Now that Voidspace is nearing completion (relatively) we have finally started to lay the groundwork for the survival planet AKA universe project game. I'm sure many, if not all of you, have moved on as it has taken us a long time to get to this point. However I did happen across some people who remembered this project on Reddit recently and they were still excited to see this project succeed.

Well, it has only been a couple weeks but we have finally started on the new project, on the universe project. This is being done in our spare time, and work on Voidspace still ongoing, but we are finally starting on this project now properly.

A lot has changed since the original concept, especially in the gaming world. I'm actually really glad the way it worked out because I feel like we are at the cusp of a major gaming breakthrough. And finally the technology is there to allow us to really give our best shot at implementing this ambitious project. Specifically I'm referring to unreal engine and VR.

I don't want to get too verbose here before I start getting feedback from anyone who might still be watching this sub so I'd just like to give you a few point form notes on the direction we're going right now. Keep in mind that these things can very easily change and I'll definitely be taking input from the community as I always do.

Some development notes

1. The game is definitely going to be a VR hybrid MMORPG. We are going to fully support all major VR platforms as well as all major desktop systems. As a tertiary target we would also like to support consoles. Unreal engine allows us to do these things with relative ease. Some platforms that we don't plan on supporting would be mobile and browser. It's not impossible that this could change at a later date but at this point we have no inclination to support the lower end systems. I personally have a strong fondness for the Oculus quest 2 so at the very least we will want to support mobile level VR systems.

2. Stylistically right now we're definitely aiming for photo realistic rather than stylized. Most new game developments are trying to replicate the Zelda breath of the wild look these days. I have to say I was definitely leaning that way myself even as much as 6 months ago, but with everything that I've seen with unreal engine and the incredible advances it has taken, coupled with the project itself being more of a realistic simulation, I feel like it wouldn't be doing it justice if we used a stylized approach for the visuals. I also suspect that in a couple years people are going to be tired of the BotW style and this might help us to stand out a little bit.

3. We are looking at using voxels like Minecraft for terrain deformations.

4. We are looking at allowing players to build realistic looking buildings.

5. I firmly believe that half of the development time for this project is going to go directly into perfecting the visuals and the world generation. I really believe that this needs to be an enormous game world that, while being procedurally generated, has a uniqueness that you usually only see in real life.

Many of the problems that we faced making Voidspace have been solved already by people providing plugins for unreal engine. The other problems that we don't have a prebuilt solution for, we have already built for voidspace that we will be reusing. This will allow us to really focus on the immersiveness of the game.

One of the major concerns I have right now is how we're going to handle water. The simplistic way that Minecraft handles water is not really of interest to me but I have yet to come up with a better solution. This one I think is something we can leave for now and simply use a water level that is the same across the world. If anyone has any experience with this stuff I'm definitely open to suggestion!

I found out today that our bid for financing for the survival planet project have been denied this time around. We are welcome to apply again and we will certainly do that, but we need to do something first in order to make our application more appealing.

Voidspace is very nearly complete, we are scheduled to finish development by the end of this month and we're working hard to bring the game to a state where we can open it up to stress testing. The financiers we applied to are concerned that Voidspace hasn't been released yet and they are (rightfully) interested in seeing it's success before they're ready to finance the Survival Planet concept.

I find this to be a completely fair decision and I'm now focusing on making the Voidspace release as good as we can. This does not mean the Survival Planet (Universe Project) is not going to happen. Voidspace was created so that the Survival Planet game would be possible and was coded in such a way that would allow us to use the code we wrote for Voidspace to be used in Survival Planet. It was much more difficult to code a game this way, much of it is very generic, but I have always believed it would be a necessary foundation for all the games we make and it has absolutely been worth the effort.

I'm open to any questions you might have, please be aware of the rules for posting on the side bar.

So it's finally time to get the wheels turning for the big one. Voidspace is nearing it's release date and I'm hoping to start on the survival planet concept immediately after it's release. This means getting a head start on the funding for it which if I'm successful will mean development will officially start in September.

(This is copied from a comment reply I wrote earlier)

So as you may have discovered I decided to go with a simpler game setting before trying to take on the survival-planet (this) concept. This is primarily to work out more of the kinks with an admittedly less popular concept and in hind sight, this seems like it was the right move. The survival-planet concept is certainly my favorite game concept and I didn't want to make my mistakes with that one. It's also a more demanding concept (graphically) and since we were creating a game engine from scratch, we needed something that we could make that was simpler graphically so we could concentrate on the networking and simulation frameworks and less on the visuals.

