IN PROFUNDIS - Cave exploration game in development

EDIT: The Kickstarter page for this project is now active! Please contribute to allow this game to become a reality:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/445452543/in-profundis-random-cave-explor...

In Profundis is a game about exploring ancient caves on alien planets. Your greatest source of danger is your own actions. Systems that exist for thousands of years enter a kind of equilibrium; most anything you do can upset that equilibrium, and change the cave in ways you may not expect.

It uses a cellular automation system to produce the motions of its boulders, liquids and gases.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• demo
• pitch
• inprofundis
• caves
• exploration
• cellularautomation
• game
• videogame
• computergame
• kickstarter
• fallingsand

[JWHarris]

There isn't as much in common here with Minecraft or Terraria as you'd think. There is no crafting for instance, and watching your finances is a larger part of the game. In fact, Miner Dig Deep on Xbox Indie might be a closer match.

[JWHarris]

I tried to comment on this but the app crashed, to summarize what I was trying to say:

[Bananadine]

This looks cool.

Here's another thing that may be "the future": parallel computation. Are you using that? It seems well-suited to this sort of game. OpenCL mang, somebody's gonna combine it with a Minecraft-ish Dwarf Fortress-ish design and hit the motherlode. Well, unless their design sucks. :)

[JWHarris]

@Bananadine, are you referring to using multiple threads to run the cellular engine? I've thought about that, and I do have some idea for how to support it. Unfortunately the prototype is written in Python, which is notoriously single-threaded. But I am keeping it in mind.

[Bananadine]

@JWHarris Yeah, that's what I meant. I work in Java, and I'm accustomed to making multithreaded algorithms via the FJTask framework available in that language, which is pretty easy to use. But maybe a cellular automaton's core is simple enough and "mathy" enough to be foisted onto the graphics hardware--that's why I suggested OpenCL, which is capable of facilitating that, albeit much less easily. But of course, I have no idea whether your design actually requires any extra speed. :)

[JWHarris]

@Bananadine, it doesn't require extra speed _yet_. I'm just getting into the platforming engine now, and while the calculations needed shouldn't be nearly as many as the CA engine or the tile rendering, there's no real way to tell before implementing it. I probably should look into OpenCL however, as I have a theory that cellular automation would be a great fit for it.

[mrkirky010]

@JWHarris, Many people are saying this is a terraria 'Rip-Off' which was also called the minecraft/ FF5/6 'Rip-off', making you a rip off of a rip-off, but i don't feel this way i feel that this game has a good grounding for success and should succeed ,

Good Luck,

Kirky.

[jarblewarble]

@JWHarris Someone made a mod for Minecraft called the Finite Water Mod that has some of this game's functionality in 3 dimensions. The water behaves very similarly in Minecraft Finite Water as it does in this game, although most of the other physics of Minecraft are kind of primitive in comparison to your game. This game kind of reminds me of the "Falling Sand Game", except that it's an adventure game.

[jarblewarble]

@JWHarris: As this game is now, it's basically in the same genre as Terraria, which didn't yet exist when this video was posted! So I think this genre is rapidly gaining popularity with the success of Minecraft.

[jarblewarble]

@JWHarris I've been playing with cellular automata for a while, and I just made a simple gas simulation... and then there's planet generation and tree growth too, but I haven't gotten there yet.

[dplusavg]

Totally love the idea, in fact, this was exactly what I was searching for... Can't wait until someone with technical know-how puts something together. Definately include some cave diving with choices of gases and ccr's. Too cool. Good luck. I'd help but have no money or useful technological skills, just an imagination, I'd be happy to help with the writing... Later

[theoriginal42]

I like the story at the beginning of this. It really gives a good idea of your vision for the game, as well as some game mechanics and typical play. It reminds me a little bit of ThreeToe's stories for Dwarf Fortress, and I'd be happy to see more of them during development. Best of luck; it looks like you're already got the start of something fantastic.

(Oh, and the kickstarter donation model is perfectly legit, since donating is optional and the game be purchased later anyway. Thanks.)

[xxDarthxAndrexx]

All these diffusion physics are astounding.