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Say Hello to FortressCraft, a Minecraft-like for XBLIG

FortressCraft001

Make no mistake, if something gets popular enough, more and more people will attempt to capitalize off said product. Not to say that it’s unfair, or illegal to do such a thing, it’s just what happens in our society. Such is how genre’s like the “roguelike” have even spawned in the first place. So it really comes as no surprise that a new game is coming out which mimics Minecraft – which itself mimicked many other games — called FortressCraft.

Of course, merely mimicking another game isn’t really all that important. FortressCraft, were is just another PC client, would be pretty uninteresting story. What makes FortressCraft important, and makes me interested in playing it, is that the game is set for an Xbox Live Indie Games release next month. Yes, that’s right, all the fun of building and mining, but on your Xbox 360.

Unfortunately, there’s bound to be a certain amount of controversy surrounding this game. Not only is the gameplay remarkably similar, but the game even borrows the same “Craft” title. I really wouldn’t be surprised if somebody launches a “boycott FotressCraft” movement somewhere on the internet (Minecraft fans are quite loyal, y’know). Still, I’m excited. If for nothing else I’d love to build and mine from the comfort of my own couch…

FortressCraft will be out next month on Xbox Live Indie Games for either 80 or 240 MS points (pricing has yet to be decided) and will feature up to 32 players at a time.

[FortressCraft]

Trailer

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Comments

  • Martoon

    Wow. I’m a little surprised they’re getting the performance they are via XNA with all those dynamic meshes (assuming that video was actually from an Xbox).

    • Geoff Gibson

      Yeah, I’ll be curious to see if anything changes. It does look remarkably crisp for a 3D XBLIG title.

  • http://www.dreamcastersduel.com mikejkelley

    Copyright and IP laws serve to promote innovation. Lack of such protections dissuade innovation, and we see the result of that right here. Increasingly creators will be dissuaded from bothering to create anything original as they see their market share cannibalized by rip-off ‘artists’ and opportunists.

    As a game creator being forced to compete with my own inventive genre/game mechanic for funding, I’m of the opinion that mechanics and overt likenesses are long overdue for copyright protection.

    Awhile back I researched and wrote an article regarding copyright infringement as it applies to modding. I completed it with the input of several lawyers and a professional game designer. Kind of interesting. Anyways, long story short, I won’t be downloading this.

  • http://clintmakesagame.wordpress.com TheCube

    The implications of this are interesting, to say the least. At this point, I’m not sure I’m convinced that the Minecraft style can be replicated successfully with enough innovation to call it anything but a ripoff. It’s going to need some serious iteration by bunches of people before we start to see real changes to the basic formula. Man, games are weird.