Noctis

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Noctis is a freeware space flight simulator created by Italian private programmer Alessandro Ghignola (aka "Alex") using C++. Noctis development began in 1996, and it is still being worked on today in its fifth incarnation. This new version (discussed below) is being written in Alex's own programming language, called Linoleum.

Panorama screenshot from the game

1 Object of the game
2 Current versions of Noctis
3 The future of Noctis
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Object of the game

Note: This section refers to fictional details as facts.

Noctis is a space simulation in which the player takes on the role of an explorer in a spacecraft called a Stardrifter. There is no set goal in the game except exploring a huge fictional galaxy and possibly cataloguing your findings. This involves travelling between stars, refueling near suitable stars, visiting the planets in solar systems and their moons, and even exploring the surfaces of worlds whose environments allow landing. Many planets feature atmospheres and weather. Some planets contain plants and animals, or even mysterious ruins. Stars, planets and moons can all be named and can have notes written about them (in a GUIDE, see below) for future reference, through an in-game interface which is actually rendered as a computer screen inside the Stardrifter.

The Stardrifter was left behind by a race of sentient cats known as Felysians who abandoned their home world many years ago for unknown reasons, leaving behind a fleet of Stardrifters. According to Alex, the Felysians were the only sentient beings in the Noctis galaxy, so there are none to find in the Noctis game.

[edit] Current versions of Noctis

Noctis is a DOS-based program, and with that come some natural limitations of the DOS platform. The most obvious limits are the display resolution, which is fixed at 320 x 200, and an upper limit imposed on the walking distance from a planetary landing site. (This does not restrict your ability to explore the planet, because you can freely take off and land on a different part of the planet.) These limitations do not apply to the Noctis galaxy because it contains over 78 billion stars, most of which host many planets and moons orbiting them.

The current version of the game is called Noctis IV. In the release of Noctis IV, Alex included a facility to have planet names and notes sent back to him and then compiled into a central database of information called the GUIDE. People playing the simulator ("explorers") could then share their findings with others, and a community of explorers soon developed (on the Noctis forums) around that, vying for discoveries like the system with the most planets or the biggest tree in the Noctis universe.

The game gained popularity in early 2000 after receiving a very favourable review in Home of the Underdogs's list of worthwhile free games. Noctis earned a score of 9.43 out of 10 as well as the site's "Top Dog" award. The reviewer noted amongst other things the magnitude of the galaxy to explore and the total size of the simulator, which weighs in at under one megabyte.

The source code for Noctis IV was released to the public in 2003, which has led to the creation of a fan-made "mod" to Noctis called Noctis IV CE (commonly abbreviated NICE). NICE includes bug fixes and additional features which increase the playability compared to Noctis IV. The terrain generation code has also been altered in the NICE version, which means that remarks made in the Noctis IV GUIDE are largely invalid for NICE.

[edit] The future of Noctis

This article or section contains information about an unreleased computer or video game.
It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature, and the content may change dramatically as more information becomes available.

A future version of Noctis, tentatively named Noctis V, which will remove the current restrictions, is currently under development. Development is taking longer than expected due to the fact that Linoleum (the programming language in which Noctis V is being written) had to grow as a language so that Alex could write Noctis V in it. To paraphrase the official Noctis webpage: Lino and Noctis have evolved together.

Not much is known for sure about Noctis V, but much of what is known about Noctis V is based on screenshots and details that Alex has revealed. It is known for sure that the rendering engine has been completely redone from scratch (which is why Alex is rewriting Noctis in a different language). Alex has also mentioned experimenting with weather and particle effects (possibly things like snow and dust storms).

There is no set release date for Noctis V, but Alex has repeatedly assured the Noctis community that he has not given up on the Noctis project, and has no intention of doing so.