Introducing Project Vol

We'll start here!

After giving you a cosy welcome, I suppose I should get straight to the point, and tell you why this blog is here (jump to the 'Finally' heading if you want to skip the preamble).

I'm starting a programming project named "Vol", which is intended to create a digging game in a large (seemingly infinite) landscape volume.

It's fairly open-ended in terms of objectives, in that I have some objectives in mind, but I'm flexible about what happens.

There should be a nice picture here to give you a break from the text, and to draw you in, but unfortunately I don't yet have a relevant image to show you; I hope to be able to post images soon!

"I think I've seen this before"

If you've come here expecting a clone of something you've seen elsewhere, or think that this is "yet another... [insert name here] game project", then you'll not be far off in your assumption.

I'm fairly late onto the scene of voxel-based games and 'game engines' that incorporate voxels as a way of including complicated scenery, but I've seen good and bad features in projects like Dwarf Fortress (Nethack, etc), Minecraft (Infiniminer, etc), and the various indie and commercial efforts that use related techniques. I have some programming experience, so can read into their strengths and weaknesses, and hope to make good on some ideas that I'm keen to develop, which I hope will ultimately lead to good gameplay.

Specifically?

This project is mostly an exploration of techniques in rendering large solid structures in 3D space, using voxels, and organising them efficiently. I do have a game in mind, which is my impression of what would be an enjoyable game to play. As much as I don't want my game to be an obvious slave to a new technique, I reluctantly admit that the emergence of a playable game, in the form that I think will be most pleasing, depends on the successful development of these methods.

I'm not saying that I can solve all the problems, nor that I can do better than what currently exists; I'm here to explore and develop techniques, some of which might present exploitable opportunities, and lead to good gameplay.

Finally

Given that this is the first post, I'll keep it brief, and save details for further posts, where I hope to cover subjects such as memory-efficient storage, rendering options, gameplay design, procedural generation, lighting models, and programming techniques.

This will not appeal to everyone, but I believe there might be some interest in this subject among indie developers, particularly those jumping on the 'I want to create a game that has an infinite blocky landscape' bandwagon (go on, admit it!) ;o)

If you're eager to see content (videos, screenshots, downloadable working apps), then follow this blog, and your wish might eventually come true.

Last of all, I should warn you of one possible outcome of this project: I might learn that my ideas won't work. I'm not going to flog a dead horse, and I'll try to remember to give an appropriate heads-up warning if I feel that some avenues could be dead-ends, in case you are following a similar path.

Hm... I think I know what to write about next...