Will Wright, the creative mastermind behind SimCity, The Sims and a whole host of other games with “Sim” in the titles, has revealed his latest project, and it’s a blockchain game with a blockchain look set in a cube world.
In a video posted on October 20 to the Gala Games YouTube channel, Wright discusses the concept behind VOXverse, a collaboration between his own studio and Gala Games.
Gala Games has become known for its NFT-based VOX games, but Wright indicates that he is focusing on the free-to-play market. Speaking to Axios Gaming, Wright said “I’m much more interested in attracting a million free-to-play players than, you know, 10,000 rich whales, even if we could use those rich whales.”
In keeping with Gala Games’ own style, the VOXverse world will be shaped like a cube, with each side containing different resources and representing a different environment – jungle, desert, mountain, sea/island, and the top, which will contain the game’s central city . As for the sixth page, Wright joked, “We’re not talking about the underside.”
Each of the cube’s sides, which measure about four miles wide, will have their own cities and themes, such as medieval, western and horror motifs. However, Wright said that players will largely be responsible for shaping the world with their creations through the use of a simple building tool called Shape Grammar, which will “mutate” different blueprints to show players the variations it can produce. These variants will in turn have their own mutations, and so on. “And then just with several clicks I can design a very unique structure, vehicle, couch, coffee cup, whatever,” he explained.
VOXverse will also include a social network, where you can build your relationships on a pair of sliding scales with each character – strong to weak and good to bad. Cumulatively, these relationships will fall into the four reputation categories of liked, trusted, feared, and known, which can serve as archetypes for the types of characters people want to play.
Players of Gala Games’ other VOX titles will be able to transfer resources into the VOXverse, and they will also be able to get in-game jobs, such as plumber, reptile wrangler, or delivery drone, which they will continue to perform as NPCs when they go offline . Players will be able to create their own businesses in the game and hire other players for their companies.
While the world will appeal to former VOX owners, Wright also wants to invite more casual players to experience his game as well, saying, “We really want to invite you in, you know, to help us build this world, because that’s what happens to make it really cool and interesting.”
