The newly-launched Minecraft Battle mini game (free on consoles) is Mojang’s latest attempt to recapture some of the massive market that plays on independent servers on third-party maps. The Battle mini game is pretty simple—it’s a big free-for-all with up to eight players, where you try to kill, hide, and survive, hoping to be the last player standing.
The mini game takes place on a variety of familiar set pieces—an evil lair full of lava, a pirate cove, an ancient temple—and the game spawns weapons, armor, potions, and food in chests around the arena for players to find and fight over.
If this sounds a lot like The Hunger Games to you, then you’ve got the right idea—it’s pretty much exactly like that. The players start in positions around a center platform that is full of chests, usually the ones with the best gear, and then have to race to get there first and get equipped before the brief grace period ends.
Things get pretty savage from then on. If you don’t manage to find any equipment, you’re at the mercy of the better equipped players, who will hunt you down with flaming arrows, exploding potions, diamond swords, or some combination of the above. If you’re clever and quick, you can sometimes escape and find one of the more secretive chests, but just like in The Hunger Games, if you overextend and fail, you’re going to die.
If you’re terrible like me, you might try hiding and waiting for the other players to kill each other off first. That way, you can pick up the gear that gets left behind. Unfortunately, because all of the items that slain players are carrying get dropped on the ground, the best loot tends to accumulate in the hands of one or two players. I found that it only took a minute of match time, generally speaking, to get an idea of who the victor would be.
Winning in this arena relies on a lot of the same instincts that were necessary in older arena games like Quake or Unreal Tournament—it pays to know the map and know the timing on power-ups and items. The more familiar you are with the arena, the more successful you’ll be.
At the end of a match, you are presented with a scorecard that highlights players for their performance, along with fun statistics that tell you how badly you did. Players who die mid-match aren’t forced to languish on a “You Died” type screen, however — they’re allowed to fly around the map as bats and squeak obnoxiously at the players who are still fighting.
The Minecraft Battle mini game definitely has its moments, but the thing is, that Minecraft arenas have been around for years now. Independent arenas tend to have more players, more maps, more features, and more options. Though there is some appeal for console players here, this me-too effort needs to be a lot more compelling to draw players away from the popular and well-established network of PvP servers that already exist.
The main issue for players who aren’t already involved with Minecraft PvP is that the combat here is still incredibly clunky and non-intuitive. Melee combat at its most sophisticated consists of jumping and holding down your attack button and firing a bow is an exercise in frustration at the best of times. There are many people who appear to like Minecraft PvP, but when compared to almost any other competitive combat game, it falls short.
Right now the Minecraft Battle mini game only has a few maps, though it seems that Mojang intends to monetize the mode by selling map packs. It’s too early to comment on the value provided in any meaningful way, but the maps I played were definitely fun and well designed. At $2.99 for three more maps, the pack seems reasonable enough. Given that the Battle mini game is free, it’s definitely worth trying out.
Rob Guthrie is a lapsed academic who writes about history, video games, and weird internet things. Follow him @RobertWGuthrie for pithy Tweets and lukewarm takes.
I am a huge Minecraft fan. So great a fan, in fact, that before last Friday I hadn’t played in about a year. That’s because Minecraft is a bit like the Bat-Signal, and should be fired up only in times of greatest need. Usually it’s the need to escape from something without leaving my spare bedroom. That could be the sudden descent of family upon my abode, unprecedented mountains of laundry, Brexit—anything that I just can’t face right now.
Each time such a crisis arises, I start a new world. Great cities and blocky wonders have been lost to the Recycle Bin or in hardware upgrades, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m not interested in the finished project. Finishing means I’ll have to face up to the fact that my country just voted itself into political oblivion. No, the real escapism lies in the first few days and nights, when you’re alone and unequipped in an infinite, empty world.
Loading into a new world—after a few experiments with seeds, of course—is like the first sip of icy water on a blazing summer’s day. Everything around you is clear, simple and refreshing, both in the literal sense of the signature aesthetic and in the ritual I must perform.
The sacred Building Of The First Hut (or Digging Of The First Hole, depending on how long I’ve spent placidly wandering) is the first opportunity to collect my thoughts. My brain disconnects as my muscle memory carries me through the task of punching trees, getting wood, making a table, crafting a pick, gathering stone and cobbling it into an appalling hovel.
Architectural concerns are secondary. Later, depending on the magnitude of the real-world problem that forced me to seek refuge, huts become halls and fields turn to fortifications. Right now we’re looking at a 1:1 reimagining of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
It’s really about lasting the first few nights, though. Minecraft sparked the survival fashion, so despite its rudimentary mechanics it that regard, it’s still the quintessential wilderness. That is, until I can afford to build a real log cabin deep in British Columbia and live as a hermit with only a faithful hound for company.
