One of the best alternatives to Minecraft comes to Nintendo Switch, with a charming spin-off that’s not just for existing fans.
It’s always seemed odd that no major publisher has ever tried to copy the success of Minecraft. There have been plenty of indie clones, but the only thing that’s come close from a traditional games company is the low profile Lego Worlds. And now this. Whether you care anything about the Dragon Quest games is irrelevant, as this offers a substantially different experience to both its inspiration and its parent franchise. And it’s a game that works particularly well on the Switch.
What excited us most about this game, when it was originally released in late 2016, is that it’s by Kazuya Niinou, creator of Etrian Odyssey – which happens to be one of our favourites. Although we’re sure most Western gamers have probably never heard of it, or probably Dragon Quest for that matter. Even though the latter is the most popular role-playing series in Japan. But if you are a fan there is a story connection here to the very first game, since you play in an alternative version of its ending – where the evil Dragonlord and his monsters actually managed to win.
The unusually non-combative solution to this problem is to rebuild the land of Alefgard from scratch, mining resources and constructing buildings by hand. But although it is still a sandbox game, where you’re free to go and build whatever you want, there’s a properly structured story to follow and non-player characters to talk to and recruit. Plus, some of that ‘mining’ involves beating up classic Dragon Quest monsters and using their carcases to build your home.
Another clear distinction between Dragon Quest Builders and Minecraft is that this is purely a single-player experience. You’re cast as the arts and crafts equivalent of the chosen one, with the plot hinging on everyone else having forgotten how to create anything with their own hands. Which as demonic curses go is a new one on us. They’re all keen to learn though, and the initial hours have you building up your first village from nothing and having various characters come to move in and help.
Unlike Minecraft, you’re treated to some very specific tutorials, that show how for the most common materials you need venture only a little way out of town to mine ores from the ground or harvest the local vegetation for organic materials. As you can see, the entire world is constructed out of little Minecraft-esque cubes; leaving you free to make the minimum of environmental impact with your excavations or carve out a giant statute in the side of a mountain, depending on your preference.
Monsters are little more than a nuisance at first, but inevitably they end up being the source of some of the rarer items. The combat is real-time and reminiscent of the top down Zelda games, so nothing like traditional Dragon Quest games – or at least certainly not the first one. The stronger monsters are what encourage you to build a blacksmith and armoury, and from there new weapons and armour. Before long your village is not only teeming with people but a self-propagating factory for its own enlargement.
Dragon Quest Builders (NS) – the graphics are a bit blocky
All of this is hugely charming and enjoyable. Dragon Quest Builders is not a fast action game, but is instead meant as a counter to such things. You’re rarely in much danger, or under any time constraint, allowing you to take the game at your own pace and digress into building things that have no real benefit to the main story. There’s an old-fashioned playfulness to the game that manifests not just in its lack of pressure or hand-holding but in the Nintendo-esque dialogue that’s entirely PG-friendly but still has flashes of wry, knowing humour.
And unlike most construction games it doesn’t get bogged down in complications during the end game. The crafting elements do get increasingly complex, but at the same time villagers start to help with the busywork, preparing chests full of restoratives and defending the village if it’s attacked. As you gain experience it’s they, not you, that are levelling up and earning more perks and abilities, which is a neat reversal of the usual role-playing formula.
Architecture can be a thing of wonder, as perfectly exemplified by the likes of the Sistine Chapel and the Taj Mahal.
But it seems that the list of building wonders in the world is going to have to add another must-see spot to its roll call, as a team of Minecraft players have created a truly breath-taking sight in the digital world.
Working on a simple Minecraft map, a group of players, Octovon, have crafted not just a building but a whole city – and it’s kind of amazing.
The enormous, sprawling metropolis is even the more impressive given that its built on a map that measures 2000×2000 blocks – that and it took them eight months to build.
Working on a simple Minecraft map, a group of players, Octovon, have crafted not just a building but a whole city – and it’s kind of amazing (Credit: Timothy Chen)
And while the casual observer may just think that the city is just a facade, they’d be mistaken as Octovon have lovingly and painstakingly crafted custom interiors for each room on each floor of each building.
Now that’s what we call dedication (or obsession).
The city is fittingly called Octania, and features everything from skyscrapers to old-school apartments blocks. In fact, it’s a regular little melting pot, just like a real city.
