Notch drops 0x10c to work on smaller projects

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson has had his fill of creating huge, open games. The founder of Mojang revealed last week that he will no longer work on space sim 0x10c.

The project was put "on ice" earlier this year. Notch wrote on his blog that tremendous expectations from fans worldwide sapped his creative drive: something he didn't have to worry about before Minecraft made him into a near-instant video game celebrity.

He didn't leave development entirely, he just began making less-huge games--like 7 Day FPS project Shambles.

"I want to do smaller games that can fail," Notch wrote. "I want to experiment and develop and think and tinker and tweak. So that’s what I’m going to do."

The spacefaring dream of 0x10c isn't over entirely, however. Notch said he's looking forward to a fan-made project called Project Trillek which intends to continue (in spirit, not code) where he left off.