
Even before struggling to create fire, the stars have been mankind’s biggest dream. Oh, to one day reach and explore them, finally find out what is behind that blanket of darkness and light that keeps us sleeping and, sometimes, awake, for hours every day. It is that same belief and dream about the stars that brought many developers to create a universe that could be freely and fully explored. That same belief animated Alessandro Ghignola, an Italian developer who, in 1996, began working on the first version of the space exploration simulator, Noctis. But, in reality, the work began much earlier.
Set in the Feltyrion galaxy – which is around 90 thousand light-years in radius – Noctis presents players with 78 billion stars to chart and explore, along with their accompanying planets, moons and other objects of interest. Each procedurally-generated world offers up its own climate, life forms and – most chillingly of all – ruined civilisations. The aim in Noctis isn't to 'win' as such; instead, players are expected to catalogue their findings as they explore the boundaries of the galaxy.
Speaking with Time Extension today, Ghignola reveals that he started toying on the Amiga with programs that would generate artificial landscapes. “Mercenary 2 was the big title which changed my perspective since that title had a huge solar system, I thought, I’ll go bigger and build a whole galaxy," he remembers.
Work on the first version of Noctis started on MS-DOS, with Ghignola building a galaxy bigger than the milky way, while keeping the experience a little over 2 MB. "There were many limitations and difficulties, especially since each segment of code could not go beyond 640k of memory," the programmer recalls. For each version, he tried to experiment with features to see if it would maintain a stable framerate, like the reflection of the pilot in the spaceship window.
Only three years later, in 2000, Ghignola finally released Noctis to the public. "No one noticed the game though; I had very few visits to my Geocities homepage." This was the case until Noctis was discovered by the classic "abandonware" website Home of the Underdogs. "That’s when I started having feedback from fans and speaking to them regularly; Noctis really came to life and started being its own thing." The community loved the sense of being alone in space, the desolation which came while staring into darkness and unknown worlds, but still being able to connect through early 2000s forums and chats.
This is also how one of the most unique features of Noctis, in its fourth version, came to be: the guide. "This is a little bit like an encyclopedia where players can note down the things they find exploring around on the planets: flora, fauna, sea, lakes," Ghignola says. "Despite being a community effort, it was not an online thing; instead, players emailed me their findings, and I would update the guide in each subsequent game’s version."
The guide would stop being updated only years later, in 2014, but by then, Ghignola had long stopped looking after Noctis. The game was instead being kept up to speed by its loving community, which had also released a version with bugfixes called Noctis IV CE (or NICE). A fifth version of Noctis had been in the works for many years, designed for 32-bit systems and with weather effects and new features.
For Noctis V, Alessandro had also developed his very own programming language, called L.in.oleum. "It was a low-level programming language, perfectly fine for me, but honestly not that great anyway. In the end, after four versions, I stopped updating it since there were so many better alternatives out there, such as Python. I thought, why bother? I could release the source code if anyone is interested, but lacking instructions, I believe no one would think the struggle was worth it."
But that’s not the only interactive experience he worked on, there are many that have yet to see the light. Among these, he mentions Crystal Pixels. "It was all about telling my dreams to a computer; you had a little spaceship called The Fly that you could use to land on little pixel planets. you would find objects on those planets, such as lamps or boards to write on. You could even record your own soundtrack on CD in-game, and then play it back during exploration." He also developed Avatar, an update of the original Rogue, but mostly featuring animals waving guns around. "Utter chaos," is how he describes it.
Reaching Ghignola was no easy feat, nor was phoning him up to talk. Still, he was pretty happy to talk about Noctis, despite describing himself as totally isolated. "I’m one step away from being a 'hikikomori', I barely interact with human beings these days," The programmer mentions that he lost interest and still does not have the willpower to go back to Noctis V. "I was hit by a huge depression in the '90s – in some way, I’m still recovering. These days I just draw comics; I only do things when I’m drawn by passion and, unfortunately, I feel nothing towards going back to programming."
Regarding his depression, things were so bad that in 2001 he refused a possible job at Insomniac. "This happened after I started doing bug reports for Spyro 2 and got in contact with Craig Stitt at Insomniac. I showed him an engine I was working on, and he invited me, mentioning the company could have a $6k job for me. I refused. I was having panic attacks even going to the next city; how could I ever transfer to California?" We contacted Craig Stitt, and he does remember something to that effect, even though he’s not sure about the job offer. "One thing is for sure: Spyro 2 definitely had a whole slew of bugs, so Alessandro had his hands full," comments Stitt.