What’s more, the images of Octovon’s work aren’t just screenshots, they’re epic renders done VFX artist Timothy Chen.
The feat is maybe not so surprising, however, when you find out that the collective are a bunch of (undoubtedly) talented architects, designers, and artists that just happen to love Minecraft.
More of the group’s work is available to view on their website.
If you’re a Minecraft Java player, you can now test the upcoming features and additions included in the Update Aquatic expansion that includes throwable tridents, sea turtles, and much more.
The sea-themed update that revamps the game’s vast ocean biomes is one that’s been previewed before and was discussed in more detail by Mojang’s creative communications assistant Tom Stone. After starting by reminding Java players that they could download a snapshot of the Update Aquatic content, a snapshot being the Minecraft equivalent of a test server that includes new content and changes, Stone spoke with some of the other Mojang employees to share more details on the update.
One of the first topics that were discussed was sea turtles, an animal that’ll be added in the Update Aquatic and has been improved since first being announced.
“They’re also bigger,” said Mojang’s Agnes Larsson. “Sea turtles are actually really big in real life and it felt like you should get the right feel. Now it’s actually a big turtle swimming around the ocean. It felt more majestic!”
Like other animals, players can corral the sea turtles into a certain area, preferably one with water and sand, and get them to reproduce. Sea turtles naturally love seagrass, another addition to the Update Aquatic, and will soon lay some cube-shaped eggs after mating.
“It will lay the eggs on its home beach,” Larsson continued. “You can move the eggs because the baby turtles that are hatched will also remember that position as their home beach.”
A much less adorable addition to Minecraft that’s also coming soon is the winged mob known as The Phantom, a mob that players voted on during Minecon. This flying green-eyed mob has some interesting spawn mechanics as well with the creature spawning after players have gone a certain length of time without sleeping.
“The Phantom spawns around players who haven’t slept for five in-game days, so it’s about an hour of gameplay,” said Mojang’s Jens Bergensten. “You have to be under the sky and it must be night for them to spawn. But they also spawn in The End in this snapshot, which I’m expecting… interesting feedback on!”
Update Aquatic for Minecraft does not yet have a release date.
Gamevice today announced the launch of a new Minecraft-themed controller bundle, which comes with a standard Gamevice controller, a Gamevice carrying case, and a code to download Minecraft on iOS.
For those unfamiliar with Gamevice, the company makes gaming controllers designed for the iPhone and the iPad. Gamevice controllers wrap around an iOS device, offering access to a d-pad, two joystick, and buttons to allow gamers to play iOS games with physical controls.
The Minecraft version of the Gamevice works with iPhone 6, 6s, 7, 7s, 8, and X models, along with Plus versions of those devices. At $89.95, the Minecraft bundle is $10 more expensive than the standard Gamevice controller, but the Minecraft iOS code is worth $6.99 and the carrying case is an added bonus.
“Minecraft is one of the greatest games of all time and playing Minecraft with Gamevice puts mobile players on equal ground with PC and console players. said Phillip Hyun, CEO, Gamevice. “Gamevice offers low latency and precision control, delivering a console quality experience to more than one thousand different games including Mojang’s masterpiece.”
The Gamevice controllers, Minecraft controller included, work with more than 1,000 iOS games, including several games that have been optimized for iPhone X.
For all its sci-fi sparkle and requisite fate-of-the-world stakes, the most salient aspects of Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther” may be the most basic: It is the first major superhero movie with an African protagonist; the first to star a majority black cast; and in Ryan Coogler (“Creed,” “Fruitvale Station”), the first to employ a black writer and director.
Those distinctions may add up to a public relations victory for the blockbuster factory responsible for “The Avengers” and the rest of the $13 billion Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s a mixed one — to count the film’s racial milestones is to acknowledge the homogeneity of its predecessors. (There have been 17, since we’re counting.)
As often happened in the comic books, however, the house that “Iron Man” built can ably dismantle the very norms it once codified. And in that sense, “Black Panther” may punctuate an emerging trend. It follows the mold-breaking work of James Gunn’s stylish “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies and Taika Waititi’s self-aware “Thor: Ragnarok,” suggesting — after 10 years of Tony Stark — that Marvel’s tolerance for risk might be growing along with its financial clout.
“Black Panther” is also, of course, a shrewd bet on the social and economic muscle of black filmgoers. Mr. Coogler’s film, based on an unsung 1960s creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, has inspired a level of anticipation that wildly exceeds the name recognition of its title character — owing, in part, to pent-up demand for a megabudget movie devoted to black life.
