Minecraft is a sandbox video game originally created by Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson and later developed and published by Mojang. (Photo : Facebook/ Mojang)
Mojang has finally revealed the latest snapshot update for Minecraft with new items and features across the PC, Xbox, Wii U and PlayStation 4 including the PS Vita.
The new version now includes new mobs, items and even a new procedurally generated dungeon called the Woodland Mansions. Players now have more to hunt, explore and to build as one of the world’s most popular games still grow several years after it has been released.
Minecraft now has more DLC support with new blocks and items thanks to the update 1.36, PlayStation LifeStyle has learned. Some of the new blocks include the End Bricks, Grass Path, Magma, Nether Wart Block, Bone Block and more.
Some of the new items include the Beetroot and the new Shulker box that can be built thanks to the new Shulker Husks from the previous versions. The new item improves the current storage options of the player so they can loot more without having to worry about where they can place their items.
Mojang’s new Chinese Mythology Mash-Up pack is also now available at $4.99. The players will be able to explore “epic terrain” and to see what China has in store in terms of myths and legends.
Besides the new DLC and items, Mojang is also including the new Woodland Mansion. The new procedurally generated Woodland Mansion dungeon includes more mobs and items to loot, Kotaku reported.
Players can now also buy exploration maps from Minecraft’s new cartographer village which show the location of the nearby Woodland Mansion or Ocean Monument. It would help the players find them faster instead of having to search aimlessly in the endless generated world of Minecraft.
Mojang’s procedural generation of dungeons seem to be improving and Minecraft players could expect to see more dungeons in the following updates. Unfortunately, the developers have not yet confirmed whether there will be new ones or what themes they have in mind for the dungeons.
Minecraft players can just update their game through the official launcher to see the changes for themselves. Multiplayer servers may need to reconfigure to accommodate all of the new features found in the new update.
For humans, choosing what action to do next to reach a goal can be pretty intuitive. But for a robot, making even simple decisions can be daunting. That’s why researchers at Brown University’s Humans to Robotics Lab are developing an algorithm to help robots better plan their actions in more realistic environments. And researches have found that video games, especially Minecraft, can help robots learn these important decision making skills.
This product forms the backbone of Mojang’s quest to change the world, one student at a time. And it’s a big piece of how Microsoft wants to make sure that Minecraft, which it got in the $2.5 billion acquisition of Mojang, sticks around for generations yet to come.
People already have the impression Minecraft is a fabulous tool for getting kids excited about learning to code. Quarnstrom says she understands that impression. After all, you play Minecraft on a computer, and “people equate computers with coding.”
But from Quarnstrom’s perspective, it could also be used to teach all kinds of other stuff — project management, architecture, design, or any number of other important skills. And it has the potential to totally change how kids learn.
“We see Minecraft as something that can be foundational to education,” she says.
Pink fuzzy buildings
The idea of educational video games stretches back decades: Lots of millennials have fond memories of playing games like Oregon Trail or Math Blaster during school hours. But those games were rarely used as part of a lesson plan.
But Minecraft: Education Edition is pitched as a major learning tool, the same way students might rely on Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
During the beta testing period, which spanned 35,000 students in 100 schools, teachers were using Minecraft to teach stuff like architecture by having a real-life architect come in, demonstrate what a brutalist building might look like, and then instantly cover it in pink fur to demonstrate how much materials matter.
Or, instead of assigning a shoebox diaroma of the First Thanksgiving, why not have the whole class work together to build a themed Minecraft world, and then act out the scene? Or build a scale model of the Taj Mahal as a class, assigning everybody a role in its construction? Microsoft will also be offering resources with suggestions for teachers.
Quarnstrom says Minecraft: Education Edition had 35,000 students in 100 schools using it during the beta testing phase.
Kids learn how to code with Minecraft at a Microsoft event.Donald Traill/ AP Images for Microsoft
Kids already know and love Minecraft, its world, and how to build to their heart’s content. That love translates into a much higher engagement with lessons run in the virtual world, Quarnstrom says, and leads to a more participatory, fun way to teach vital skills.
