Despite still being a beta title, developer Exato Games hasn’t slowed down the flurry of updates on their upcoming voxel based shooter Guncraft.
This latest update, which hit Kickstarter backers last night, includes survival mode, where your sole goal is to be the last voxel-person standing. Constantly rising lava isn’t the only thing you’ll be facing off against, as you’ll also have to avoid adversaries who want to see you pull a T-1000 at the end of Terminator 2. Kills won’t yield any rewards other than seeing your opponent pushed backwards and being frozen in place for ten seconds.
Earlier this year, back when Guncraft was a fledgling Kickstarter project, an Xbox Live Indie Games version was mentioned as “up in the air”. Now it seems that the game could head straight for the big leagues, so long as everything goes as planned.
Exato Game Studios told Armless Octopus that they are in discussions with several publishers about bringing Guncraft to Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade service. Mojang and Microsoft were mentioned as potential partners, though talks are still in a preliminary state.
“Honestly, it’s just been us shooting emails back and forth between each other,” said Executive Producer and Lead Game Designer John Getty. “No contracts signed or anything. They’ve been very professional, but it’s all very unofficial right now.”
The console port is planned to be “as similar as possible” to the PC version, which just launched in beta form. Getty said that sacrifices may be required if the game does end up on XBLIG instead of XBLA, though the new file size limit may prevent sweeping changes. An XBLA version would allow them to explore console exclusive features, however, like split-screen multiplayer.
If a publisher is found, then a release date is currently unknown. Otherwise Guncraft will see an XBLIG release before the end of the year.
Guncraft has officially gone from Kickstarter hopeful to downloadable beta project. In fact, you can grab the beta right now, as it has been made available to the general public as of this morning.
A beta is a great way to track how users react to your game and can highlight what needs to be changed or strengthened. Exato Game Studios knows this and is hoping that they can use feedback and other data from the community to build Guncraft into something truly special.
“With the availability of this open beta we welcome the feedback and participation of a much wider audience,” said John Getty, Guncraft‘s Executive Producer. “For fans of both Minecraft and modern warfare games we offer a unique experience not found anywhere else.”
Head over to Exato Game Studios’ website to download a copy and participate in the community.
The sentiment among many people who follow Xbox Live Indie Games is that they’ve grown tired with the over saturation of Minecraft-type games. Fortunately, Exato Games has listened to your complaints and put their own twist on the genre in the form of Guncraft. Self described as a “first person shooter utilizing voxel (cube-based) based levels and graphics as well as construction elements,” Guncraft is looking to blend “the best features of a voxel, Minecraft-style engine,” with the “a mainstream first person shooter experience.”
You can voice your opinion on the matter with the power of your dollar, as they’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign of their own. For the right price, you can live forever in digital form as one of the game’s characters! The project currently has 67 backers for a total of $2,053 of its $16,000 goal with 27 days to go.
One of the main selling points is the fact that their engine is not only fully destructible, but allows for complete environment construction as well by utilizing the numerous blocks included with the game. Not to be outdone by Call of Duty, kill-streak rewards are included too, including those which ”allow you to build turrets, SAM sites, tanks, helicopters, drones, and much, much more.”
So when can you expect to get your hands on this voxel spin of the fps genre? Exato Games is expecting a launch no later than June for the PC, but a beta is expected to begin in March. Although it is made in XNA, the XBLIG version is still up in the air at the moment, but we can keep our fingers crossed.
Despite still being a beta title, developer Exato Games hasn’t slowed down the flurry of updates on their upcoming voxel based shooter Guncraft.
