After spending four years building Chicago out of virtual blocks, an 18-year-old from the north suburbs unveiled an intricate Minecraft map of downtown on Saturday.
The model lets users navigate Chicago’s Loop and areas just north of and west of the river, including the Wrigley Building, Willis Tower, Trump Tower, Millennium Park and Jeanne Gang’s Aqua.
Minecraft, which was first released to the public in 2009 and bought by Microsoft in 2014, is one of the best-selling video games ever, according to Time. Minecraft is a sandbox video game, which means it has no rules and it’s up to gamers to create their own experiences. It allows users to build and explore worlds where they can compete or work alone or together.
Zull said he first started working on the model in July 2013, though the work wasn’t continuous, and the project sometimes sat untouched for as long as a year.
He’s not the first to publicly release a Minecraft model of Chicago — another Reddit user posted one in 2015. But Zull’s is more than twice as detailed as that model, by scale.
“I started by making Mies van der Rohe‘s Federal Plaza and eventually worked my way outwards from there,” Zull said in an email. “All the buildings and streets were created directly within Minecraft. … All the design is done by measuring dimensions of buildings and streets in Google Maps and fitting them into the Minecraft world as proportionately and accurately as possible.”
He unveiled his Chicago map on Reddit Saturday and quickly gathered acclaim. But Redditors were also instantly curious about the project’s future and were quick to request additions. One user asked if Navy Pier and Lincoln Park would be built, while another asked about CTA lines.
Zull said the model is a work in progress and that he plans on building all of downtown.
“There may be a few tiny details or dimensions a little bit off, but everything down to the placement of streetlights and trees was done to recreate what I saw in Google Maps Street View as accurately as I could,” he wrote on Reddit.
A new texture pack is available for Minecraft‘s mobile and Windows 10 versions.
The Candy Texture Pack introduces a “dentist-weepingly high amount of sugar into your game.” It does so by replacing all textures with sweet treats. Really. Take a look at the image below to get an idea for what to expect.
Already available for the console versions of Minecraft, the Candy Texture Pack costs $3. Itcomes to the mobile and Windows 10 versions through the 1.03 update; the update is free, but the texture pack is not.
As outlined on Minecraft’s website, this update also adds localization support for Dutch and makes a variety of bug figures. For example, it fixes a crash scenario when a player enters a mutated biome. The patch also makes it so bats spawn more often, because who doesn’t want that to happen?
Minecraft 1.03:
New Features:
Added Candy texture pack
Added Dutch localization
Tweaks:
Fixed some spacing when truncating bolded text.
Tweaked spawn point selection to be “smarter” (e.g. avoid lava).
Tweaked the textures of flower/mushroom blocks.
Assorted texture fixes.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed a crash when a server/Realm would first start.
Fixed an issue causing servers to blink between online and offline status
Fixed a Realms crash when a player exits
Fixed a crash when using some items
Fixed a server crash when a player entered a mutated biome
Fixed an issue that caused pressure plates, buttons, and other Redstone items to become stuck
Fixed an issue with hoppers not ticking the proper order
Fixed an issue when destroying a door
Fixed an issue with item duplication
Fixed an issue allowing a player to incorrectly obtain End Gateway blocks
Observer block’s arrows should now point in the direction of power
Observer blocks will no longer be placed upside-down
Fixed an issue where realms members that were not your friends were not being displayed
Bats should spawn more often!
Fixed an issue with End Gateway textures on mobile devices.
Fixed an issue where buttons & other redstone devices could get locked when a redstone lamp activated.
Fixed some rendering geometry which created weird results
A few days ago, we wrote a story about the latest update to Minecraft: Pocket Edition [$6.99] that added only a new texture pack, and the commenter Klonis asked for trading to be implemented in the future. Well, apparently the developers listened to him because the new MCPE beta has gone live on Android, and it’s bringing villager trading to the game. For those who haven’t played the PC version of Minecraft and don’t know how villager trading works, when you initiate trade with one of the villagers, you get to a trade window that shows you what the villager is asking for and what he’s offering. For instance, one might give you an emerald if you give him ten leather and so on. Villagers have trades, so you’ll be getting different material depending on what they’re into.
In addition to trading, update 1.0.4 will add a new Add-On format that will automatically update all Add-Ons, which should make things simpler. In addition, the models for the Shulker and Ender Dragon will be editable, Husks will be taller than Zombies, and Baby Villagers will have larger, more adorable heads. If you’re on Android, you can join the beta, and as for iOS players, patience is the word.
“Minecraft” is an incredible game. It’s basically virtual Legos, and you can play it with dozens of friends. And sometimes, friends who play “Minecraft” together become people who create something magical in “Minecraft” together.