“That’s where the magic happens,” Quarnstrom says.
Schoolcraft
One big challenge, Quarnstrom says, is to make sure that the game stays fun, even when they’re supposed to be learning something. To that end, Minecraft’s signature crates of TNT make an appearance in Education Edition, just for fun. Teachers get tools to gather up students who may go walkabout during lessons, to balance.
It may be a little while before teachers are assigning Minecraft homework. But because the two versions are so similar, it encourages students to keep on experimenting with whatever they learned in class that day, while they’re playing Minecraft at home.
Another hurdle, Quarnstrom says, is getting in front of teachers in the first place. Selling software to schools is an arduous process: Different school districts have different rules for how they buy technology, for starters, making it kind of a minefield to sell at the necessary scales.
Minecraft: Education Edition includes teacher-focused features like a camera that lets you replay what a student just did for the rest of the class.Mojang/Microsoft
That’s where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft already has relationships with school districts all over the world thanks to Microsoft Office, giving Mojang and Minecraft a big foot in the door. Plus, students log in to Minecraft Education Edition with their Office 365 accounts, which means the kids’ accounts are up to Microsoft’s high bar for security.
Going forward, Quarnstrom sees Minecraft: Education Edition integrating with other Microsoft products like Skype, letting teachers do things like have special guest-lecturers in their Minecraft lessons.
In the shorter-term, though, Quarnstrom thinks Minecraft is primed to make a big impact in education. There are more tablets and laptops entering the classroom than ever before, she notes, and teachers are looking to find new ways to engage their students in this digital world.
“The world is ready for game-based learning,” Quarnstrom says.
Building items and designing towns is creatively and mechanically rewarding
Quest lines help introduce more complex systems
Hand-crafted worlds allow for unique challenges
Cons
Controls and camera are fiddly, especially indoors
Combat is basic and wonky
The world lies in ruins; you are the only one who can restore it to its former glory. It’s a cliche among cliches, and it’s one that Dragon Quest has reveled in since the series’ beginning. Dragon Quest Builders wants to do something a bit different, though. Rather than moving from city to city consuming items and destroying monsters, Builders actually wants you to create, to use your own two hands to craft your tools, rebuild towns, and cleanse the world of evil through the magic of building. Dragon Quest Builders positions itself as sort of an alternate sequel to the very first game in the series, set after its hero decides to strike a bargain with the Dragonlord to join him and rule the world with an iron fist. With the world destroyed, you awaken (after picking your gender, skin color, and name) in an underground cave, the only one in a desolate land who knows how to create. Over four chapters, you’ll travel to distant locales to rebuild villages, fight an absurd number of slimes and other Dragon Quest staple enemies, take on quests for new residents, and find the requisite items for the magic weapons you’ll need to take down each region’s boss. Its cartoonish look and story may appear simple, but it’s as charming and bubbly as any other game in the series, with well-written characters and the signature stylings of series artist Akira Toriyama. It’s pure Dragon Quest fanservice, complete with a soaring orchestral soundtrack by original series composer Koichi Sugiyama, though you don’t need to know a lick about the series to enjoy what it has to offer.
