Is it a game, a console, or collection of games? Because the main page and FAQ say different things.
It's probably all of the above; can empathize with pitching something as unconventional as this. But it might make for a stronger presentation if there was a single framing throughout the site.
I remember playing this probably 10-12 years ago with Minecraft's creator Notch donated a bunch of money to their HumbleBundle campaign. It was pretty early alpha back then, and it seems like the main pivot has been to make it more of a platform for user-created games, rather than a game itself. Interesting!
I bought the Humble Bundle for this in like 2011, and I played it a bit, but I ended up having a lot more fun with the included Pico-8 that came a bit later.
I think primarily I just found it a lot more approachable than anything else.
I recommend the Picotron, their newest fantasy software. It is a full fantasy workstation. It has no upper limit on game size and can export native binaries for the big three OSes. You could, in theory, publish a full game with it.
I really love picotron, if I had more time I'd exploring the pico net lol, a fantasy internet that's only accessible on the picotron, and uses lua instead of js https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=148018
also all the recent 3D work is seriously impressive considering picotron has quite limited "fantasy hardware"
Years ago I had hoped Voxatron and voxel-ish games inspired by it would have taken off more. I wonder why it hasn't saturated the indie game scene more.
I’m a huge fan of lexaloffle. And while I’m more of a 2D guy, I have used voxatron in the past. It’s a great editor, it runs on almost any hardware requirements, and is versatile enough that you can program anything you want with it. Besides lua, you can also program in a no-code paradigm that I found incredibly clever. Your games can be quite lengthy and feature-full, and you build them easily for web.
Unfortunately, development is essentially dead afaik. Pico-8, originally just a prototype/development playground for Voxatron, became an instant hit and totally eclipsed Voxatron and now gets all the development hours, now shared with Picotron, which is an even newer product detracting from Voxatron. It's a total shame too, because I'd seen lots of demos of it on volumetric displays[1] which look amazing.
I wonder if zep (the creator) ran into technical issues at some point. The voxels are actual voxels in the sense that the painter’s algorithm is used to splat the voxel grid on the screen. Afaik, he mentioned that there was a lot of optimization needed to get the 60 fps out of it.
One of our earliest Humble Bundles featured Voxatron as did the Humble Mozilla Bundle (where Voxatron was featured as a snippet on the Firefox home page). Will always have a soft spot for Voxatron.
While in Japan last year for Tokyo Game Show, I got to grab lunch with Joseph, the creator. He is an awesome dude.
14 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 46.4 ms ] threadVision of the future: Voxatron's high-priced gamble (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11189329 - Feb 2016 (1 comment)
The Humble Voxatron Debut - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3178802 - Oct 2011 (39 comments)
Game Preview: Voxatron - voxel-based, destructible environment, 8bit soundtrack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2070025 - Jan 2011 (65 comments)
It's probably all of the above; can empathize with pitching something as unconventional as this. But it might make for a stronger presentation if there was a single framing throughout the site.
I think primarily I just found it a lot more approachable than anything else.
https://www.lexaloffle.com/picotron.php
You can boot it up, fullscreen it and totally LARP programming... I guess an amiga with nicer color pallettes?
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=166998#p strawberry_src is a fun editor to use for all of this
also all the recent 3D work is seriously impressive considering picotron has quite limited "fantasy hardware"
Maybe that space can be revisited with AI assistance now?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCeZpW8b9J8
While in Japan last year for Tokyo Game Show, I got to grab lunch with Joseph, the creator. He is an awesome dude.