About the game
Minecraft was created by Markus Persson. It's been under development since about May 10, 2009.
Not So Seecret Saturday is a project that seeks to continue Minecraft from the way it was on
September 23rd, 2010, following an alternative development plan and vision from what Minecraft
became. It aims to ultimately create a better Minecraft than Minecraft.
Origins
I started NSSS after playing Minecraft Alpha 1.1.2_01 for several years on a singleplayer world.
I realized that nostalgia was not a suitable explanation for why Alpha was so fun,
and decided to take a swing at forking the game for myself to see how much I could polish the experience.
I had recently graduated High School, and as I had taken a class on Java during my Junior year I was
fairly comfortable diving straight in to the codebase. I asked my friend Vulpovile if he'd like to help me
out - the first feature we added was working sponges.
These factors led to NSSS.
Development and philosophy
Waterfall is dead, agile is dead, long live VALVe time!
Most of the 'big' features that get added each NSSS update are things that have been bouncing around in my head
for months, if not years. Smaller things may get added or tweaked on a whim, but the larger swathes of content
are put through rigorous iteration and playtesting before full release.
I play NSSS as my primary form of Minecraft - as such I'm experiencing all of my own design decisions
firsthand, which helps in preventing me from too much W.I.B.C.I. development. Starting with 1.1.11,
each major release of NSSS is put through a strenuous closed playtesting period before being labeled as "complete".
I don't want NSSS to become a sandbox. I want to expound on the emergent gameplay mechanics and challenges already extant in Alpha, and to add new ones where I believe they complement the rest. To quote Notch:
I strongly believe that all good stories have a conflict, and that all good games tell a good story regardless of if it's pre-written or emergent. Free building mode is fine and dandy, but for many people it will ultimately become boring once you've got it figured out. It's like playing a first person shooter in god mode, or giving yourself infinite funds in a strategy game.. a lack of challenge kills the fun.
For survival mode, I'd rather make the game too difficult than too easy. That also means I'm going to have to include some way of winning the game (or some other climax) to prevent it becoming too exhausting.
But if it's no fun, I'll redesign.
The future
I plan on developing NSSS as long as there is something about it I want to change. As the past indicates, that may mean 'forever'.
NSSS will never require payment. Patrons get access to some goofy cosmetic features as a bonus, but anyone with a Java decompiler could just as easily give themselves a cape or particles or whatever. Nor will I allow people to use NSSS to pirate Minecraft. If you don't have a legit copy, then you can't play. Them's the rules.
NSSS is 'ajar-source'. The public cannot freely access our source repo (as doing so would be legally icky), but decompiling the fork is trivial and the code is largely deobfuscated - Modders welcome!