To describe its gameplay in the most simple terms, Dragon Quest Builders is a cross between survival and crafting games like Minecraft and action RPGs like The Legend of Zelda, combining the resource gathering of the former with the quest-based progression and combat of the latter. When you start, you’ll only have access to a handful of basic, wooden items, which break easily and can only deconstruct the simplest elements. As you help villagers with their requests – whether that’s fetching them a handful of a specific items, slaying monsters, or building and designing rooms to their specifications – you’ll gain access to new recipes, which in turn give you access to more items, tools, and materials. It may seem that its two halves – the boundless creativity offered by its crafting systems and its more rigid narrative and quest-based structure – would be at odds, but they actually complement each other incredibly well. Other than the occasional blueprint (which forces you to build a room to exacting specifications), you’re largely free to build each town however you like. The only requirements to designing a room are that it has a wall two squares high, a light source, and a door, and once a room is finished, you’ll be graded for your efforts. Different combinations of structures will create specific kinds of rooms, which add bonuses to your town, like allowing your villagers to cook food for you while you’re away, or grant them more health or stronger weapons in combat. It’s a fantastic convergence of structure and creativity, where the quests provide both impetus to explore and inspiration for building. There’s always something you’re required to do at a given time, and actually completing the tasks required of you provides tangible rewards you can use to improve the quality of your town. Those who want to explore Builders’ creative depths are encouraged to do so, as you’re given a wide variety of construction materials and decorations to really make each location your own. Or you can opt to make a purely utilitarian town with the bare minimum of essentials and focus solely on questing; Dragon Quest Builders is cool with that too. Occasionally, your town will come under attack by roving monsters, but for the most part, you’re allowed to approach Dragon Quest Builders on your own terms, as it caters to multiple styles of play without judgement. Its boundaries are more noticeably inflexible than games like Minecraft, but there’s still a lot of opportunity to make each location your own within its limitations. Actually building stuff, for the most part, is relatively painless, and even if you screw up, a couple of whacks will transform whatever you’ve placed back into a tiny version of that item which you can pick up and place again. But the most impressive thing is seeing your villages grow and blossom over time. When you first arrive in an area, you’ll maybe have a room to craft items and a basic bedroom with straw mattresses. By the time you’re finished, you’ll have a bustling town with a half-dozen other people milling about, each contributing in small but helpful ways. It feels really good to look back and see the progress you’ve made and the stuff you’ve built. In opting for this more guided, hand-crafted structure, Dragon Quest Builders is able to provide unique challenges you won’t find in other procedurally-generated games. By the end of chapter one, you’ve likely got a handle on how to build defensive structures and how to upgrade from wood to steel, to silver, and on. Once you step through the portal to the next chapter, though, your health, items, and equipment are reduced to the bare minimum once again, and the mineral-rich areas of chapter one give way to a desolate, poisoned wasteland, where even basic elements like wood are incredibly scarce. It’s a bit of a bummer to lose everything at first, until you realize that this new world now holds a wholly different set of challenges that force you out of your comfort zone because you simply don’t have the same materials available. Each chapter comes with its own set of unique environments and obstacles to overcome, and while the main quest is relatively straightforward, there are numerous side areas that require you to find keys or solve puzzles to access the rewards hidden within. If you’re looking for some more free-form creativity, the Terra Incognita mode is far closer to a typical Minecraft game, which dumps you into a map where you can create to your heart’s content without fear of monster attacks. You can access portals that take you to the worlds of the chapters you’ve cleared, so you can fight enemies and gain access to unique ingredients to customize your own personal world, and then share your creations with other players online. You won’t find a creation suite as deep as Minecraft’s, but you have enough tools at your disposal to create some impressive-looking structures, as long as you have the time and resources available to do so. While the building and exploration are well-implemented and fleshed-out, the same can’t be said for Builders’ combat, which is incredibly basic and ultimately kind of wonky. Most battles are little more than watching for enemy wind-up animations and trying to move out of the way while mashing the attack button and hoping your weapons don’t break mid-fight. There are the occasional town defense quests, which require you to fend off a few waves of attackers while utilizing the defenses you’ve built, but the moments where everything comes together (and the enemy AI cooperates with your traps) are relatively rare compared to how the rest of most encounters shake out. Ultimately, the action just isn’t all that deep and satisfying, especially when held up against its more rewarding crafting and town-building systems. Builders’ camera and controls will also fight against you occasionally, and usually at the most inopportune moments. Most of the time, they’re serviceable, but when you’re in the thick of combat or in confined spaces, you’ll likely long for more responsive and accurate controls and a camera that will actually show you what you need to see. God help you if you find yourself deep underground, as the camera pulls in so tight it’s practically impossible to see what’s going on. A simple first person mode (or even some more basic camera zoom controls) could have done a lot to mitigate these frustrations. But even with these issues, Dragon Quest Builders is easy to recommend. It may not be as deep as its genre contemporaries, but its mash-up of crafting, survival elements, and RPG questing set in the colorful, cartoony world of Dragon Quest is rewarding and breezy fun for players of all levels of creative ability. This game was reviewed on PS4.