Such is the case with “Pokémon Cobalt and Amethyst,” a “60- to 80-hour” Pokémon game built entirely within “Minecraft.” For real! Just look at this:
YouTube
We’re talking about the good stuff: finding, battling, and capturing Pokémon — and then battling other Pokémon with the ones you’ve enslaved. There’s a full story, various locales to explore, and much more. Better yet, it’s entirely free! All you need is a copy of “Minecraft” on PC or Mac, and about 15 minutes.
“Minecraft” is this generation’s Super Mario. It’s an international phenomenon. Unless you’ve been living on the moon, you probably already know these things.
It’s on computers, phones, tablets, and game consoles. It’s at your local mall, occupying kiosks with plushies and T-shirts. There’s a semiannual convention (“MineCon”) and an education initiative that’s got it in schools (MinecraftEDU).
But why is it so popular? We’re talking about a game that looks like this:
Microsoft
Keep in mind that there are games coming out on modern video game consoles that look like this:
Quantic Dream
And what do you actually do in “Minecraft?” Build stuff? Perhaps you’ve seen some of the incredible worlds people have created from within “Minecraft,” like this one of King’s Landing from “Game of Thrones”:
YouTube
Not bad! So how does a world go from a flat, grassy meadow to a pixelated re-creation of Westeros’ capital city? The answer to that question is half of the reason people love “Minecraft”: creation. The castles above were built block-by-block.
It’s a system for fitting pieces together to create something — sometimes amazing somethings — from nothing. “Minecraft” provides endless building blocks and a blank canvas. It’s up to you to create something incredible, or silly, or referential, or whatever, using the tools it provides. The tools are blessedly user-friendly, as are the systems for employing those tools.
The most basic unit of measurement is a single block. This is a dirt block:
Microsoft
This is the literal and figurative building block of the game. You start with nothing but fists and a massive, unexplored world, ripe for creation. You walk forward; you punch the ground below you and it begins to crack. Why is it cracking? And suddenly, POP! Where the ground once was is now an empty, square space. It looks like this:
The word “minecraft” is a portmanteau of two verbs: to mine and to craft. Punching a dirt block and retrieving a dirt block to build with is the first verb — the mining. When you start “Minecraft,” it’s the first thing you should do.
Once you’ve retrieved enough blocks, the second thing you’ll need to do is craft: combine the resources you’ve mined to create more complex tools. “Mining” for wood (punching a tree) enables you to create basic tools. Those basic tools enable you to mine more complex resources, which enable you to create more complex items and tools.
It’s this highly satisfying cycle of mining resources and creating from those resources that draws in millions of players around the world. And that’s the most basic level of “Minecraft.”
The other side of “Minecraft,” sadly not encompassed in the game’s title, is exploration. Every time you start a new world in “Minecraft,” it’s unique. That is, levels are randomly generated based on a set of parameters. There are some constants:
The levels always contain the same materials (dirt, trees, water, etc.)
There is a day/night cycle
At night, enemies appear and will attack you
You can only dig so deep below the world’s surface before hitting bedrock
The world that spawns always has stuff to discover, whether it’s crazy jungles or mountains or underground caves or whatever
Yes, there are enemies. You’ve almost certainly seen the iconic “Creeper” at your local Hot Topic. This guy (or lady?):
Microsoft
These green, exploding monsters are exclusive to the “Survival” mode of “Minecraft” — if you just want to create ad infinitum, there’s a “Creation” mode that enables exactly that. No day/night cycle. No enemies. No mining if you don’t want to mine. Just endless creation.
But be warned: If you don’t choose “Survival” mode, you’ll never experience the joy of discovering a labyrinthine cave network by accident, full of rare resources (diamonds!) and life-threatening lava. You’ll never know the thrill of narrowly escaping a mob of spiders, zombies, and Creepers into the ramshackle hut you’ve composed just in time to hide for the night. You’ll never know the heartbreak of a Creeper sneaking up and exploding the side of your carefully constructed homage to John Travolta’s face. Up your nose with a rubber hose, Creeper.
So forget all the hype. Forget the billions Microsoft spent buying “Minecraft” from its creator, Markus “Notch” Persson and his team at Mojang.
“Minecraft” is so incredibly successful and popular because it’s delightful. It’s relaxing. It’s joyful. It’s goofy. It’s an amazing interactive canvas to build anything you want.
Yeah, you’re “just punching blocks and placing them in different combinations.” And here’s a re-creation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous “Fallingwater” home:
You can play “Minecraft” online with friends, with strangers, or all by your lonesome. Some of the more complex worlds were created by whole teams of people working for months. Westeros wasn’t built in a day, you know!
Personally, I prefer the relaxing experience of playing it alone while listening to podcasts. The game’s music is a mix of soft, atmospheric melodies that can be easily kept at low volume, leaving me to concentrate on the project at hand.
Unlike so many other games, “Minecraft” enables an outlet for artistic expression — however shallow — that makes time spent in its worlds feel meaningful.
