At the very start of 2012, Wolfram von Funck released a new gameplay video of his side project Cube World – a voxel-based RPG. Not much attention had been garnered in the months beforehand other than some buzz amongst the indie community, but, as if fate, the start of the new year marked the beginning of a lot of exposure for Wolfram and his small pet project. Since then, Wolfram or “Wollay”, as he is more commonly known, has risen to the ranks of indie developer superstar and Cube World has become one of the most talked about indie game titles so far this year.

Consequently, Mojang offered Wolfram a place in their company to make the games he wanted to make and with the support they can provide. Mojang’s most famous face, Markus “Notch” Persson tweeted that the plan was to plug Wolfram’s brain into a keyboard and sell whatever he comes out with. A few days later it was revealed that Wolfram had chosen to not join Mojang in the end. He told us the reason was simply that he wanted to have complete independence.

“There were no complications. They’ve got an awesome working atmosphere and I think it can’t get any better. I was very enthusiastic about the chance to work there, but I suddenly realized that I want the complete freedom to work on my own projects. That’s why I decided to stay independent and to work full-time on Cube World and Plasma.”

Wolfram persists to develop Cube World by himself then, winning the hearts of thousands of gamers with each update on his progress. Even at first glance it’s easy to see why Cube World has since been revered by gamers all over. The voxel-based game engine evokes a similarity with many other popular indie games, the adherence to RPG’s like the Zelda series constructs a sense of retro-inspired sentiment and the capacity for a community via multiplayer features warrants a further interest for many.

Naturally, we wanted to find out more behind the mysterious “Wollay” and his exciting new game and sought to do just that. Despite being an understandably busy time for Wolfram, he did manage to answer all of our questions and with such a humble tone too.

“I started programming on a DOS PC without internet at the age of 16,” Wolfram began. “Being a big fan of video games, I have focused on graphics and games programming right from the beginning. Later I studied Computer Science and also got a PhD – my thesis was about 3D deformations and animations.”

Now 33 years old, Wolfram says he has not stopped developing games and game engines since he first ignited that interest, one which soon became a long-term passion. Despite his obvious talent, Cube World is Wolfram’s first project that he will be releasing to the public. The spontaneity of interest at the beginning of the year came as a complete surprise to Wolfram, however, he has been quick to react to the sudden increase in followers and is making good progress, especially as he is the game’s sole creative input.

“Cube World started out as a small hobby project. I’m actually developing a vector graphics tool full-time but now that Cube World is so popular, I’m focusing more and more on it.”

The vector graphics tool just mentioned is Wolfram’s very own Picroma Plasma which is currently in its alpha state but you can already download and test it for free at picroma.com. It is with these self-made tools that Wolfram has carved Cube World; a fact that he considers very important when making a game that you can call your own and manipulate as you wish.

“In my opinion, good tools are the key to creating a good game. Creating your own editor has many advantages: you can add any features you need, you can define the file format and you have the same shading as in the game. My editor has basic features like a color picker, a palette and an unlimited undo/redo.”

Perhaps not too surprisingly, Cube World will be the first game that Wolfram will actually finish as his other projects are more akin to tech demos he told us. Why now then? Why suddenly, after all of these years, commit to making a game when your full-time job is going along fine and why is Cube World given the honor?

“The inspiration for having a procedurally generated voxel world is Minecraft. The idea is just brilliant and enables a single developer to create a complex game with lots of content.”

This seems to be the main draw for both Wolfram and those anticipating it – the voxels are not only a popular artstyle, they allow for a myriad of gameplay options to be crammed in to one single serving, as Wolfram continued to outline.

“The visual style is inspired by my favorite video games from the 16-bit era, like Legend of Zelda, Secret of Mana and Landstalker. Gameplay-wise I’m influenced by RPGs like World of Warcraft and Diablo. I love the item system and character progression of these games – it’s just addictive. I also like the action-based combat of Monster Hunter Tri where you have to fight huge bosses and your success depends mostly on your personal skill. I’m trying to get a similar gameplay for Cube World.”

There are obviously going to be, and already have been, many difficulties for a single man to inject this much content into just one game. When we brought up the idea that many RPG’s are determined by the strength of their story and the difficulty of inputting this into a procedurally generated world, it seemed to be an issue pushed to the back of Wolfram’s mind for now.

“I will probably create a large set of small sub-stories that you can randomly discover during the game. But the idea is still very vague and I haven’t planned anything concrete yet.”

We’re doubtful that Cube World would be affected by the inclusion or absence of a story too much. As it is, the gameplay is what has people interested and due to the abundance of sandbox-crafters out there nowadays, gamers are quite used to making up there own stories and finding other ways to keep themselves occupied. Fortunately, the rest of the content usually associated with RPG’s seems to have had a lot of thought put into it and will make it into Cube World in strength.

“In RPGs I love classes with individual gameplay. It’s just fun to re-roll a mage when you’ve played a warrior for a long time. So I plan to add classes to the game, each with a completely different gameplay and set of skills. Currently, I just have the warrior prototype which is a master of melee combat and heavy armor. Next I plan to add a mage-like class which can cast spells like fireballs and has other magic gimmicks. I’m also implementing an item system with stats, upgrading and crafting.”

All fears are then alleviated! Who needs a strong story providing the backbone of an RPG with such freedom at your disposal? One that allows potentially infinite exploration and goodies to find and collect everywhere. On top of this you will be able to bring your friends in to share the experience as everyone can host a multiplayer server in Cube World. While co-op play will probably be the game’s biggest selling point, a PvP mode will be added in the future for those times when the only way to settle who found that magical sword first is through battle! We continued to pursue details of what will be added to Cube World, it’s an impressive list!

“You’ll be able to build a house where you can store treasures and trophies and from where you can plan new adventures. The house can be extended during the game. There will be runestones which allow you to teleport from one part of the world to another. I plan to add tamable pets that will accompany you. I will add non-combat tasks like alchemy and archaeology. There will be different climates and landscape types too: deserts, jungles, ice lands etc. Different vegetatation will also be added.”

All this discussion in the future tense was making for great listening but we also wanted to know what Wolfram had been working on in these past months and of these efforts, which were his favorite features. His response did not disappoint.

“For me the random world generation is one of the most interesting parts. I could spend hours with just exploring the world and finding interesting landscapes. I’m also happy with the castles. They’re rather rare and it’s always exciting when you discover one. Another favorite aspect are bosses like trolls, giant crabs and lichs. However, I usually try to avoid them because they always own me. The 3D minimap is another feature that I like very much.”

Of course, the big question that players who have already been sold to the idea of Cube World want answered, is when will they be able to get their hands on it?! We think that those people will be very happy to know that it should be very soon!

“Currently my plan is to release a free tech demo and a paid alpha. I estimate a release before Summer 2012. I’ll first release a Windows version and then make a Mac port.”

More information on Cube World can be found over on Wolfram’s official blog.

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