Played like this, Minecraft is an infinite source of solitude. The thought of its many bustling multiplayer servers is horrifying. Sometimes it’s good to be antisocial for the sake of your sanity, and on those occasions, Minecraft has just the empty expanse for you.
Last month I posted about the contents of the “beta” Mine Chest. If this is the first you’ve heard of it, the basic idea is the same as all those other swag box subscriptions. $29.99 a month gets you a shipment of Minecraft swag, about every 30 days, and it’s filled with some exclusive stuff you can only get via this service. This month was pretty similar to last month, in that there was a shirt, a sticker, a stamp, and other little trinkets.
The outside of the box itself looks the same, last month’s box looked like a wood block when you opened it up, and we’ve got a new material this time around, but the same basic load out of a t-shirt and a post card on top. This month’s post card has a neat 3D lenticular effect:
Here’s the back of the post card:
And the full shirt:
Getting deeper into the box yields this month’s stamp and ink pad:
The sticker (which got a little messed up in packaging):
A Hotwheels mine cart:
Two of these mystery figures:
Inside they come wrapped in a black bag so you can’t see what they are, here’s the two I got:
Last, but not least is the IRL crafting recipe:
Aaaaand here’s the instructions to make the Ghast Kite:
So, yeah, that’s this month’s Mine Chest. As an adult without kids, it’s real hard to gauge the value propositions of these boxes. Last month had a coffee cup which was pretty cool, but aside from maybe wearing the shirt, there’s nothing here for me. Maybe if I had kids they’d be super into these mini figures? Either way, if this stuff looks cool and you want a Mine Chest of your own you can sign up over on their site.
Scottish videogame entrepreneur Chris van der Kuyl came to Perth on Thursday this week to launch an exciting new interactive exhibition at Perth Museum and Art Gallery celebrating the evolution of videogames.
The chairman of Dundee based 4J Studios, the developers of Minecraft: Console Edition, took the opportunity to play classic games on computers and consoles from the 80s to the present day.
He said: “To see the history of console gaming in one room is incredibly exciting for anyone involved in this industry – like many I grew up playing with many of the consoles featured.
“The fact that gamers of all ages will have a chance to play on these consoles is even more fun. It’s a definite summer holiday destination for all the family.”
The exhibition features a catalogue of consoles for visitors, from passionate gamers to videogame novices, and will run until September 18.
Entry to the exhibition is £3 for adults, £2 for concessions and £10 for a family ticket (two adults, two children). To find out more about the exhibition visit
Ask kids to explain what makes the video game “Minecraft” cool and fun, and you get answers all over the board.
Do you like wandering through a forest admiring the scenery? You can do that. Want to build a battleship? You can do that. Think taming and training dogs sounds fun? You can do that, too.
Watch out for suicidal green zombie monsters that try to blow themselves up on you. Go digging on a quest to find super-rare diamonds. Mind your step through that portal. Build a tower stretching hundreds of virtual feet into the sky or dig a hole miles deep. Fight your way to the big bad Ender Dragon, but only if you want to.
(Parents, don’t bother trying to adjust the TV or computer screen. Yes, the game graphics are super blocky and pixelated. They’re supposed to be like that. It’s throwback to old-school graphics for kids who are too young to have ever played throwback Nintendo.)
Blow up that building you don’t like. Chop wood, lay bricks, mine ore. Don your armor and grab your sword and watch out for spiders. Play with friends online. Play by yourself.
Minecraft is about building, fighting, mining, crafting, collecting, exploring, farming, animal raising, planning, designing, creating, collaborating … The question soon becomes, what can’t you do in Minecraft?
And there’s not really a story. And there aren’t any stated objectives. And there aren’t any guidelines about how to play.
The game is just the raw material. The players build it into whatever they want it to be.
“I honestly don’t think there is a point. It’s just a fun game,” Stephen Smith, 10, of Avilla, said matter-of-factly, the way only a kid can.
What Minecraft actually is is an open-world sandbox game, officially released in 2011 and now available on multiple devices including computers and laptops, video game consoles, tablets and even smartphones.
Open-world means just that, it’s a widespread landscape that is open to explore however you want. The term sandbox hearkens back to the physical wooden box filled with sand of days past, a place where kids could go to imagine, build, sculpt, destroy and restart over and over.
Minecraft is novel in the aspect that, unlike most video games, there isn’t a set of objectives to accomplish. Players set their own goals, whether that’s building a massive castle to live in, fending off monsters or running in one direction just to see where you’ll end up.
