Its an interesting counter point to the expensive development mantra banded about. It will be good to follow the progress of this game to see what the developers can make out of the limited budget they have.

Wow, that's very interesting! I guess the free use of an engine would help a lot... are licensing fees for big name engines like UE3 very expensive?

Thats really cool, and what you say does make perfect sense.

@Khuutra: UE3 costs less than $1M for a 3 platform game IIRC, most of the fees are royalty based but there are different plans and you pay a set fee 'per platform'.  Im not sure whether or not Phyre engine has royalty fees based on platforms used or not at all.

Agreed,  thanks Squilliam!

I think Mars looks like fun.  I will be picking it up for sure!

@ Khuutra )

http://www.unrealtechnology.com/features.php?ref=terms

UE2 costs $350k "for one of the available platforms" and $50k " for each additional plattform"

pricing for UE3 hasn't been revealed, but I expect it to be 3-4times as much

Yeah, I read about that during GDC. There are a bunch of PSN games being developed on the Phyre Engine as well, and the ease of porting games using the engine to other platforms should make it a popular choice for small time developers.

They still have to buy the SDK right? Or do they get the whole thing free?

I think I read that the SDK was free...