedicated servers, a single giant MMO world, or both. either way, i am designing it from the ground up to support the distributed computation of large worlds on many servers, for scalability.

the look and moment-to-moment gameplay may resemble Minecraft, but the world will probably be something more akin to Dwarf Fortress or Eve Online; though not quite like either.

Feasability

while the scope of the game might seem large for a one-person project, the actual workings of the engine should not be that complicated. unlike Dwarf Fortress, i am designing the world at a relatively low level, such that a lot of the game's content should be able to generate itself without too much input from my part; community contributions building on the game's foundations may also play a role in providing richer experiences.

Estimated Time of Arrival

i have been working on a prototype since 2020, and am making steady progress on it. that said, i have no clear estimate for alpha or beta releases.

i may or may not post updates regarding the game's development on this site.

What the Patreon is for

thanks to my relatively low amount of life expenses and my country's generous welfare, i'm able to live while on-and-off working part-time. if i meet the patreon's 250$/month goal, i won't have to do that part-time work.

any contribution to that end is greatly appreciated.

posted on 2021-06-05