Hey gang, today I want to direct your attention to this very interesting project that I am personally excited about and feel has a lot of potential:

As you can see, it’s a very impressive voxel, or ‘atom’-based 3D engine running smoothly on regular medium-spec hardware. The advantages and gameplay possibilities enabled by simulating the interior volume of the game world’s terrain and objects (as opposed to only the surfaces like in most games) should be clear to any fan of Cortex Command, Minecraft or Terraria – games entirely built around freely digging into and building with a world’s atomic matter of different materials.

As challenging as it has been for me to build a custom 2D physics engine to handle destructible atomic terrain in Cortex Command, I can appreciate the very promising progress that Branislav Síleš, sole author of the Atomontage Engine, has made on tackling the third dimension at such high (and variable) resolution! Check out this video where he shows off how the volumetric matter can be removed to expose hidden structures beneath:

Amazing stuff! This is still an early prototype with only a solo man working on it, but I would love to see this technology mature to a point where we could one day use it to develop a future sequel of Cortex Command (3D? ;)).. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to build an underground bunker in one of those gorgeous, procedural hills and defend it against enemy forces landing from orbit?!

If you’re feelin’ me, then I urge you to consider donating and supporting Branislav’s project here! It will improve the chances of him not having to take on outside investment in exchange for control/ownership of his project – something that probably would hurt the chances of a CC 3D happening. In other words: let’s help him stay indie!