Minecraft has not only been a source of fun for me but inspiration in terms of game development, technology stack and feel. I’m happy to say that it has re-fired the spark I’ve had for game development.

Recently I came across a formal definition of the cube-based design that Minecraft uses - a Voxel.

Definitely something I want to implement - a voxel engine.

The idea behind a voxel engine is simple - use blocks for terrains but with the added complexity of needing to be intelligent about loading and unloading voxels around the player.

I put this together in a few hours last night as what I called training for Ludum Dare. I also wanted to try out streaming development on Twitch.tv which I think went well. There were a ton of people (9).

Features:

1. Control player square with WASD
2. 3d world with max voxel dimensions of 100x100x100
3. Extremely preliminary version of chunk loading (loads up voxels within 10x10x10 of player)
4. Floor fully implemented (up until 100x100 grid)
5. Sexy camera following (that I took from http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/stealth/camera-movement)
6. Hovering over blocks reduces its color down to black given enough time

#6 may not seem like that big of a deal but I wanted to be sure any properties attached to the world remains after being unloaded and loaded again. You can test this yourself by hovering your mouse cursor over a block for a while until it gets dark, walk (waddle?) far enough away to unload it, then go back.

What I’m really looking forward to doing is implementing a procedurally generated terrain using the Diamond-Sqaure Algorithm.