Where is it now? Cube World Edition

I figured as a way to break back into this whole blogging thing would be to look back on some of the games that I mentioned in the past, one of which is Cube World. Now if you are familiar with Cube World at all, then I’m sure you know about its, let’s call it, “situation.”

Last time I mentioned the game, it was before its alpha had become publicly available, which occurred in July 2013. Needless to say, I was super stoked about the game and eager to throw my money at the screen, which I promptly did as soon as I could do so. I had a blast for a short while: the game ran smooth, felt good to play, and the world generation was nothing short of amazing. There wasn’t really much to do yet other than explore, craft, and kill enemies, but what it had was great.

Unfortunately, this public release of the alpha was also where the trouble for Cube World began. Wolfram von Funck (AKA. Wollay) was never known for keeping people in the loop on the development of the game, with sparse updates even up to this point, and coupled with the fact that it was also more of a hobbyist endeavor and his perfectionist tendencies, things quickly went from bad to worse. After the public release, Cube World received a grand total of one patch on July 23 that fixed a few bugs, and then there was none.

Cube World Landscape Screenshots

Wollay just released a new batch of screenshots showing off some of the improvements he’s done to the landscape generator and the rendering engine over the past few days. I must say, the game looks absolutely amazing (not to say that it didn’t already). The terrain generated is so much more interesting than the terrain has ever been in Minecraft and the use of bright colors makes the world way more vibrant. You can also see the world map in a few of the pictures. Check them out below!

Cube World City Screenshots

Wollay recently made another post on his blog showing off various building architecture that you can encounter during your adventures. I just keep getting more and more excited about this game! Check out the full post below:

Just a short status update about the new name: I already have a new favorite but I’d like to wait a little, maybe there’s a better one.

Currently I’m working on the following things:

The Cube World is divided into different lands (of course randomly generated ones). Each land has a level and all creatures living in that land have the same level. The land level increases with distance from the starting position.

Each land has a capital city and is inhabited by NPCs. They have quests, sell items or just talk about random stuff. 🙂 Each city has a center place where all shops and other useful buildings are located.

In contrast to before, buildings are now randomly generated: they now have varying rooms, sizes, walls, roofs etc. Furthermore, I’m working on multiple themes. Here are the ones that I have finished so far:

European style framework houses:

Medieval stone houses:

North American style wood houses:

Log houses:

Next I want to add themes for deserts and jungles.

Cube World Update: Class Overview

In a new post by Wollay (http://wollay.blogspot.de/2012/10/cube-world-class-overview.html), four classes have been revealed to be in Cube World so far: the mighty Warrior, the nimble Ranger, the mystical Spirit Mage, and the illusive Rogue. I say “so far” because the post does not indicate whether there will be more classes than this or not.

According to Wollay, each class has two different specializations that affect what passive and active abilities the class has available for use. In a way, this sort of makes the game have eight classes so far, though he says you will be able to change your specialization when in villages. Below an excerpt from the post about the classes, though he says he’ll give more details about each class in separate posts.

Warrior

Warriors are masters of close-range combat. They wear heavy armor and can wield swords, axes, maces, greatswords, greataxes, greatmaces and shields.

Warriors can be Guardian or Berserker.
– Guardians have increased health and defensive abilities.
– Berserkers profit from war frenzy, which increases their attack speed with each hit.

Ranger

Rangers defeat their foes from the distance. They wear medium armor and can attack with bows and crossbows.

Rangers can choose between Sniper and Scout
– Snipers are specialized on accurately aimed range attacks.
– Scouts are more mobile are good in mid-range combat.

Spirit Mage

Spirit Mages use their mind to control the spirit and to cast powerful spells. In contrast to all other classes they passively generate spirit over time. They wear light armor and can use staffs and wands.

Spirit Mages specialize on fire or water spells.
– Fire Mages can shoot firebolts and fireballs to burn their enemies.
– Water Mages can cast water drops and water splashes. The resulting water puddles heal friendly targets.

Rogue

Rogues are stealthy fighters specialized on sneaking, cheating and fast attacks. They wear medium armor and can use daggers, fist weapons and longswords (I’m also thinking about adding shurikens and other throwing weapons).

Specialization: Rogues can follow the way of the Assassin or the Ninja
– Assassins ambush enemies using stealth attacks.
– Ninjas are specialized on evasion and counter attacks.

New Cube World Video

This just in… Wollay has released a new gameplay video for Cube World that shows off some of the new features in the game, which includes something that excites me: hang-gliders. Of course, there’s been other things added, but that was the most exciting thing new thing from the video. Check out the video and the list of new things added below!

New features:

– Hang gliders: You will probably get these with level 10 or higher. They’re quite fun to use, especially when you fall down. 🙂 You get stunned and fall down when you fly against a wall.
– Sprinting (consumes stamina)
– Some attacks can stun enemies.
– New monsters and items
– Dungeons
– Rare zones: Just like items, zones can have different rarities. Monsters are stronger here and drop better loot.
– Dungeons: In the video you see a castle dungeon, featuring female Orcs! 😛
– We’re also adding new zones like lava lands

Cube World

Let’s take a look at another upcoming indie game that is tentatively called Cube World. I’ve known about this game for a few months now and I’ve periodically been checking up on its progress on the developers blog: http://wollay.blogspot.com, though the blog has not been updated in the past two months. This is understandable considering that it’s been mostly a one man team (I think they’re a two man team now) and this is probably a “when I have time” project. Nevertheless, the game looks impressive so far and I’m looking forward to it.

A quick look at any of the number of pictures that the developer has posted reveals one of the more obvious sources of inspiration for the game: Minecraft. The game world and everything in it is made of voxels. Think of them as the 3D counterpart to 2D pixels, but let’s just refer to them as cubes for simplicity. The inspiration from Minecraft doesn’t stop at the visuals of the game, but the way the world is endlessly, randomly generated (aka. procedural generation). Of course, there are plenty of other games that have used procedural generation, I’m just using Minecraft as a point of reference.

If you had to pack Cube World into a genre, it would probably be Action RPG, since the gameplay is sort of inspired by games such as the The Legend of Zelda series, but has RPG elements you might expect to find in one of today’s popular MMOs like World of Warcraft. Of course, I’m sure there’s plenty of other places from which the game developer draws inspiration.

Those who played Minecraft might be wonder if there’s any digging in the game, given the chosen graphical style. Unfortunately, there is not, but there will still be support for building houses. What this means in terms of gameplay, I do not know. There are also plans for crafting in the game using loot obtained from defeating enemies, as well as character customization, more character classes, weapon and item customization, a variety of different quests, and pets.

You might be wondering if there will be multiplayer in Cube World. Have no fear… for there is multiplayer! You’ll be able to play cooperatively with your friends whenever you like. Though, at the moment, there is no word on the maximum amount of players that can be on a single server.

As of right now, there is no release date for the game. It will be down when it is done. I will definitely purchase the game when it’s ready. Though, I’m curious what the method of distribution will be… Steam perhaps? We’ll just have to wait and see. Before you go, check out this fan made “trailer” for the game using a variety of in-development footage.