Current status
I've stopped pretty much all development on WolkenWelten a while ago, I'll keep this site up as a sort of archive for anyone interested. There is another version that might still see some development, although the overall style has changed quite a bit. You can check out the new Web-based version over on GitHub, it's far from complete but sees some work every now and then. If you're interested you can check out what I'm up to these days on my Blog.
Greetings Cybersurfer, here you may find the newest release builds of the Free Software, LISP-Powered Voxel Sandbox called WolkenWelten (German for CloudWorlds).
Everything is licensed under the AGPLv3 and you can follow and hopefully join the development effort over on SourceHut or on GitHub.
As for myself, my name is Ben, the lead dev of this project and you can watch me work on this Game on my Twitch channel, I try to do more visually exciting features on stream but it is still just me coding away, so be prepared for that.
To find other people to play with and/or smalltalk about LISP be sure to join our Discord or Matrix communities.
Game Screenshots
Download WolkenWelten
Stable Release:
Development Release:
Play in Browser:
More Screenshots
Key Features
- Mostly written in C99 for excellent performance
- Runs at (close to) 60FPS on an unmodified Raspberry PI 400
- Contains a custom implementation of LISP (nujel) for in-game scripting
- Lets you use a grappling hook to swing around those procedurally generated islands
- Fits on a standard 1.44MB Floppy Disk - incredibly lightweight
- Multiplayer with up to 32 players (might break before that, only tested up to 5)
- Has a nice fire simulation system that lets you unleash your inner pyromaniac
- Can run in your browser, even the one on your phone!
A lot is still planned for this game, but since those are still not complete or guaranteed to be in later versions of the game I do not want to spoil those that much, you can look into the various text files in the repo though to see some ideas. Since this game is developed without a fixed plan let me tell you about some priorities I have for this game:
Cooperation over Competition
Playing together as a group in a survival sandbox and fighting a common enemy have been some of the most enjoyable experiences I had in gaming, that is why I want to put most of my time into optimizing for this style instead of players competing with each other (apart from that there are already a lot of competitive shooters out there).
Exploration over Grinding
I try to keep the grinding to a minimum, which is one of the reasons why I do not want players to have to mine for resources, instead players should explore and/or fight to progress.
Gameplay over Beauty
Since computing power is set by the player's hardware I can only decide where to spend those cycles on, which will most likely be something enhancing gameplay.
Experimentation over Planning
I greatly prefer just experimenting around with features and see what is working and what is not, even if this means throwing out old working features.
World-centric instead of Player-centric
Most games focus solely on the player's actions where pretty much everything needs to be initiated by the player, here I want to try out to put the world in the center, where things might just happen without anybody noticing or having something to do with it. One thing I would love to reach would be for it to be an enjoyable experience to just sit in-game and watch the scenery and events unfold.
Performance over Bloat
Performance is quite important to me because there are a lot of people who only have cheap laptops/phones instead of big gaming desktops. This combined with the focus on cooperative multiplayer forces me to pay extra attention to Performance/Bloat so that everyone can join in, even if they don't have the money for a fancy gaming rig.
Game Controls
Mouse / Keyboard
W,S,A,D to move around the world.
Spacebar to jump, open your glider if mid-air, or pull in your grappling hook.
Shift to Boost.
E to shoot/retrieve your grappling hook.
Tab open/close inventory/crafting popup.
LMB to destroy a block.
Mousewheel or 1...0 to select an item.
RMB to use the current item.
R to reload.
V to loosen your grappling hook.
Q to drop the current item.
N to start flying around in no-clip mode.
M to toggle the debug overlay.
F1 to switch to First-Person view.
F3 to switch to Third-Person view.
F11 to toggle Fullscreen mode.
`F12 toggle LISP REPL.
Gamepad
The layout is based on an Xbox360 controller, if you have a different controller it might differ but should be in a similar physical location.
Use the left analog stick to walk around and the right analog stick to look around. Use the D-Pad to select the active item. A for jumping and Y for dropping items. Use the left shoulder trigger for activating the current item and the right one for destroying blocks, the right shoulder button shoots the grappling hook. To open the Inventory press the left Menu button, most probably labeled "Back".
Touchscreen
These controls are really nasty and you should try to get another input device somehow!
Put your thumb on the lower left corner of the screen to move around, in the lower right corner is a zone for looking around. The upper area of the screen is separated into 4 zones used for dropping items, jumping, activating items and destroying blocks. You might wonder how you might select an item, you can't right now ;) Improved touchscreen controls will have to wait until a later time, the current controls were mostly done as a proof of concept.