“Microsoft Monday” takes a look back at the past week of news related to Microsoft. This week, “Microsoft Monday” includes details about Windows 10 hitting 400 million active machines, the Nokia 216, the first wet laboratory for cancer research, a $40 billion stock repurchase program, a renewable energy initiative, LinkedIn Learning and more!
Windows 10 Hits 400 Million Active Machines
Windows 10 / Image Credit: Microsoft
Microsoft has announced that it has hit 400 million active Windows 10 machines. That means that 50 million more Windows 10 devices were activated in the last three months. And Microsoft said that the adoption of Windows 10 is 115% faster than Windows 7. Microsoft has a goal of hitting 1 billion active machines by 2018.
Last week, Microsoft updated the OneDrive app for iOS with a new user interface and the ability to share links using work accounts. You will notice that the user interface is much more intuitive and there is more of a focus on files management. And OneDrive for iOS now allows users to share links to folders from work and school accounts. The app update also includes bug fixes and minor improvements.
Recommended by Forbes
Microsoft Nokia 216 Feature Phone Is Headed To India
Nokia 216 / Photo Credit: Microsoft
Microsoft unveiled the Nokia 216 feature phone last week, which could potentially be the last Nokia phone brand released under the Redmond giant. According to USA Today, the Nokia 216 specifications includes two SIM cards, two cameras with an LED flash, Bluetooth and an FM radio. The Nokia 216 is expected to launch in India on October 24th.
Earlier this year, Microsoft said its feature phone division would be sold to a Foxconn subsidiary. After the deal is completed, Nokia would be able to build and sell more phones independently from Microsoft. This deal is expected to be closed by the second half of the year.
Microsoft Opens First Wet Laboratory For Cancer Research
Microsoft wants to help “solve” cancer within the next decade by potentially learning how to reprogram diseased cells back to a healthy state, according to Telegraph UK. Earlier this summer, Microsoft opened its first wet laboratory — which includes engineers and biologists that are working on attacking cancer cells similar to the way viruses infect computers.
“I think it’s a very natural thing for Microsoft to be looking at because we have tremendous expertise in computer science and what is going on in cancer is a computational problem,” said Microsoft Research laboratory director Chris Bishop via Telegraph. “It’s not just an analogy, it’s a deep mathematical insight. Biology and computing are disciplines which seem like chalk and cheese but which have very deep connections on the most fundamental level.”
Microsoft researchers are also working on a computer made from DNA that could live inside cells to detect any irregularities in the system. This computer would even be able to reboot the system and clear the diseased cells.
Research head Andrew Philips told The Telegraph that the plans are long term, but it may be “technically possible” to put a smart molecular system that can detect diseases in five to ten years. Software that mimics the healthy behavior of cells has already been developed so it can be compared to diseased cells to determine how the problem occurred and how it can be fixed.
Gears of War 4 Trailer Has Been Released
Last week, Microsoft has released a full length trailer for Gears of War 4. The trailer is narrated John DiMaggio (voice of Marcus Fenix in the game). Gears of War 4 will be released on October 11th, but the price is unknown.
Gears of War 4 is also an Xbox Play Anywhere game so you can play it on the Xbox One and on Windows 10 PCs. And your game progress, Gamerscore and Achievements will be synced across both platforms.
Microsoft Board Authorizes $40 Billion Of Stock Repurchase
According to Bloomberg, Microsoft’s board of directors approved a $40 billion stock buyback program in addition to an already existing $40 billion stock repurchase program — which was announced in 2013. The existing $40 billion stock repurchase program is expected to conclude by the end of the year. Microsoft also increased its quarterly dividend by 8.3% to 39 cents a share. As of June 30th, Microsoft had $113.2 billion in cash and short-term investments.
Meet The Microsoft Xbox One S Minecraft Favorites Bundle
Xbox One S Minecraft Favorites Bundle / Photo Credit: Microsoft
Last week, Microsoft launched the Xbox One S Minecraft Favorites bundle. The cost of this bundle is $300 and it includes a 500GB Xbox One S, the new wireless controller, download codes for Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta and a 14-day Xbox Live Gold trial membership.
