- #1
Magellanic
- 13
- 6
Hi PF! I'm a long time lurker - only posted a few times in the past. I love this place, and I think there's a lot of like-minded people on here who might (hopefully) find this interesting. I don't mean to be brigading or anything - just wondering if anyone is as excited as I am about this!
Some of you might remember the hype from years ago about a game called "Infinity: The Quest For Earth" - and many assumed that the lack of press about it meant it was dead; gone; vaporware. Since I've been actively following it, though, I can only tell you that it never died. Much of the work in the last few years has been engine-related, and therefore produced very little "eye candy" (much at the behest of some of the fringe supporters). After all this waiting, they've gotten to a point where they feel like they can go public with some of their work as they get ready to finish development of Infinity: Battlescape, a sort of precursor to the full TQFE game they have their eyes set on.
In a nutshell, the general idea of the game is to provide a realistic space sim, complete with real "Newtonian" physics (it's a buzzword...I hate it, but everyone knows what it means :-\ ), to-scale planets (including the distances between them), seamless transitions between planets and space, and even a different flight model depending on whether you're in space or in atmosphere (in atmo, your ship will experience aerodynamic effects that require you to change how you fly in order to better maneuver - i.e. your ship becomes a lifting body).
Background:
Eye Candy
If you want to see for yourself what progress has been made, check out these videos below.
A lot of comparisons have been drawn to other games like Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous, and No Man's Sky (which I did see a topic for here). It's nice that we're seeing a resurgence of space sims - but each one has its own place and own crowd. Star Citizen has a big name and big money behind it (Chris Roberts, Digital Anvil, etc, the same people behind Wing Commander, Freelancer, etc). No Man's Sky and E:D are still works-in-progress, but they look like they'll be a lot of fun. It's no secret that TQFE was inspired by the original Elite series, though. Point in fact: TQFE has been in "production" longer than any of these games. The thing is...it's mostly been one or two guys, lol.
What this game seems to have that others don't is commitment to the real deal. Since it's not a studio project, there's no deadline, which leaves the developers to truly "get it right". The seamless planetary transitions are no longer as ground-breaking as they used to be, but it's still something we haven't seen in this much detail before. The idea that hundreds of people can be duking it out at the same time in one system IS cool. It's the scale of the project that I enjoy, especially because it has so much voluntary time put into it by people who just want to see it work.
They're on kickstarter if you're interested in donating, but for the sake of civility and non-annoyance, I won't post the link unless someone asks. Like I said: I'm not here to advertise or ask for donations - I'm just here to see if anyone else is as STOKED about this as I am!
Some of you might remember the hype from years ago about a game called "Infinity: The Quest For Earth" - and many assumed that the lack of press about it meant it was dead; gone; vaporware. Since I've been actively following it, though, I can only tell you that it never died. Much of the work in the last few years has been engine-related, and therefore produced very little "eye candy" (much at the behest of some of the fringe supporters). After all this waiting, they've gotten to a point where they feel like they can go public with some of their work as they get ready to finish development of Infinity: Battlescape, a sort of precursor to the full TQFE game they have their eyes set on.
In a nutshell, the general idea of the game is to provide a realistic space sim, complete with real "Newtonian" physics (it's a buzzword...I hate it, but everyone knows what it means :-\ ), to-scale planets (including the distances between them), seamless transitions between planets and space, and even a different flight model depending on whether you're in space or in atmosphere (in atmo, your ship will experience aerodynamic effects that require you to change how you fly in order to better maneuver - i.e. your ship becomes a lifting body).
Background:
The project started by one person who, inspired by old space-sim games like Elite, wanted to reproduce that kind of awe-inspiring immensity in a modern landscape. So in his own time, he developed from scratch an engine that uses procedural generation to develop whole worlds, star systems, and galaxies (to a 1:1 scale), and allows a user to seamlessly transition from space to atmosphere and back again. From there he started working on a game that would make full use of his engine to reproduce "epic" space battles, cinematic exploration experiences, and so on. The project (Infinity: The Quest For Earth) garnered a TON of support from a community of thousands - contributing art, music, models, textures, and story elements because they, like myself, were inspired by something big.
Well that's still happening - the only change is that the developer has decided to take smaller bites. His first goal now is to develop a slightly smaller version of TQFE which will take place in one (1) planetary system containing dozens of planets and their satellites, putting the player in the pilot seat of a ship owned by one of two competing corporations in the system. The revenue (hopefully) generated by this game (Infinity: Battlescape) will be used to fund the development of TQFE.
Well that's still happening - the only change is that the developer has decided to take smaller bites. His first goal now is to develop a slightly smaller version of TQFE which will take place in one (1) planetary system containing dozens of planets and their satellites, putting the player in the pilot seat of a ship owned by one of two competing corporations in the system. The revenue (hopefully) generated by this game (Infinity: Battlescape) will be used to fund the development of TQFE.
Eye Candy
If you want to see for yourself what progress has been made, check out these videos below.
Official Trailer:
Evolution of the I-Novae engine and Infinity:
Demo of seamless planetary transitions:
Evolution of the I-Novae engine and Infinity:
Demo of seamless planetary transitions:
A lot of comparisons have been drawn to other games like Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous, and No Man's Sky (which I did see a topic for here). It's nice that we're seeing a resurgence of space sims - but each one has its own place and own crowd. Star Citizen has a big name and big money behind it (Chris Roberts, Digital Anvil, etc, the same people behind Wing Commander, Freelancer, etc). No Man's Sky and E:D are still works-in-progress, but they look like they'll be a lot of fun. It's no secret that TQFE was inspired by the original Elite series, though. Point in fact: TQFE has been in "production" longer than any of these games. The thing is...it's mostly been one or two guys, lol.
What this game seems to have that others don't is commitment to the real deal. Since it's not a studio project, there's no deadline, which leaves the developers to truly "get it right". The seamless planetary transitions are no longer as ground-breaking as they used to be, but it's still something we haven't seen in this much detail before. The idea that hundreds of people can be duking it out at the same time in one system IS cool. It's the scale of the project that I enjoy, especially because it has so much voluntary time put into it by people who just want to see it work.
They're on kickstarter if you're interested in donating, but for the sake of civility and non-annoyance, I won't post the link unless someone asks. Like I said: I'm not here to advertise or ask for donations - I'm just here to see if anyone else is as STOKED about this as I am!
