Stone Marshall

‘Dragon Quest Builders’ Is Catnip For ‘Minecraft’ Kids

Dragon Quest Builders (Image: Square Enix)

Dragon Quest Builders combines Minecraft‘s open world, Terraria‘s loot and Dragon Quests‘ Zelda-like role-play to create cat-nip for kids.

Minecraft and Terraria come at the open world problem from different directions. Not only are they distinguished by their different axis of reality — Terraria offering only a 2D plane and Minecraft being full 3D — but they are played in very different ways.

Minecraft expects players to largely create their own story and adventures. It excels in offering a sandbox in which children create previously undreamed of adventures.Terraria expects players to pursue more linear achievements. Boss battles, weapon collecting and general progress through its cyclical story direct players in their leisure time.

Dragon Quest Builders is a new game causing a stir in Japan that has both ends of this spectrum covered. To look at it is very similar to Minecraft, even offering similar looking blocks and enemies.

Beyond the aesthetic though there’s a proper role-playing game plucked straight from the Dragon Quest universe complete with the characters, lands and enemies that come with it.

Researching the game one evening online I soon had my kids huddled round the MacBook intrigued by what this strange game was. “Is that the Minecraft update, it looks really different” my youngest inquired.“Wow, it;s like Terraria and Minecraft joined together” was my daughter’s response. Of course, they don’t get the Dragon Quest aspect of the game not having played that series. But the Terraria and Minecraft references are telling.

The popularity of the recent Minecraft Story Mode spin-off has proven popular amongMinecraft players hungry for more narrative meat on the sandbox bones of Microsoft MSFT +1.72%’s big hitting title. Add to this the growing following games like Terraria have online and the stage seems set of Dragon Quest Builders to find a large audience in the US.

Well, it would be set but currently the game only has a Japanese release. Nothing is currently planed to bring it to the west. While importing may be an option — and the impatience of my kids made me consider this — the level of text and dialogue in the game is hard to get around without understanding it.

The game is selling well in Japan. As Ollie Barder recently reported, it’s sitting high in the charts and looking like it will be there for some time. Interestingly it’s the Vita version that got the first release. This has now been followed by both PS4 and PS3 versions. All three continue to sell well.

However, despite the protestations of my children, it seems that for now we simply have to wait and see if it comes to the west.

‘Dragon Quest Builders’ Is Catnip For ‘Minecraft’ Kids

‘Minecraft’ PS4, PS3 editions tops January 2015 downloads, new LEGO sets announced at Toy Fair 2016

Mojang is releasing a new update for “Minecraft Windows 10 Beta Edition.” Mojang

“Minecraft” continues to dominate in the charts. Despite a long lifespan on the shelves even for its newer platforms, the fans base of the building game continues to grow.

As seen in the latest top downloads for January for the PlayStation platforms, the “Minecraft PS4 Edition” and the “Minecraft PS3 Edition” have both topped the charts, as per PlayStation Blog’s report. The next-gen edition has topped the likes of “GTA V,” “Call of Duty Black Ops 3,” “The Witness” and “Rocket League.”

The “Minecraft PS Vita Edition” may have been bested by “Bastion” and “Persona 4 Golden.” But it has retained the third top spot, besting out the likes of “Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair,” “Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster” and “Terraria.”

For the console versions of “Minecraft,” developer 4J Studios has also announced some bug fix updates rolling out for all five—the PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and PS Vita versions. These were rolled out sometime during the weekend, according to the developer’s Twitter, so best to check out if these have already hit in specific areas worldwide.

This comes in roughly at the same time as Mojang is releasing an update for “Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta” and the “Minecraft Pocket Edition.” The two versions are getting some redstone additions on top of new items and features, as well as bug fixes.

The success of “Minecraft” is not confined to just the videogame version. A new set of LEGO for “Minecraft” has been unveiled during the Toy Fair 2016. According to IGN, the new toy sets will be sold in retail, priced from anywhere between US$20 (approx. AU$28) and US$110 (approx. AU$154). A screenshot of a sample set can be seen in the link above

Fans will get to play LEGO with some of the characters from the “Minecraft” franchise. Additionally, there will be a couple of settings and locations for the game, such as the End Portal, the Jungle, the Fortress and the Tree House. This is not the first LEGO set unveiled for “Minecraft” recently. Previously, a LEGO Ghost busters set has been announced in tandem with the upcoming “Ghostbusters” reboot.

‘Minecraft’ PS4, PS3 editions tops January 2015 downloads, new LEGO sets announced at Toy Fair 2016

A Minecraft X-Wing, On Its Way to Blow Up the Death Star

Held together by Slime Blocks and Redstone, the Minecraft X-Wing blazes through the trench, heading towards the Death Star’s thermal exhaust port.

This is the video the GIF’s from:

As you can see, in real-time, the X-Wing actually moves a lot more slowly.

The video showcases a Command Block-based X-Wing made by MythicalSnowman, on Adrian Brightmoore’s Death Star map. Cubehamster, who put the clip together and submitted the trench run webm to Reddit, noted in a comment that the footage was sped up 32x to create the effect.

If you wanna have a look at it yourself, you can find instructions to summon the X-Wing in your Minecraft world here.

A Minecraft X-Wing, On Its Way to Blow Up the Death Star

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I love Minecraft and so, it seems, do school teachers

Kids love Minecraft.

I can’t lie, I love it too. While I don’t game nearly as much as I used to, if we are stuck in the house, Minecraft is one of the few games I feel okay with my son seeing or playing.

Mojang and Microsoft recently introduced an education edition of the game. When I hear about educational editions of popular games, I become a little skeptical (does anybody remember playing “educational” computer games we played in the 80’s/90’s)?

To be fair, the Mojang team isn’t saying that Minecraft should be a major educational tool in the classroom, at least not yet. Per The Verge:

That includes improving Minecraft’s mapping feature so that a class can actually find its way around, letting teachers lock in certain resources for students to use, and adding an in-game camera and scrapbook to handle screenshots for cataloging where you’ve been. Microsoft is quick to emphasize that its keeping the changes minor because it doesn’t want to make Minecraft into a straight educational product

But does Minecraft have legitimate educational applications?

That really depends on teachers and educationally-focused users developing areas and content that would be helpful in a classroom context. The whole experiment hinges on an educational community coming together to develop content. Another Minecraft educational group (which has been folded into the education edition) has been working on methods to teach programming language to children via the game.

How does a student learn to program playing the game?

Part of the game’s massive popularity is the ability to develop mods. Mods are like custom cheat codes that savvy players can create. Some educational groups want to leverage the mod system as a gateway to teach children programming.

I have to admit that is a good way to introduce the concepts of programming to younger kids and to get them interested in developing for themselves. Ultimately, programming is problem solving and the game certainly develops problem solving skills.

I think the Minecraft crew have a ways to go before the game can be classified as a true educational asset, but for the teams that are focused on using it as a gateway for programming, they are on to something and I could see using Minecraft to introduce programming to my son when the time is right.

I love Minecraft and so, it seems, do school teachers

NEW LEGO MINECRAFT SETS REVEALED

LEGO has revealed all-new Minecraft sets at Toy Fair 2016.

The block-shaped toy sets based on the sandbox game, which uses textured cubes as its primary component for construction, will retail between $20 and $110 USD.

In related LEGO news, last week, a new LEGO Ghostbusters set based on the upcoming film directed by Paul Feig was revealed.