According to PCMag, the download codes for the Favorites Pack and Builder’s Pack are also included in the bundle. The Favorites Pack includes the Festive Mash-up Pack, Halo Mash-up, Fantasy Texture Pack, Natural Texture Pack, City Texture Pack, Battle & Beasts Skin Pack, and Battle & Beasts 2 Skin Pack. And the Builder’s Pack includes Biome Settlers Skin Pack, Cartoon Texture Pack, Candy Texture Pack, Plastic Texture Pack, Pattern Texture Pack, and the Greek Mythology Mash-up. The bundle has over 230 character skins, 3 texture packs and 7 mash-up packs.
Your Minecraft worlds can be transferred from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox One Edition. And those worlds can be made up to 16 times bigger. You can order the bundle from Amazon.comAMZN +0.48% and the Microsoft Store now. It is currently available in the U.S. and Canada. Microsoft will be rolling out the bundle to the U.K. and Europe on October 11th. And then it will be rolled out to Australia and New Zealand on November 1st. The rollout for Asia and Latin America is not yet known.
Microsoft Exec Says PS4 Pro 4.2 Teraflops Is Not Enough To Do True 4K
Microsoft’s senior director of product management and planning Albert Penello recently conducted an interview with Eurogamer where he said the 4.2 teraflops in the PS4 Pro is not enough to do true 4K.
“I think there are a lot of caveats they’re giving customers right now around 4K,” said Penello via Eurogamer. “They’re talking about checkerboard rendering and up-scaling and things like that. There are just a lot of asterisks in their marketing around 4K, which is interesting because when we thought about what spec we wanted for Scorpio, we were very clear we wanted developers to take their Xbox One engines and render them in native, true 4K. That was why we picked the number, that’s why we have the memory bandwidth we have, that’s why we have the teraflops we have, because it’s what we heard from game developers was required to achieve native 4K.”
Now Xbox Scorpio games will be rendered at native 4K. And the “majority” of PS4 Pro games will be upscaled to 4K. The PS4 Pro will be available for purchase in November for $400. And the Xbox Scorpio is launching during the holiday season next year for an unknown price.
Xbox Live Games With Gold For October
Last week, Microsoft announced the four Games with Gold for the month of October: two dedicated Xbox One titles and two through the Xbox One Backward Compatibility program.
“For Xbox One, October brings two exciting ID@Xbox titles to Games with Gold with the hit (literally) title Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings and the insanely popular release from Team17, The Escapists. On the Xbox 360 (and Xbox One through Backward Compatibility), Xbox Live Gold members start the month with the post-apocalyptic thriller I Am Alive, and then follow that with some hardcore racing in MX vs ATV Reflex,” said Microsoft in a news post.
Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings will be available between October 1-October 31 (Xbox One)
The Escapists will be available from October 16-November 15 (Xbox One)
MX vs ATV Reflex will be available from October 1-October 15th (Xbox 360 and Xbox One) and
I Am Alive will be available from October 16-October 31 (Xbox 360 and Xbox One)
Microsoft And Adobe Form Cloud Partnership
Microsoft and Adobe have formed a partnership where the two companies will sell each others’ cloud products to mutual customers, according to Business Insider. Adobe will be integrating its products like Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Document Cloud to Microsoft Azure. And Microsoft is making the Adobe Marketing Cloud the preferred marketing service for Dynamics 365. Essentially this partnership would make Microsoft and Adobe more competitive against companies like Oracle and Salesforce.com.
Microsoft Edge To Become More Secure
Today at the Ignite conference, Microsoft said that the Edge browser will become more secure. Specifically, the Windows Defender Application Guard protects Windows 10 from risky browser sessions. Microsoft said that containers used within other browsers leaves enterprises vulnerable to 90% of prevalent attacks because of the lack of hardware-based protection, reported TechCrunch.
