0x10c – New Science Fiction Game from Mojang Announced

Earlier this week, Minecraft creator Notch poked fun at his legal troubles with Bethesda over his upcoming game Scrolls, announcing a new sci-fi game called Mars Effect. The April Fool’s joke turned out to be a tease. Mojang has unveiled their genuine new video game project, the awkwardly titled 0x10c. Details are few, but the new game from Mojang promises to encourage users to shape a sci-fi world.

Here’s a synopsis from the bare bones official site:

In a parallel universe where the space race never ended, space travel was gaining popularity amongst corporations and rich individuals.

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.

Notch promises the new game will be “hard” science fiction, with space battles and planets to mine, loot, and explore.

There isn’t a release date announced for 0x10c, nor is there a price planned, though Notch is leaning towards a monthly fee. Visit the official site or follow Notch on Twitter to keep up to date on the latest developments.