What's your take on FortressCraft, Total Miner, and other Minecraft "knock-offs"?

[PizzaSHARK]

Note the quotations there. I'm not bashing any of those games, but instead asking your opinion on the subject.

For those that weren't aware, Notch has cited Infiniminer and Dwarf Fortress as being major influences on his development of Minecraft - Infiniminer for the gameplay aspects and Dwarf Fortress for the humor. Infiniminer was very similar to how Minecraft works: dig up blocks of materials and use them to build stuff.

Infiniminer folded when the source code got leaked and the developer decided he wasn't gonna spend more time on the clusterfuck it turned into. Dwarf Fortress is still going strong, last I checked. The developer of Infiniminer tacitly endorsed Minecraft; I'm sure he's jealous of all the hookers and blow Notch can buy with how many units he's shipped, but he said he was flattered by how successful his original concept (dig up stuff and then build shit with it) worked out.

This is a quick Cliff Notes paraphrasing, but it's just to set the scene.

Now, FortressCraft is a Minecraft clone for Xbox, though they've mentioned plans to bring it to the PC (where it will probably get crushed by Minecraft.) Basically, FortressCraft is Minecraft's Creative mode with some twists and differences made by the developer. Now, that in itself isn't that big of a deal - people made dozens of Diablo 2 clones and Notch himself cribbed heavily from Infiniminer. Instead, the issue is with the developer of FortressCraft, who has from what I've been able find done everything he can to avoid mentioning he basically copied Minecraft's Creative mode for his base. In fact, in one IGN interview with him, he actually attacks Minecraft (and through it, Notch), saying it's past its prime and that it will only sell on name alone. Pretty ballsy words for someone who's only sold 500,000 units to Minecraft's 3.8 million.

As near as I can tell, FortressCraft is JUST basically Minecraft's Creative mode right now - there is no Survival mode clone. It's apparently being released in "Chapters", so I'm sure there are plans for a Survival mode in the works. FortressCraft supports multiplayer.

Total Miner is the other shoe - it appears to be a Minecraft Survival mode clone with no Creative mode version. I haven't really heard anything about it, but the Youtube videos... well, it's REALLY hard not to look at it and go "oh wow you just copied Minecraft didn't you?" It must be small change, because even Wikipedia doesn't have an article on it, and Wikipedia has articles for games and anime more than anything else.

And lastly, we have Terraria, and I imagine most people are familiar with it - it's basically a sort of 2D sidescrolling Minecraft. I haven't played it and have no real interest in playing it (only sidescrollers I like are Metroidvanias, and I liked Trine, too), but word on the street is that the developers cited Minecraft as a major influence, that Notch plays it and enjoys the hell out of it, and that both parties like each other. I've heard it's a helluva lot of fun, but it just doesn't appeal to me.

So what're your opinions? Do you guys think Minecraft will be a one-off deal, where only the original is truly successful, or do you think people will be able to clone it successfully? Where do you see Minecraft and its eventual clones going?

[wartywarlock]

Much like WoW-clones, they are ok.. but not the real deal. The magic is in minecraft. However, Fortresscraft pretty much forced Notch to sort out console and mobile versions, so all praise to it. I strongly disagree with how you say he knocked MC for it though, it was openly planned and developed on, of all things, the minecraft forums largely to shut up the fools who claimed it was impossible to run MC on anything other than a PC.

[Deleted]

People have been trying to clone games since the first game tbh if one game gets loads of sales and get realy popular you can bet there will be atleast 2 or 3 clone games following it im totaly fine with it sometime the clones can be fun but the original is mostly more fun others may have a diffrent view.

Someone might be able to clone it but then it might be to late if it doesent add anything new that Minecraft doesent have as otherwice people will just go meh i already have a game like that so why should i buy another one ofc some people will buy both just becos they can or friends play on one game and such.

Also isent Minecraft comming to 360 soon or is it already out? i remember i read about it i guess that might kill off FortressCraft or atleast give it a heavy fight.
You can get Minecraft on Android Phones now to so it will make it even harder to beat.