So Windows Defender Application Guard prevents malware from affecting the rest of the network. And the malware code will run within a container. Unfortunately, Windows Defender Application Guard will not be available for enterprises until early 2017. And that will be followed by a broader rollout in late 2017.
This is not the only container initiative Microsoft is focused on. According to Business Insider, Microsoft has partnered with a container startup called Docker. Microsoft will bring Docker’s CS Docker Engine to Windows Server 2016. So Microsoft is able to provide additional services to its customers and Docker is able to reach more customers.
U.K. Watchdog Wants Microsoft To Pay For Windows 10 Machine Issues
Which, a U.K. based consumer watchdog company, is asking Microsoft to pay for damages caused by the Windows 10 upgrades. Which received “well over” 1,000 complaints in regards to the Windows 10 upgrade.
When users upgraded from Windows 7 and 8 to Windows 10, many people encountered hardware issues due to driver conflicts. And that caused printers, speakers and Wi-Fi malfunctions. Which pointed out that many of those users ended up having to pay for technical support to third party companies to fix their PCs. And Microsoft did not make this issue any easier when it aggressively forced the Windows 10 upgrade.
Which said that many people complained that when they contacted Microsoft, the Redmond giant offered poor customer service. That is why Which is asking Microsoft to “honor the rights of consumers adversely affected by the Windows 10 update.” TechnoBuffalo said that Which is asking Microsoft to pay compensation to people eligible for it under the U.K. Consumer Rights Act of 2015.
Microsoft Is Going Green In A Big Way
Microsoft has big plans to make its data centers more sustainable. At a green technology event, Microsoft’s chief environmentalist Rob Bernard said that the software giant is planning to expand the use of renewable energy and its accountability in regards to carbon footprints.
“Tremendous amounts of energy will be required to power this data-driven revolution. The leading cloud companies have a responsibility to address this energy usage. And Microsoft believes that, as large energy consumers, we have the opportunity to drive change that will benefit not only our company but the world,” said Bernard via The Register UK.
Microsoft will become more transparent about its energy consumption across regions. And Microsoft will be investing in research and development to improve IT efficiencies. Microsoft also has a goal of achieving 50% renewable energy in the next two years. The company is currently operating with about 44% renewable energy.
Here is what Microsoft said in a statement:
“We also committed to improving our energy mix, setting a goal to grow the percent of wind, solar and hydropower energy we purchase directly and through the grid to 50 percent by 2018, 60 percent early in the next decade and to an ongoing and higher percentage in years beyond that. Already, we are at 44 percent and signed a new deal to bring 20 megawatts of new solar energy onto the grid in Virginia earlier this year.”
Microsoft Reportedly Gives An Offer To Buy Twitter
According to TechCrunch, Microsoft has made an offer to acquire Twitter. That means Microsoft is one out of several potential buyers including Disney, Google, Verizon and Salesforce.com. TechCrunch suggested that Microsoft may simply be driving up the price by making a bid to keep Twitter away from Salesforce.com. It’s worth mentioning that when Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26 billion, the software giant reportedly outbid Salesforce.com.
LinkedIn Launches Learning Training Class Service
LinkedIn Learning / Photo Credit: LinkedIn
Last week, LinkedIn launched a new service called LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn Learning is based off of Lynda.com, an online training platform that LinkedIn acquired for $1.5 billion last year.
“LinkedIn Learning combines the industry-leading content from Lynda.com with LinkedIn’s professional data and network. With more than 450 million member profiles and billions of engagements, we have a unique view of how jobs, industries, organizations and skills evolve over time. From this, we can identify the skills you need and deliver expert-led courses to help you obtain those skills. We’re taking the guesswork out of learning,” said LinkedIn in a blog post. “The pressure on individuals and organizations to adapt to change has never been greater. The skills that got you to where you are today are not the skills to prepare you for tomorrow. In fact, the shelf-life of skills is less than five years, and many of today’s fastest growing job categories didn’t even exist five years ago.”
In other LinkedIn news, the professional social network also launched a new LinkedIn Messages chatbot feature. What does the LinkedIn chatbot do? The LinkedIn chatbot makes it easier to schedule meetings.
