Kickstarter

What’s the big idea?

Xulu exists to unlock the imagination and potential within all of us.  Xulu is a new kind of gaming, social and creation experience developed by the very players that inhabit it. It’s a shared environment where many genres of play, from high-end racing and team-based sports to casual gaming and free exploration can seamlessly co-exist.

At our core, we're people who love creating games, and have been developing game technology, simulators, and tools for a long time. One thing our experience has taught us is that oftentimes the best ideas come from people with little or no technical experience. So we wanted to create a system to tap into that and let anybody build the kind of games they want to play.

It starts on an Earth-like resort planet named Eidolon, just a short space/time jump away. Combining community, backstory, and user-creation, it will evolve into something much more.  We’re developing the core technology, tools, and an online destination to make this possible.

Who Are We?

We’re a small group with deep technical, entertainment, and social roots that has worked full-time on this project since late 2007. As pre-cursors to Xulu, we've founded software, robotics and media companies. 

Together, we previously developed a pioneering pre-broadband system and story-based virtual world with environments, characters and vehicles designed by artists from Star Wars and Fifth Element. We built dynamics models for vehicles like spacecraft, hovercraft, wheeled vehicles, airplanes, helicopters, and gliders. And within this context, we designed multi-player exploration, harvesting, high-action and table games. The assets and learning from this are integral parts of Xulu.

Technology Behind Xulu

Physics simulation is at the core of our experience, so things behave naturally and spontaneously. Not only does this make in-game interaction fun and keeps things fresh, but it also helps you connect to the dynamics of life.  We also believe that community forms a powerful “cloud”, and have architected a unique distributed system that can harness it.

We’ve developed a Venue Builder tool, along with a starting library of dynamics models of vehicles, mechanisms, and more that you can customize and drag-n-drop into place. We’ll bundle these components into genre-specific Creator Kits so you can quickly create working games, or mix and match them to invent your own type of play.

We’re evolving a WorldBuilder tool and APIs so professional developers can import, optimize, and sell things they independently develop like 3D models, animations, control devices, and software to extend the system.

How far along are you, and where will Kickstarters take things?

We’ve just opened alpha testing, and have the core system working.  With help from Kickstarters, we plan to move to beta late this year.

We’ll release a small region in the Eidolon world with a completed seed games to get things started, along with an evolved Venue Builder tool and libraries to create and share your own games. The initial line-up of things you can play and create will include off-roading and stunt driving, racing, gladiators (ATV-based capture-the-flag), scavenger hunts, sightseeing, first avatar-based casual games, and places for socializing and group lounging.

Passage to play in Eidolon is free, and everyone will be given a playful bot to start, along with an ATV and bubblecraft (flying vehicle) to cruise around and play games. They're all customizable so you can personalize each to your liking (although early customization features are limited).

Funds will be used to complete and polish the launch infrastructure, tools and see content for our beta launch.  We'll add venue (game) publishing, browsing, instancing and voting, along with in-world customization and multi-player creation. And tapping into your guidance for what's most important first, we'll add more game genres and building components, new vehicles, improved avatars, pets, and other features.

What’s next?

We’ll continue to expand the world and introduce new environments, game genres, vehicles, robots, creatures, human-like avatars, gameplay components, customization features, and related Creator Kits. We’re PC-based (DirectX10) to start, but have our sights on multiple platforms.  Additional funds will help us get there faster.

We think we're onto something new, and hope you'll join us!