0x10c (pronounced "ten to the c", hexadecimal for 1612, the number of years passed in-story since 1988) was a Science Fiction space sim developed by Markus Persson (a.k.a "Notch", the man behind Minecraft). It was later canceled following developer disinterest. Gameplay footage of a pre-alpha demo can be seen here
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The game was centered around a large group of Human Popsicles who find themselves with the unfortunate luck of waking up from their hibernation to find that the computers controlling their sleeping chambers have wildly malfunctioned, awakening them in the year 281,474,976,712,644 CE. To make matters worse, star formation is long over, black holes are everywhere, and the future universe is well on its way to the Big Rip.
What separated 0x10c from other spaceship sims, apart from its lo-fi graphics, was its fully programmable 16-bit emulated computers. Notch anticipated a cottage industry springing up in which programmers developed software — including games, graphical front-ends, and viruses — for the in-game computers.
Tropes featured in 0x10c include:
- After the End: Or rather, right in the middle of it.
- Alternate Reality Game: Notch ran two of these in the leadup to the release of the game.
- Apocalypse How: The game starts in the midst of a Class X-4.
- Computer Virus: The game would have included computers that can be programmed and networked. It was inevitable.Q: How will you stop malicious viruses etc?
Notch: I won't stop viruses, the players will have to do that themselves. - Expendable Alternate Universe:
Word of God has stated that when killed, the Player Character and their Cool Starship would have respawned as alternate reality versions of themselves. - Human Popsicle: The player begins the game after awakening from stasis.
- Magical Computer: 0x10c's computers weren't too magical, but they were an enormously powerful tool within the gameworld capable of everything from automating ship functions to hacking into other ships to playing simple video games.
- Natural End of Time: The game is set during the dying millenia of the universe.
- No Product Safety Standards: This all came about because of a byte order error in the software used to operate cryogenic sleep capsules.
- Our Graphics Will Suck in the Future: Invoked. The game's graphics were low-poly and (apart from computer monitors and planets) untextured, with the intent to make the game look like the future circa the early '80s.
