TITLE

I'm making Minecraft's spiritual successor.

Intro

Now that's a bold claim, right? I agree. Here's the plan.

I love Minecraft, but in it's current form, it's main game mode, single player survival, is a bit disappointing. I love Terraria, and in it's current form, it's better than ever.

What's the difference?

Terraria's gameplay works with, emphasizes and explores it's strengths to it's maximum potential. When a new update comes out, it's almost impossible to not bump into new stuff without even trying. Minecraft on the other hand? The core gameplay has remained stagnant for over a decade. New content is often hundreds of kilometers away, is usually very shallow, and does not intersect at all with the core gameplay loop. THIS is what is disappointing to me.

But I believe in the philosophy of being the change you want to see in the world, so I'm making my own game. I want my game to bridge the gap, and fill the gaping void of missing potential that Minecraft has left on the table.

Methodology

I've spent the past 3 months working on my vision for the game. It's called Allumeria, and this is how it looks currently. There's still a long way to go, but as I close in on completing core engine features, I should be able to implement new content at a fast pace.

So, how can I take the lessons from Terraria's gameplay, and combine it with Minecraft's 3d world? Let's find out!

Before I even started working on the game, I wrote a list of core design principles to guide what I do. The most important being the idea of "Gameplay First". I know that sounds obvious, but I feel that a lot of developers that make Minecraft clones often get caught in the trap of trying to make things realistic, or copying Minecraft's systems. My goal is to do neither of these things. I want to make a game that is primarily fun, and is designed around a core gameplay loop.

So what is the core gameplay loop or Allumeria? Explore the world, collect resources, fight enemies, find loot. Bring them back to your base. Get stronger, enter more dangerous areas, fight bosses. The cycle continues.

I believe this loop makes the most of what is interesting about 3d voxel worlds, the ability to have a densely packed, procedural environment full of unique gameplay challenges. Rather than mining being a simple experience that you do once in a playthrough, I want it to be part of the core gameplay loop.

Different biomes will have entirely different undergrounds, different ores and different enemies to fight. It will be full of generated structures, useful and meaningful loot and treasure.

Unique Features

Here's a quickfire list of features that I believe will make my game unique in comparison to Minecraft.

Larger inventory!

My game has an inventory size of 72 slots, not including armour slots or accessories. Each item can stack to 512. There will also be extra slots for ammunition for weapons that require it.

Better Crafting!

Crafting in my game is similar to Terraria's crafting system. There is no shaped crafting, instead you get a list of items that you can craft. I have also laid the groundwork for a system that can pull items from nearby chests for crafting, so you don't need to rummage through your storage system to find the right items either.

Compendium

I want to add a compendium that documents everything in the game. Kind of like what JEI is in modded minecraft. You'll be able to look up recipes, items, blocks, monsters and creatures within the game. I want to have this to reduce the amount of wiki diving that games like terraria and minecraft require.

No hunger!

I will not be including a hunger mechanic in my game.

No durability!

As my weapons and items will be a combination of rare loot and hard to obtain resources, durability would be an unfair mechanic.

RGB Lighting

My game supports coloured lighting. This means lava can glow red, torches are orange, and it even tints light that passes through transparent materials like water.

Hammers

Instead of filling up your inventory with stair and slab variants of items, you can simply hammer blocks to change their shape.

Future Plans

Right now, I'm about 2.5 months into development. My goal is to have a complete 1.0 build by the end of the year. This is a very ambitious goal, but I'm going to continue working hard to make this a reality. There is already a steam page up for Allumeria, and I highly recommend wishlisting the game.

I also have a discord server that I am currently using as a community hub. If you have any feedback, ideas, questions or bug reports, please join the discord and share them. I would love to hear your feedback.

Finally, you can play Allumeria right now! There is already an alpha version available for free on itch.io. I'll have a pinned comment with links to these three places, but you can also search Allumeria on google to find the steam and itch pages.

This is a very ambitious project. I've wanted a game like this for years, and nobody has made it yet. That means I need to do it myself. I hope you will support me and my goal of making Allumeria. Thank you :)