While he doesn’t have regrets over the job, there is one thing Ghignola does regret: letting fans down. "I do remember promising several times that I would finish Noctis V and, still after all these years, I’ve never gone back. I’m sorry; I wish I had the strength to go back and finish what I started more than ten years ago."
Ghignola developed Noctis as a reflection of his dreams and exploring a desolate space, while being alone in the universe. Ironically, while now in the middle of his own (very real) isolation, Ghignola wonders how Noctis ended up bringing together people. "The community in Noctis found a way to connect even through isolation. In some way, out of my hands, Noctis became all about connecting with people, rather than escaping them, like I’ve been doing all my life."
Comments 5
This article really hits home, I spent so many hours on this game when I found it (on HOTU!) and I felt it had so much to see and felt so lived in and loved. I really really love this game, haven't touched it for years, am downloading NICE now and will have to figure out how to play again
From Noctis to Haven Call of the King's endgame ship journey of going to planets to find particular points on the planets to Star Wars Battlefront 3's space/ground transitions (being a loading screen on Elite Squadron) to No Man's Sky and Starfield.
It's been interesting looking at games get more and more focus on certain aspects in space travel. Of course you had Mass Effect with the ship and the ground but it was still a loading screen and two separate parts of the game to play as the ship, and as your character it isn't the same thing (not a bad thing I don't mind different game design elements like this but still there isn't really many games that have the seamless approach to them and the transition ones always impress me).
With a bit of Ratchet Crack in Time ship travel (like the Mass Effect example) that I wished in Rift Apart they continued (not expecting No Man's Sky or Starfield scale at all but for a small galaxy would have been nice and character transitions sure can be loading screens it won't make a lot of sense otherwise) but nope safeness and dropping that and weaker rift elements then Crack in Time and not improving dynamic possibilities than heavily scripted ones two gen later. Can wish but not pushing the hardware is sad to see.
Spyro 2 made me go huh you have low and high res versions of the homeworlds, and the flag changes. In Crack in Time I went huh you have the 3 states of the planets (aftermath, in-progress battle or plant the seed and jump back through to let the time of the vines pass, and finally the fixed reality).
Rift Apart ha we have Blizar go back and forth with a crystal that changes back and forth I mean sure but why not push it further not something Portal did in the Orange Box and Portal 2 on PS3/360 platter hard drives not an SDD marketing team! Yes things run faster but who cares. Sure Portal's scale is much smaller than the entire transition but I mean Spyro had portals with loading screens sure but at the same time Crack in Time did in in 2009 on PS3 what's the big jump there isn't it's the same thing done on 2 planets maybe 3 in that game compared to Rift Apart's what 1 I think? Wow how impressive. Not saying they need to have the same amount or more it's just hilariously a bit of a consistency then really doing anything insanely new it's just the same approach again, sure faster, sure maybe different tech/tweaks and so on but the result is the same or similar so who really cares.
Forced loading screen rifts for the intro level (no different to wow the buildings breaking in Tools of Destruction's first level wow, or the Nefarious City boss fight wow it's forced to go to the Monk level 'specific' area you can't escape from because it's not 100% there anyway so who really cares it's not exciting it's lazy and nothing I haven't seen before many areas end in games.
You check any racing game with cut off roads to no where that just end behind a corner you can't see. It could be the same thing in any game with small scale levels, you have open worlds with barriers and a bunch of dev scaled platforms or props or whatever (see the video showing that stuff in Horizon Zero Dawn, not surprised devs have leftovers all the time encase they need to access them to test the player character heights, tree assets or certain other things.
Check the Ratchet museums to see that kind of behind the scenes stuff or cut content) and not the whole level because why would they need to show the whole level that's a waste of resources and I know they wouldn't do it so why do it it isn't exciting I see through the tricks. Is the area brief yes but it's also invisible walls to block your access to the rest and you can't see that far in the distance to what is there anyways.
Alternate area rifts for platforming challenges (almost the same as Vexx had but without the sundial). Hmmmmmmmm not impressed with less dynamic rift switching boss fight or anything more interesting to control the rifts like Portal then well just a crystal aka as basic as the portal generators on the walls or the portal gun rotating before you pick it up.
Marvelous, this was new to me. Thanks
Great read, great interview! Thanks
Depression can be a huge Driver for Creativity, as dumb as it sounds.
As it is a very deep Emotion, it leads to express this in some Way and also brings on People to new Stuff, as the Mind wants to proceed from its current State.
The Voyage through an empty Space could be one of the Expressions, meanwhile all the Code is learned by the Hunger to proceed.
Could be, not must be.
But from what i hear about the Game, could be worth a Try.
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