It’s a fantastic convergence of structure and creativity, where the quests provide both impetus to explore and inspiration for building. There’s always something you’re required to do at a given time, and actually completing the tasks required of you provides tangible rewards you can use to improve the quality of your town. Those who want to explore Builders’ creative depths are encouraged to do so, as you’re given a wide variety of construction materials and decorations to really make each location your own. Or you can opt to make a purely utilitarian town with the bare minimum of essentials and focus solely on questing; Dragon Quest Builders is cool with that too. Occasionally, your town will come under attack by roving monsters, but for the most part, you’re allowed to approach Dragon Quest Builders on your own terms, as it caters to multiple styles of play without judgement. Its boundaries are more noticeably inflexible than games like Minecraft, but there’s still a lot of opportunity to make each location your own within its limitations. Actually building stuff, for the most part, is relatively painless, and even if you screw up, a couple of whacks will transform whatever you’ve placed back into a tiny version of that item which you can pick up and place again. But the most impressive thing is seeing your villages grow and blossom over time. When you first arrive in an area, you’ll maybe have a room to craft items and a basic bedroom with straw mattresses. By the time you’re finished, you’ll have a bustling town with a half-dozen other people milling about, each contributing in small but helpful ways. It feels really good to look back and see the progress you’ve made and the stuff you’ve built. 
In opting for this more guided, hand-crafted structure, Dragon Quest Builders is able to provide unique challenges you won’t find in other procedurally-generated games. By the end of chapter one, you’ve likely got a handle on how to build defensive structures and how to upgrade from wood to steel, to silver, and on. Once you step through the portal to the next chapter, though, your health, items, and equipment are reduced to the bare minimum once again, and the mineral-rich areas of chapter one give way to a desolate, poisoned wasteland, where even basic elements like wood are incredibly scarce. It’s a bit of a bummer to lose everything at first, until you realize that this new world now holds a wholly different set of challenges that force you out of your comfort zone because you simply don’t have the same materials available. Each chapter comes with its own set of unique environments and obstacles to overcome, and while the main quest is relatively straightforward, there are numerous side areas that require you to find keys or solve puzzles to access the rewards hidden within. If you’re looking for some more free-form creativity, the Terra Incognita mode is far closer to a typical Minecraft game, which dumps you into a map where you can create to your heart’s content without fear of monster attacks. You can access portals that take you to the worlds of the chapters you’ve cleared, so you can fight enemies and gain access to unique ingredients to customize your own personal world, and then share your creations with other players online. You won’t find a creation suite as deep as Minecraft’s, but you have enough tools at your disposal to create some impressive-looking structures, as long as you have the time and resources available to do so. 
While the building and exploration are well-implemented and fleshed-out, the same can’t be said for Builders’ combat, which is incredibly basic and ultimately kind of wonky. Most battles are little more than watching for enemy wind-up animations and trying to move out of the way while mashing the attack button and hoping your weapons don’t break mid-fight. There are the occasional town defense quests, which require you to fend off a few waves of attackers while utilizing the defenses you’ve built, but the moments where everything comes together (and the enemy AI cooperates with your traps) are relatively rare compared to how the rest of most encounters shake out. Ultimately, the action just isn’t all that deep and satisfying, especially when held up against its more rewarding crafting and town-building systems. Builders’ camera and controls will also fight against you occasionally, and usually at the most inopportune moments. Most of the time, they’re serviceable, but when you’re in the thick of combat or in confined spaces, you’ll likely long for more responsive and accurate controls and a camera that will actually show you what you need to see. God help you if you find yourself deep underground, as the camera pulls in so tight it’s practically impossible to see what’s going on. A simple first person mode (or even some more basic camera zoom controls) could have done a lot to mitigate these frustrations. 
But even with these issues, Dragon Quest Builders is easy to recommend. It may not be as deep as its genre contemporaries, but its mash-up of crafting, survival elements, and RPG questing set in the colorful, cartoony world of Dragon Quest is rewarding and breezy fun for players of all levels of creative ability. This game was reviewed on PS4.
