The Game

Exploration

a planet, a butterfly, and some microbes

Pinhole Universe is a single-player game of exploration, curiosity, and fascination. If you enjoy walking along a beach, looking under stones, that is the sort of experience we aim to create. Your universe is held at a moment in time, which you can investigate in intricate detail. There are few explicit goals, and no time pressure.

Infinite Zoom

Your ship can zoom in on anything, any amount. Zoom out until stars are like dust, or in so far that a microbe is a whole world.

Variety

Our unique graphics approach allows for beautiful, smooth-edged objects of enormous variety and detail. Although generated by code, it has a relatable, human touch.

Collection

Find and save interesting objects. Build a unique collection that reflects your interests.

Teaser Video

This scene was built in-game, so it is a little bit of a gameplay video, too. The only slightly misleading aspect is the speed of it — some parts are sped up to keep the video short. Even after some much-needed optimization, the real game will probably not be quite this fast-paced. Otherwise, it's a decent (early) representation of the game!

Screenshots

close-up of a bee from the game, with striped hair patches and wing veins visible.
zoomed-in on the bee's foot claw, also overlaid wing veins, and some hairs on the leg, with dots of pollen. close-up of bee's fur, with pollen granules embedded in it blobs of snow intermingled with grass growing up between them space, with many small colored stars and some irregular nebulae/galaxies in the foreground Packed cells, cropped to some larger shape against a dark purple background. Varying cyan/green/brown coloration . A small orange 8-legged mite on a frond-y background. A blue insectoid head, showing shell details, eyes, hairs, mouthparts. closer view of pollen granules, each having some holes/dots/indents visible grass strands background with large snowflakes in view, each one different a brown/orange cat, with its tail raised, and some snowflakes in the foreground close-up of cat-near-flower, with a whisker and hairs with some finer structure visible close-up of dense cat hair
A taste of some of the variety and depth towards which we're working.

Roadmap (lite)

V0

About a year out — this is an "early release" initial version. Not fully polished, and not a full game, but all the essentials in place. For Windows and Linux.

  • A colorful universe to explore, in infinite detail.
  • Zoom from a galactic scale down through planets, rocks, microbes, crystals, atoms, and beyond.
  • Find special rare objects and locations (Cat Planet!)

V1

Next, we turn V0 into a real game.

  • More of everything!
  • Progression — gather knowledge, upgrade your ship, work towards the ultimate Goal.
  • A Curiosity Cabinet for your collection.
  • Achievements
  • and more...

And Beyond...

We have a plethora of ideas to expand this project. More depth, more breadth, more weirdness. However, the sales of V0 and V1 will be a big factor in how much and how quickly we can expand the game.

Even if it's a flop financially, it has already been a wonderful experience getting this far. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity.


Stay in touch

Our low-volume, no-ads announcement list:

Links for social media whatnot on our contact page.



System Check

See if the game will run on your system by downloading the System Check tool.