And it’s not just kids, either. Search YouTube or Google and you’ll find videos from adults, too, showing off incredibly massive and complex builds that take days to construct.
“I like how it is so open-world and you can do almost anything,” Smith said, although admits he has a terrible time trying to hunt for diamonds to make better weapons and armor … or craft a jukebox.
He tried out a tutorial one time. He mined some iron and some gold, killed some mobs (Translation: monsters) and died a few times. Immediately, he was “so into it.”
He’s built a battleship that shoots fire charges and arrows. He climbs on top of trees and builds houses on top of them. He once built an underground house and installed a portal in it, because every house needs a portal.
“I don’t know why most kids like it. But the reason I like it, I love to let my imagination loose,” 7-year-old Molly Reasner of Auburn said.
You can find her tending her “sheep god” or building houses, farms or wedding arches.
Wait, what’s a sheep god? Her dad, Adam Reasner, asked in the background of the phone interview. It’s the rarest type of sheep — duh. He admitted later that he doesn’t understand what his daughter sees in the game.
“Minecraft is cool to kids, because most of the time kids are so amazed because of everything you can do. They love it because it’s so much fun and they could do anything they can ever imagine. They can farm, they can explore, in some versions you can talk. So it’s really, really fun,” said 8-year-old Sylvia Easler, Reasner’s friend and neighbor who taught her how to play.
She built Rapunzel’s tower. It was really tall — not as tall as she wanted, though, she said. She didn’t like the finished build because it was kind of plain and her green vines turned brown and gross.
She’s battled the Ender Dragon once, with help from her brother because she’s said she’s no good at archery. He’s 10, and better than her at the game. She’s no “expert,” she claimed, although she plays just about every day.
Even though kids are plopping themselves down just about daily with Minecraft, often for hours, adults aren’t necessarily trying to shoo kids out of the game and into the real world. Kids don’t realize it, but they’re probably practicing important thinking skills while playing.
“It’s amazing to see the planning. They plan, ‘Let’s build this house. Let’s put this protection fence around this house.’ They’re working together, planning ahead on what needs to happen, sometimes there are monsters that attack them and they’re having to protect themselves,” Butler Public Library children’s librarian Teri McKown said.
During the monthly Saturday Minecraft Mania at the library, kids sit down in the same room, fire up the game and go at it, McKown said. In a few short moments, they’re discussing what they want to do, how they’ll go about it and cooperating to make it happen, she said. That’s a skill — collaboration — that schools are frequently utilizing technology to try to teach.
It’s not uncommon nowadays to find libraries hosting Minecraft gatherings. Kids are already playing it, so adults just help funnel them together where they can work together.
“With Minecraft, kind of the hope or the idea behind it is (encouraging) that creativity again,” Noble County Public Library children’s librarian Derrick Leatherman said. “Just kind of along the lines of everything else we’re doing, there are all kinds of things inside of Minecraft. There have been people who have built working computers inside the game.”
Smith’s mom, Avilla Elementary teacher Jo Smith, is looking into whether Minecraft is something that could work in the classroom. It’s not something ready to roll out, but she’s inspired by watching her son navigate and interact with the blocky world. Whether it’s the planning he does to design a building, or thinking about what resources he’ll need to craft a new pickaxe or how to face and overcome pixelated perils, he’s getting more than entertainment out of it, she said.
“I see the appeal. It’s interesting because it’s very simplistic,” Jo Smith said. “It’s different than other games that are on the market. You really can see a lot of creativity.”
Speak the language
Kids and slang go together like PB and J. If your kids sound like they’re speaking a different language when they’re playing Minecraft, it’s probably just some slang. Try to impress your youngsters by dropping some Minecraft lingo:
Build: A building project. “That build took me like infinity hours!”
Butter: Gold ingots. They’re yellow and rectangular, like the stuff you spread on bread.
Creeper: Green, zombie-like suicide bombers. They do a lot of damage when they self-destruct.
Griefer: Bad people who swoop in and destroy your build. Kind of like the wildlings from Game of Thrones.
Mob: Short for “mobile.” It’s a creature. Could be harmless, like a pig. Could be deadly, like a Creeper.
Mod: Short for “modification.” Downloadable files that alter some aspect of the gameplay.
Skin: A texture file that changes how something looks. Think of it like clothes for people, or paint jobs for cars.
Spleef: A competitive sport. Players gather on an elevated platform over a pit, then slowly destroy the floor, causing people to fall. Last one above wins. Thrill-seekers can play over lava.
Vanilla: A game without any mods. Pure. Plain. Untouched. No sprinkles needed.
Hostile mobs: Bad dudes. They will chase you and attack you.
