Every Promise Ever Made: The Universe Project
If you polled a thousand people about what their dream game would include, the resulting torrent of big ideas, virtual universes, absolute freedom and stuff about space would sound a lot like the "pre-Kickstarter" (Oh my God) pitch video for The Universe Project.
While John's more upset with it for repeatedly saying "was" instead of "were", the rest of us are perhaps happy to stare in rapt amazement/horror at the sheer absurdity of what's promised. All things to all people! All platforms ever! "Imagine what a video game will be like in 1000 years..." as illustrated by crude drawings of stick figures.
Er. So, to recap, that's creating a parallel virtual universe, in which all games and all activities are possible and exist simultaneously, and they're going to fund this project which apparently transcends all existent technology via Kickstarter rather than sell it to the government or Donald Trump or something. Maybe it's a spoof. Or maybe it's just going to be like Wurm Online.
Good luck, I guess? There's a very long FAQ offering more detail on The Universe Project's infinite ambitions here. More is promised here when the project's mysterious (though one's named 'Nik', I've established) but presumably superhuman creators launch their AAAARGH OH GOD NO STOP IT "pre-Kickstarter campaign".
Maybe they'll really pull it off. Maybe they've really got an incredible plan. But maybe they shouldn't promise a dozen moons on sticks made from unicorn horns before they have even a single thing to demonstrate how they can make their wild claims a reality, because it means they can only start on a back foot of suspicion and snark. It really is a very good idea for anyone to look at themselves in the mirror before they stride into a room and declare themselves Jesus.
As for what the game will really look like, we do have this screenshot to go on:
So I retract my earlier Wurm Online reference and substitute it with an Ultima Online one.
As a thought experiment, let's imagine how convincing the pitch video would be were it narrated by Wee Jimmy Krankie rather than Deep Voice Prophetic Trailer Man.
Fan-Dabi-Dozi.
Thanks to like every indie developer ever for sharing this on Twitter.