Also on Terraria there is a quite huge diffrence between Minecraft and Terraria does have a goal in Terraria there are bosses rare loot crafted armor the goal is to get the best i guess thats the same with survival Minecraft but it doesent go as far as Terraria.

Also Terraria isent focused on building yes you can build but its not the focus of the game at all its more the exploring and getting better items and killing the bosses for items after that it gets abit boring ye but ive been able to put in 50 hours into Terraria befor ive almost done everything (one damn random dropp eludes me!)

But i guess that will change in the future of Minecraft to as its getting constant updates now with lvls so it might get a goal then just survive and build stuff.

And yes even if they are diffrent games they are quite similar aswell in some aspects of the game.

I hope that made sense.

[PizzaSHARK]

Much like WoW-clones, they are ok.. but not the real deal. The magic is in minecraft. However, Fortresscraft pretty much forced Notch to sort out console and mobile versions, so all praise to it. I strongly disagree with how you say he knocked MC for it though, it was openly planned and developed on, of all things, the minecraft forums largely to shut up the fools who claimed it was impossible to run MC on anything other than a PC.

Yeah, I saw that thread. It turned into a pointless flame war of diehards going OMFG STOP STEALING FROM MINECRAFT FAGGOT and defenders of FortressCraft screaming about how it's not copying Minecraft (which is bullshit.)

My beef with it comes from a quote Sawkins made during an interview with IGN, in which he basically said Minecraft is a has-been and will sell only on name from this point on - that FortressCraft and Total Miner will sell better and be more popular.

Considering he basically copied Minecraft's Creative mode (and Total Miner copied Minecraft's Survival mode) to get started, that comes off as being really smarmy.

Also, I consider it highly amusing that FortressCraft has sold about 500,000 units at $3 apiece (240 Microsoft Points; Total Miner is the same price but I didn't find any stats.) Minecraft has had no advertising at all, at any point, beyond simple word of mouth and it has sold more than 3.8 million units at $20 apiece. And considering that Minecraft has both Creative and Survival modes right now, I really fail to see why someone would buy FortressCraft over Minecraft if both games are available on their platform; obviously PC gamers will pickup Minecraft and Xbox gamers will grab FortressCraft since both are not available for both platforms, but I get the distinct feeling Sawkins is gonna be eating crow when FortressCraft arrives on the PC (and Minecraft shows up on consoles.)

Hell, in regards to the PC arena, Minecraft is amazingly mod-friendly. Mods are easy to make and even easier to install (it basically consists of opening Minecraft.jar with 7zip, throwing the .class files and associated .png files and other crap in, and saving), and that alone will ensure Minecraft will have a powerful following even if Notch goes "k it's now officially released and I'm gonna go retire in Burma with a bunch of hookers, gl hf." As far as I'm aware, there is absolutely no room for real modding in FortressCraft, and if Sawkins wants FC to be successful on the PC, he's gonna have to add it in.

I wonder if he plans on using Java for the PC version...

[Flextt]

Basically, the possibility to add mods rather easy gives Notch ideas to improve Minecraft & allows people to create content on a much larger scale with the workload distributed among more people. Take a look at the Aether mod for example. It was well known, that Notch wanted to improve the Nether and add another dimension. His sky dimension sucked and the Aether was already on a much more advanced level. Instead of competing with that, he went for the End, which I am sure will suck as much as the Nether does pre-full release, but hell^^

[Elementium]

It's pretty sad people are out to try and steal an indy games idea. But whatever, Minecraft is already going to crush their competition with the mobile and Xbox versions :P

And I mean.. if you don't have creepers you don't have a good game Scariest game of the year? Minecraft.

[Baz]

Pretty much every knock-off game isn't as good as the original. Maybe there are exceptions, but none I can think of off the top of my head. But my friends and I sometimes play FortressCraft, it isn't bad seeing as we got it for 80 microsoft points.

[Takeshiren]

If I'm honest I've been watching my friend play Fortresscraft. And if Minecraft wasn't out or I didn't know about it I'd play it! But it sucks compared to Minecraft!

[Very Tired]

You know its a real game when others try to copy it. Just look at Final Combat for tf2 and Aion for Wow