I am desperate for more forbidden knowledge of the flesh. I must study the ligaments and tissues, I must master the arteries and bone, so that I may see through one thousand eyes and think with one thousand minds.

Zach gave us X'BPGH so that we may learn it, and teach others, and go forth and bring this prophesied world into being. Kickstarter, Steam workshop, it matters not as long as X'BPGH achieves its undying glory.

Originally posted by Taehl:

I don't know about you, but X'BPGH left me hungry for more. Unfortunately, Zach won't be making any more games, AFAIK. So my question to you is this:
How would you feel about a fan-made sequel, or a looser spiritual successor? Is Zach the only one who should be allowed to make more X'BPGH?

In legal terms, you can't copy the assets or branding but you can copy the mechanics. I say go for it - zachlikes are a genre now, if you won't give it a shot someone else will (and potentially not quite as good).

Right. I'm not talking about copying assets without permission. Though it would be pretty cool if we got to use a few little bits (eg. the font for the forbidden language) with Zach's blessing, IMHO.

I was more thinking along the lines of expanding on the story and mechanics. And maybe change the puzzle select screen into something that can show off those fancy biopunk worlds instead of only letting you see them in cutscenes...

OP have you played Scorn?

@Stellar Haven't played Scorn yet, but I've seen videos of it and checked out the art book. In fact, those purple ascended creatures gave me an idea for what might be a really neat new cell type:

Ascended cell: The final stage of Bone gets a new "ascend" instruction which causes a purple tendril to hatch from it; Ascended cells can grow into/over other cell types freely (but not empty spaces); besides growing up/down/left/right, Ascended cells get a special "revert" instruction which makes any cell they occupy de-evolve by one step.

Besides allowing for more intricate forms to be crafted, I think it would nicely match the "immortality" theme: A cell starts off, differentiates into bone, Ascended cell hatches from it and starts sending "revert" signals, and cells go back to their younger forms so they can differentiate again, and revert, and differentiate, back and forth potentially forever. That would essentially make it "immortal flesh", no? (Also explains why the first game didn't have Ascended cells - the player doesn't attain the immortal flesh until the end)

Imagine a horror/action/RPG like a fusion of Quake, cyberpunk2077, and bioshock, with a hacking mechanic, but this is the hacking mechanic. stat upgrades to increase amount of commands allowed, and increase number of frames to solve the puzzles.

rather than making it a zachlike, just make it a game with a minigame, and the minigame is a zachlike... specifically this one.

I like that idea too, @Terezi. I'm sick and tired of lame, unfun hacking minigames (and equally sick of that lockpicking minigame everyone copies from Oblivion). Give me a solid minigame that actually makes me use my brain and maybe I'll feel more like a hacker instead of a toddler, lol.

Personally, I would also be thrilled if something's hacking minigame was based on Exapunks, TIS-100, or SpaceChem...

Originally posted by Taehl:

Though it would be pretty cool if we got to use a few little bits (eg. the font for the forbidden language) with Zach's blessing, IMHO.

Try asking him directly at zach@zachtronics.com, maybe?

Originally posted by Terezi_pyrope:

Imagine a horror/action/RPG like a fusion of Quake, cyberpunk2077, and bioshock, with a hacking mechanic, but this is the hacking mechanic. stat upgrades to increase amount of commands allowed, and increase number of frames to solve the puzzles.

rather than making it a zachlike, just make it a game with a minigame, and the minigame is a zachlike... specifically this one.

I love the idea of biohacking like this! Would be a great fit for sci-fi body horror.

Originally posted by Taehl:

I like that idea too, @Terezi. I'm sick and tired of lame, unfun hacking minigames (and equally sick of that lockpicking minigame everyone copies from Oblivion). Give me a solid minigame that actually makes me use my brain and maybe I'll feel more like a hacker instead of a toddler, lol.

Personally, I would also be thrilled if something's hacking minigame was based on Exapunks, TIS-100, or SpaceChem...

That would mean that every single hack attempt in the game would take 2-4 hours and require reading a real world engineering manual or three.

I'd love to hear Zach's response on mods or expansions from him games into other standalone games after what happened with Notch :D let us know if he ever replies.