To sum it up, Voidspace is high-paced but with simple visuals to help us develop the networking and simulation frameworks. Voidspace was also awarded funding of a 1 million CAD! This allowed us to really buckle down and work on the game engine as we had hoped we could.

Initium (another game I've been working on in parallel) turned out to be the perfect game to work out the invention system. Not many of you were aware of this project, it has been a side project that I've been working on in my spare time along side Voidspace. The work I've done there has allowed me to develop the invention system before dropping it into Voidspace (which is now completely integrated with it). So, the invention system is working, the networking system is working and the graphics engine is doing very well after the latest rewrite! Initium is nearly finished, it's a much simpler project and it should be finished before Voidspace. Voidspace has an expected release date of June 2019 so we're getting very close (after pushing it back quite a bit, yes).

Currently I'm in the process of hiring more people to work on Voidspace as we're nearly finished the underlying game engine and it's time to start building out the game.

So what does all this mean for "The Universe Project" aka the Survival-planet concept? It means once we're done with Voidspace we can begin working on it with an engine that was specifically designed for it. Most of the code will be already finished because Voidspace was coded to specifically to enable us to create the survival-planet concept. We will have prototypes of the survival-planet concept soon after we start development on it and if all goes well with Voidspace, we will also be pretty well funded which is a pretty exciting prospect. To be able to start on this game with the experience I now have is going to make all the difference.

If you have any questions, let me know!

Some links to the other projects:

/r/voidspace

/r/initium

Just curious, is this game going anywhere?

Kinda realised I had a link saved in my bookmarks with "The Universe Project" And I vaguely remember the idea behind it. Now realising when I last used this laptop, it feels almost like a time capsule of past me.

What's the state of the game now? Some say dead, others no? Preferbly the positive responses are what I'm looking for :)

I've been super excited about this project for YEARS. Every 2 year someone posts something here. Most people think this is dead. It would be great if some of that money that's lying around could go to some sort of updating us on the project, whether it be yourself or someone you hire to do PR. This would drastically increase community involvement and get people excited again. I hope that you read this and haven't either died or moved to Sudan with a hunk of cash.

I have been following this for years. Is this still happening or has it peated out to just being Voidspace?

Edit: I'll be back to answer any questions in the morning!

Edit2: I'm back! Ask more questions! I'll answer them asap.

Major inactivity led to a spike in activity which led to inactivity... Is this the death of the UP?

http://empyriongame.com/ Looks like pretty much most of what the universe project was supposed to be. Unlimited universe, crafting, surivival, mining resources to build building/spaceships/robots/ect.

I wanna know real bad :p

Any updates?

It seems that VoidSpace has been funded. Or has it?

When you look at the CMF website, under VoidSpace it says "Status: Decision." When you look at the FAQ for the experimental stream of funding, you find this:

Funding Decisions indicate the selection of projects who have qualified for the CMF support but have yet to finalize all contracts. Only programs using a selective, competitive process to allocate funding are subject to a funding decision.

Funding Results lists indicate approved and contracted applications for all convergent and experimental stream programs.

So, no, the project is not officially funded. It will not be until the "Decision" status goes away. You're welcome for having me to do your homework for you, you sycophants. My prediction was as follows: "The Canada Media Fund will not have delivered the money as VS will not have passed a review process." That prediction was true.

If this somehow gets actual final approval, my sincerest wishes for Nik's ability to pay the $900,000 back*, and my deepest condolences to the Canadian taxpayers. My username is the foundation of all my previous correct predictions, and I stand by that: The Universe Project is a scam. (Hence it's complete absence in this funding application.)

*Yeah, he left out that this is not a grant, but repayable.

:'(

So here I am. After all this time I have finally returned to the world that I had made resent me! Mr. Zultra, how are things? How's the horses? theflyingcheese, How's TheCityofTalis going? SleepyKitty, we have not formally met! Hello, how is the Herald? And to the rest of you, with the return of Nik and his welcomed Reddit posts, I look forward to seeing you on the UP

~'Jaet' Tyran