As with “Wonder Woman” last year, another movie that spoke to an underserved population at a moment of acute political anxiety, audiences have reacted with partisan fervor.
The morning after a red-carpet premiere in Hollywood last month that left Twitter swooning, the stars, director and producer of the film gathered for a spirited conversation about their role in challenging standard depictions of the African diaspora on screen.
Taking part in the discussion were Mr. Coogler; Chadwick Boseman, who plays T’Challa, a.k.a. Black Panther, king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda; Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia, a Wakandan spy and T’Challa’s love interest); Michael B. Jordan (Erik Killmonger, an African-American adversary of Black Panther’s); Danai Gurira (Okoye, Wakanda’s greatest warrior); and Kevin Feige, a producer of “Black Panther” and president of Marvel Studios. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
I read a funny tweet the other day that said this movie is basically reparations.
[Rolling laughter]
CHADWICK BOSEMAN I still want my reparations! I still want my reparations!
RYAN COOGLER [laughing] I think only reparations can be reparations.
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“I was like, ‘This is big.’ I had never been on a set with so many black people before.” — Lupita Nyong’oCredit Brinson+Banks for The New York Times
It’s silly, but is there a kernel of truth there for any of you? The idea that Disney and Marvel investing so much in a movie with a black cast and crew can count as something like restitution?
DANAI GURIRA What it does in such a beautiful way, to me, is it sets a precedent. We’ve read a lot of subtitles for German and Russian — we can read subtitles for African languages now. People can’t go back and say, “No, that’s going to be too hard, it’s Africa.” They can’t do that. And that is so thrilling to me.
MICHAEL B. JORDAN It couldn’t have been done on a bigger level. If Marvel is behind it, then it’s gotta be O.K. Moving forward, everybody’s going to start to have the courage to tell bold stories that people didn’t think were lucrative, didn’t think that anybody wanted to see. All of that, I feel, is getting ready to dissolve.
BOSEMAN It has to.
GURIRA No, it will.
COOGLER What I’ll say is, this is my second time working in the studio system, and they say it’s the studio system, but it’s really the people system. It’s who’s running the studio? How are they running it? When you look at Disney with [Tendo Nagenda, executive vice president for production at Walt Disney Studios, and Nate Moore, a producer at Marvel Studios and an executive producer of “Black Panther”], it’s a place that’s interested in representation, not just for the sake of representation, but representation because that’s what works, that’s what’s going to make quality stuff that the world is going to embrace, that’s what leads to success.
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“A lot of times, being [a black man] in Hollywood, when you get material you’ll read it and you’ll be like, ‘That’s not us.’” — Chadwick BosemanCredit Brinson+Banks for The New York Times
Kevin, there’s long been this idea in Hollywood that movies with black casts don’t perform well internationally. Does that end with “Black Panther”?
KEVIN FEIGE I certainly hope so. One thing I would always remind Ryan of when we would talk about humor and entertainment value in the film was that the biggest statement this movie can make is to be a success around the globe. And I think he’s delivered a movie that’s going to do that, and that disproves [beliefs] that had maybe never been true but had never been tested.
For the actors, what did joining this film mean to you and how did it feel different from other movies you’ve done?
BOSEMAN I’ve done other films that have had historic significance because of what has happened in the past, but this not only refers to the past, it sets the stage for where we’re going.
GURIRA I’ve had a passion for telling African stories for a really long time, being American-born and Zimbabwe-raised. That biculturalism is something that I try to address in my work as a playwright [her 2016 drama “Eclipsed” was nominated for a Tony for best play], but nothing can address it like a Marvel movie. I had a childlike glee after my meeting with Ryan — I kind of floated around, found my car somehow. You think you’re alone in the struggle until you meet someone and then you think, “Oh wow, we’re all in it together? And y’all are doing this already? And I just have to be in it?” It was just so beautiful.
LUPITA NYONG’O Seeing it yesterday, I’m even more excited about the celebration of pan-Africanism, because this movie is really about a contemporary Africa relating very intimately with a contemporary America via the characters of Black Panther and Killmonger. We’re talking about some really deep issues that we don’t often voice but we all feel. [Ms. Nyong’o was born in Mexico to Kenyan parents and raised in Kenya.]
