Antock vs Minecraft

Antock began as a series of ideas for Minecraft extensions. However, after thinking about holistic game design, trying to influence a large corporation, and existing branding, it makes the most sense to rethink a whole new IP for a voxel game.

Luckily, there is room to do so as few real voxel games have emerged after Minecraft.

First stages of Antock

Antock should allow players to move into different types of game-play without compulsion. If a player wants an experience largely like Minecraft, then he/she should be satisfied with the game until he/she is comfortable venturing further.

Initially Noticeable Differences to Minecraft

While the game is about adding on to Minecraft features, there will also be noticeable differences in initial game-play

You are of ant heritage, lineage, ancestry, origin, whatever you want to call it.

• Yet you are kind of a two legged person with four arms and cute face and antennae.
• You will still use tools to dig and gather, yet you might have slightly enhanced abilities without tools up to maybe a stone tool's level.
• You will be able to hold more tools at a given time.
• You will have large towing abilities for self-drawn carts etc.

Hell

• There will be another dimension to explore, but it most likely will not be like the Hell in Minecraft. (Should not be.)
• I'm just not sure what it should be yet.
• It might be a series of places discovered through human space ships. 
• It's possible that these dimensions will have integral roles in some of the later features of the game. 

Magic and Science

• I really like the idea of having both magic and science. One of the great things about Minecraft is learning the rules of this odd world.
• Minecraft has a kind of fantasy science that works really well.
• It also has Hell. Go figure. But that works well too.
• It might also be cool to be making real electrical schematics instead of fantasy redstone circuits.
• The idea of sneaking real world smarts into video games is a holy grail of sorts.
• Real schematics might prove to be too complex however.

Floating Blocks

• There are few-to-none floating blocks in this game
• Blocks fall to the ground

Rails and Roads

• Rails
• take two block widths (to be more consistent with diagonal width)
• Rails can go diagonally
• Slant upwards 1x1
• Roads
• Roads also take 2 block widths
• Roads accept new vehicle types
• Roads can go diagonally
• Slant upwards 1x3
• Rails and Roads
• Allow for trade routes to inter-connect
• Roads, rails, and sea ports provide the game with data of continuous routes for trade and transport.
• Rail stations
• Road Stops
• Sea Ports
• Warehouses
• Trader Posts
•  . . . any building

Sand, Dirt, Gravel, Wood

• While each of these may not exist specifically, many of these types of blocks will behave more like sand or fluid in real life.
• These types of blocks will not stack indefinitely, but move to the side, into mounds and/or drifts like sand dunes.
• Consequently, there will be fewer blocks players can use to build anything they want. However, there will still be coloring / painting options such that building may have any look desired.
• The rationale for this gets clearer when the game introduces explosions and bombs. These explosions will blow holes in the ground, but those holes will fill back in.
• This also means that Tunnels require reinforcement at weak points

Wind

• Wind will slowly create sand dunes
• Wind also has purposes later on in the game.

Water Absorption

• Block types will have specific water absorption and water sealing properties.
• Consequently, some blocks will be more ideal for building permanent ponds, aqueducts, etc.
• Sand will not blow or fall as easily when it is wet

Water Leakage

• As with absorption, water will have different leakage properties, through holes in the bottom of the ocean floor for instance.

Beyond Minecraft

Most of the important features that separate Antock from Minecraft start after a player chooses to create special buildings which have designated conditions and specific purposes. Creating these buildings is not extremely hard or limiting. They act as a form of choice to enable, as well as gateways to interface with, the corresponding new forms of game-play.

Formerly, when this whole idea was merely a set of Minecraft extensions, my thought was to have the player search for a series of relics that enabled the creation of these special buildings. This was to bridge from the main Minecraft game into a place where these extensions could be added. The player could prepare for that game-play (and be tantalized by it) before buying the extensions.

In this way, players could certainly get relics without buying the extensions. This would also have been ideal to save money for Minecraft players who were holey satisfied with the game as it was.

However, I am not so sure that such a bridge is a great idea given the premise of a whole new game flow. To the contrary, it might seem a little silly to have a single bottle neck in the game.

Features Beyond Minecraft 

Covered in my last post here.

Also see all my older posts about Minecraft Next extensions