notch

Inspired by Terry Cavanaugh's Hexagon franchise, the ending of Fez, and his own apartment ceiling, Markus Persson, aka Notch, released a new Web game yesterday, in lieu of a contribution to this year's Ludum Dare competition. The game, titled Drop, puts you in a whirling representation of Notch's ceiling, where you must type the spinning letters in order, before the ceiling rushes up to crush you. Instead of frantically moving the arrow to find the path in Hexagon, you'll be typing words like "gnostic" and "journey" as fast as you can to … Read more

Who would have thought a Java-based game about creating a world out of 3D blocks would blow up like it did? But with more than 5 million copies sold and 25 million registered users, Minecraft is still going strong and spawning new ventures. Can its creator duplicate this kind of success? Well, we may soon find out because a new game is in the works.

Minecraft maker Markus "Notch" Persson revealed his plans for a new game, temporarily called "0x10c," that has roots in hard-core science fiction. Still in early development, 0x10c is based on the idea that a group of humans were accidentally put into a deep sleep in 1988 and are now finding themselves waking up in the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD in a parallel universe that's nearing extinction. … Read more

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson and Mojang employees today unveiled the first set dedicated to the building game at Lego World in Copenhagen.

The 480-piece Lego Minecraft Micro World set (due in summer) features four different areas that you can link together with cylindrical connectors.

While the miniature take on the popular game is a bit pricey at $34.99, we admire the attention to detail in recreating the Minecraft experience. It's also neat that this came together from a community-driven movement, but we hope there will be bigger and better sets soon. Resource gatherers can take joy in exploring the "hidden resources, extra pieces for wood, dirt, and stone," according to the official product description. We strongly recommend you avoid the lava area, though.

Do not miss the hilarious launch video created by Notch and friends: … Read more

Double Fine founder Tim Schafer and Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson spoke on Twitter yesterday about a possible sequel to Schafer's 2005 game Psychonauts.

Notch seems very outspoken about investing money in the game, as he tweeted Tim Schafer today and said, "Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen," and then followed up later on with, "Also, I'm serious." … Read more

As a child, I played with Lego sets incessantly, and as an adult, I have built many creations in the game Minecraft. Fans of both will be pleased to know that Lego has confirmed an official Minecraft collection.

Details are scarce at this time, but this all came together after Minecraft founder Notch posted the idea on Cuusoo, a site officially created by Lego that allows fans to vote on brick-based concepts (similar to Kickstarter). If a proposition gets 10,000 votes, then "a Lego Jury evaluates the idea's feasibility as a product and makes a decision."

Last month, Lego Minecraft eclipsed 10,000 votes in 48 hours, and Lego's decision makers finally confirmed the development today.

After a month and a half of internal discussion, the Cuusoo site confirmed that the brick maker is working on "a concept that celebrates the best aspects of building with the Lego system and in Minecraft and we can't wait to show it to you." … Read more

Minecraft maker Markus "Notch" Persson wrote on his personal blog August 5 that Bethesda, makers of the Elder Scrolls game series, is suing his company, Mojang, over the similarities between the name of its role playing games and Mojang's forthcoming Scrolls card game. Today, Persson updated his blog with the novel offer to settle the dispute with Bethesda through combat, specifically via multiplayer deathmatch in id Software's first person shooter, Quake III.

Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, you select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins. If we win, you drop the lawsuit. If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you're fine with.

We've contacted Bethesda for comment, and will update upon its response.… Read more

I've been signing up with some of the major job sites. I started with NotchUp.com, mostly because I was curious about NotchUp's rather unusual strategy. Candidates are paid for interviews set up through NotchUp.com, while NotchUp itself gets fees from the participating companies.

NotchUp recommends that candidates ask for approximately a full day's pay for an interview. That seems like an extraordinarily high price. Companies are free to make a lower offer, though. I set my asking price well below that day's-pay level, and I'm still not surprised I've had no inquiries. I wonder if it's working for anyone else.

On the recommendation of a friend in the business (he actually works for a different jobs site), I also signed up for TheLadders.com, which specializes in jobs with salaries above $100K/year (which we in California refer to as a "subsistence wage").

… Read more