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“You think you’re alone in the struggle until you meet someone and then you think, ‘Oh wow, we’re all in it together?’” — Danai GuriraCredit Brinson+Banks for The New York Times
BOSEMAN A lot of times, being [a black man] in Hollywood, when you get material you’ll read it and you’ll be like, “That’s not us.” When I got the initial call from Kevin Feige, my hope was that they would have the courage to give Black Panther its true essence and put somebody behind it that would have my same passion for what it could be. And they did that.
On set, did you have that feeling of “This is important” or did you just try to do good work like normal?
COOGLER I learned a skill from playing football. I was a wide receiver — they throw you the ball, you can’t drop it. So I learned that you gotta tune everything else out.
If I get to set and there’s a hundred black people on the side of a waterfall and Lupita is dressed in this adornment and Danai is dressed in this adornment and they’re like, “Hey Ryan, do I stand here or here?” I can’t think, “Ah, this is amazing, I’m making ‘Black Panther’ and there’s all these black folks on screen!” I really gotta tell Danai that she needs to move over here, and I gotta tell her five reasons why she’s gotta move over here, because she’s gonna wanna know ’em! [Laughter]
But seriously, I grew up reading these comic books and watching all these movies. If I really thought about the fact that I’m making one of these things right now, with people I know and love, I would break down emotionally. I wouldn’t be no good to anybody.
NYONG’O A moment when I really felt a vibration was when we were shooting [the waterfall scene]. There were hundreds of extras and we were all in these traditional clothes and there were all the tribal colors and drumming, and between takes, the drummers started riffing to [Snoop Dogg’s] “Drop It Like It’s Hot.” The whole crowd started to go [sings the melody] and we were all dancing as Ryan figured things out below.
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“Moving forward, everybody’s going to start to have the courage to tell bold stories that people didn’t think were lucrative.” — Michael B. JordanCredit Brinson+Banks for The New York Times
In that moment, I was like, “This is big.” I had never been on a set with so many black people before and we were all so focused and I could feel a vibration in the air. We all felt so privileged to have an opportunity to be a part of this moment in history.
Michael, one of the interesting complexities of the film comes from Killmonger’s identity as an African-American, which contrasts against T’Challa’s African-ness. What did you want to bring to the character?
JORDAN Ryan [and I] started getting into the back story of where he came from and how his upbringing really affected his personality, his outlook, his rage, his agenda. We felt like we could show where Erik is coming from and make people feel why he is so angry, why he is so lost. He doesn’t know who he is, but he knows the answers are out there.
BOSEMAN For me, [Killmonger and T’Challa] are two sides of the same coin — African and African-American. As an African-American, if you’re disconnected from your ancestry and your past, you have this conflict that comes from that and so there is a healing experience that is possible because of that.
COOGLER The fracture that Killmonger has, that’s the fracture I lived with my whole life. I’m from a place that I’d never been to and that nobody who I loved had been to because they couldn’t afford to go [to Africa. Mr. Coogler grew up in Richmond in Northern California]. So I would hear stories from them about this place that they didn’t even know anything about, and those stories were a counterbalance to the awful things that we did hear about them.
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“The fracture that Killmonger has, that’s the fracture I lived with my whole life. I’m from a place that I’d never been to.” — Ryan CooglerCredit Brinson+Banks for The New York Times
In the movie, Wakanda disguises vast technological resources from the world, and white people who aren’t in the know refer to it dismissively as a primitive backwater. That’s a very real view that a lot of people hold about Africa, as recent comments attributed to the president made clear. What do you hope will be the effect of introducing audiences to this counternarrative about the continent?
COOGLER The narrative about the continent that we know is actually a fairly recent narrative, if you think about human history. It’s a narrative that was born out of what happened when the countries of Africa were conquered.
But the truth is that some of those places that people might refer to as backwaters — and these recent comments definitely aren’t the first time somebody has said something like that — were the cradle of civilization. They were the first places to do anything that we would consider to be civilized.
All the structures that we built in Wakanda, they’re taller structures of what you’ll find in Africa. Some of them we switched up — instead of mud we used [the fictional supermetal] vibranium — but those are buildings that you’ll really find in Mali, in Ethiopia, in Nigeria.
I spent about three weeks in Africa [doing research for “Black Panther”] and I truly felt that seeing it for myself was necessary for my growth as a human being. That experience made me not only capable [of writing] this film, but it made me whole as a person.
