Miniature Multiverse

What's Miniature Multiverse?

Miniature Multiverse is a first-person, panoramic-interface, graphic puzzle/adventure game in development, using 360-degree photography taken inside imaginatively detailed, beautiful miniature-art environments. Within this game, you'll explore a wide range of fantastical and intriguing places, solve a variety of (creative, varied, but relatively easy) puzzles, experience ambient sound and animation bringing the illusion of fully realized worlds to life, and unearth a mysterious story of the 'endless explorer' and the truth behind the 25 realms.

'Miniature Multiverse' began as a creative concept of indie artist and ' Triumphant Artists Web Network' founder Matthew Lyles Hornbostel, in 2010 and has been in intermittent development since that time, including an unsuccessful Kickstarter circa 2011 and various dead ends before the problem of HD 360-degree image capture inside a bunch of sprawling miniature sets was solved more efficiently, and increased progress in other areas was acheived as well.

I've accelerated development beginning around 2017 and despite some attempts to complete things faster, realistically may still be almost a year away from a worthy release, with the 'Miniature Multiverse Extras Pack' (with artbook and other exclusive stuff) now most likely expected to be launching around early January 2020 and the full release of the game around February 2020. The Extras Pack will give you far more inside information on the creative process behind this game than I can fit here in this webpage!

But a target of early 2020's simply a guess; this could take less time if things go well and more if not. (The game will be submitted to Steam, then Itch.IO, at the time of release.) I've spent over $1150 of my own cash on this project since the effort began in 2010, including a ton of miniature supply stuff and also a few shaders/audio assets, PlayMaker for Unity, and some camera gear. That figure does not include the hundreds of hours of unpaid work involved. I'm really hoping this takes off a bit as I have poured a vast amount of labor into it. I had attempted to raise funding through sales of unrelated items on Matthornb.itch.io and eBay but these late-2018 sales were largely disappointments and wound up actually slowing, not accelerating, development of this game. My best estimate is that another $350-400 must still be raised somehow to complete the project, and unless there's an uptick in sales of my stock 3d assets, video clips and texture pack items for digital artists on itch.io or original paintings/handmade art on eBay , or some other creative products I'm selling like DVDs of the stock media, or the soon-to-launch art ebooks/physical printed artbooks, it may still be a while before that works out. As a solo developer, there's a ton of work involved too even after the funds are in place for raw materials needed to scratchbuild the last few gameworlds. And there are other priorities in 2019 competing for my attention as this is not the only project I've got in development. My most recent HornbostelProductions.com blog entry covers this situation in a brutally honest way. If you're interested in helping me turn things around and get more of my projects completed in the next 2-3 years instead of 5-7, I'd appreciate you taking a moment to check out this list of easy ways to boost my productions. Some of these even can benefit you beyond the fact that they accelerate release of awesome free/cheap stuff online!

View the Miniature Multiverse Page on Itch.IO

Miniature Multiverse will become available for Windows, via Steam & Itch.IO with possibility of other release venues/platforms later on. I would give you all a promise of a Mac/Linux version but as I currently lack recent Mac OS X and Linux systems in my house to test that on I wouldn't be able to guarantee it'd work well on those target platforms! I think if the game sells in the range of at least a couple thousand copies after launch, both of those target platforms plus attempts to release this on additional storefronts (like the Humble Store, GOG.com, Windows Store, Mac App Store, Desura, Epic), then will become much more likely to materialize.