Someone ported a Minecraft clone onto the Dreamcast

Someone ported a Minecraft clone onto the Dreamcast

by | Jan 24, 2017 | Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, Stone Marshall Book News | 0 comments

Somewhere in an alternate universe there’s a Dreamcast 2 and, presumably, a Dreamcast 3. And, in that alternate universe, our doppelgangers are able to play Minecraft on their console of choice. But for us, stuck here in this hellish timeline, we’ll have to settle with a clever clone for the original Dreamcast, now available for free online.

Over at DCEmulation, forum member gameblabla has taken it upon himself to port a Minecraft clone called Crafti designed for a high-end Texas Instruments calculator onto a vintage Dreamcast. And apparently it works like a charm, albeit a charm without enemies or sound of any kind.

Tom Charnock, founder of The Dreamcast Junkyard, has been to this promised land and returned with a first-hand account.

Tom Charnock/Crafti

“Controls take a little getting used to,” Tom wrote, “but once sussed, Crafti is about as close to the real Minecraft as you’re likely to get on a Dreamcast. Movement is handled through the D-pad, looking on the analogue and the face buttons allow you to place or erase blocks in the world. You can also jump, and there’s an action button for opening doors and pressing switches.

“After 10 minutes playing with Crafti I had already built myself a nice little house, complete with a fireplace and a bookshelf full of leather-bound books. The smell of rich mahogany also wafted through the structure.”

Thanks to Charnock for the tip. We’ve included a few of his screenshots above.

You too can download and play Crafti right now. It’s available for free as an image for CDs and SD flash memory.

Someone ported a Minecraft clone onto the Dreamcast

Vampires? Meh. Focus Home Interactive’s next role-playing game turns you into a werewolf

Vampires? Meh. Focus Home Interactive’s next role-playing game turns you into a werewolf

by | Jan 24, 2017 | Minecraft News, Minecraft questions | 0 comments

Focus Home Interactive is cornering the market on dark role-playing games from Europe.

Today, the publisher announced a deal with White Wolf Publishing for Werewolf: The Apocalypse for PC and consoles. The Cyanide studio (makers of Styx: Master of Shadows, Blood Bowl, and the upcoming Call of Cthulhu RPG) will develop the adaptation of the pen-and-paper game. Focus Home is known for RPGs and strategy games, and Werewolf is a good fit for its product portfolio.

Werewolf is part of White Wolf’s “World of Darkness” universe, which also consists of Vampire: The Masquerade (its 2004 PC adaptation is a cult-classic) and Mage: Ascension. The setting is a twist on modern times, where the supernatural lurks in a world torn by corruption, the divide between the rich and the poor, and devious men and women. You play as a werewolf (a Garou, which comes from the French Loup-garou), and you fight against civilization and “supernatural corruption.”

“The World of Darkness has always attracted creatives with a strong passion for telling dark and immersive stories. So to work closely with the great talent at Focus Home and Cyanide exploring the savage Werewolves of this universe is an absolutely fantastic experience for us at White Wolf, and we are more than excited to see this great and highly relevant IP realized in a video game”, said Tobias Sjögren, chief executive officer of White Wolf.

Vampires? Meh. Focus Home Interactive’s next role-playing game turns you into a werewolf

Minecraft Realms gets new maps with class-based brawling and a music light show

Minecraft Realms gets new maps with class-based brawling and a music light show

by | Jan 23, 2017 | Minecraft News, Minecraft questions | 0 comments

Minecraft isn’t all building houses and digging holes.

Mojang has announced new content out today for Minecraft Realms, a subscription service for the block-building game on PC that costs $7 a month. It allows players to create their own private servers, but it also gives them access to minigames and maps. It also gives Mojang a new revenue stream for a hit that has already sold more 100 million copies on PC, home gaming consoles, and mobile.

The new maps include the Big Giant Lightshow, a 20 minute musical experience synced up with the game world that Mojang is introducing as the first in a new “experiences” category. These aren’t minigames — they’re more like music shows or roller coasters that you can enjoy inside Minecraft.

If you want something a bit more traditional, you can also play the Battle of the Gods minigame, a new class-based brawler.

“Play as one of many gods, each with their own special powers,” Mojang details. “Blast people into the air, launch a ranged fireball attack, but whatever you do, make sure that you keep your eyes on the prize: grabbing the three relics and returning them to your home biome. Battle of Gods also features a single-player mode, based on the multiplayer, so that you can get to know the terrain and practice with the map’s innovative ability system.”

You can learn about the other new maps, including one that lets you play a board game inside Minecraft, on Mojang’s site.

Minecraft Realms gets new maps with class-based brawling and a music light show

Someone ported a Minecraft clone onto the Dreamcast

Microsoft drops support for ‘Minecraft’ on Windows Phone

by | Jan 23, 2017 | Minecraft News, Minecraft questions | 0 comments

Microsoft, which owns Minecraft, will stop supporting the Windows Phone 8.1 version of its own immensely popular world building game, Ars Technica reports. While the game’s development continues apace, Redmond is essentially admitting that even with a massive player base, the venn diagram between Windows Phone users and Minecraft fans has too little overlap to be worth the effort.

On mobile, the Android and iOS versions of Minecraft: Pocket Edition will still be supported, of course, and that same version is also what gets ported to platforms like the Gear VR and Apple TV. Unlike those other systems, which recently hit an official 1.0 version last month, the Windows Phone version never quite made it out of beta.

Microsoft did, however, recently release a new version of Minecraft for Windows 10 as a Universal Windows Platform app that will eventually run on everything from desktops to Surface tablets to the HoloLens. Although the Windows 10 version is based on the same Pocket Edition code, Microsoft has unfortunately decided to go against its own developer guidelines for the Universal Windows Platform and currently only supports a desktop interface. That means you’ll still need a mouse and keyboard to smash those blocks for now.

Microsoft drops support for ‘Minecraft’ on Windows Phone

Report: Internet-breaking DDoS worm traced to chief of Minecraft-focused DDoS guard firm

Report: Internet-breaking DDoS worm traced to chief of Minecraft-focused DDoS guard firm

by | Jan 22, 2017 | Minecraft News, Minecraft questions | 0 comments

Respected security analyst Brian Krebs published a report today detailing his research into who authored Mirai, a publicly available piece of malware that can be used to infect devices with online connections (think: printers, routers, etc.) and unite them into botnets capable of executing massive distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Mirai and its ilk garnered headlines around the world last year after it was employed to DDoS the servers of DNS provider Dyn and “break the Internet” by taking down popular websites like Twitter, Reddit, Netflix and more.

Countless game developers rely on these services, and they may be curious to read Krebs’ report that the author of the Mirai malware — and indeed, the business of conducting DDoS attacks in general — is deeply intertwined with Mojang’s mega-popular game Minecraft.

Krebs claims the real identity of Mirai author “Anna-Senpai” is Paras Jha, who at one point described himself as the president of Minecraft-focused DDoS protection firm ProTraf Solutions. It’s unclear if he still works at the company — Krebs claims Jha has not (yet) responded to his request for comment, while a ProTraf Solutions representative reportedly told him that “we [are] in the process of restructuring and refocusing what we are doing.”

Moreover, Krebs reports Jha got interested in the mechanics of DDoS attacks as a Minecraft fan and server operator who complained online when his own popular Minecraft server was attacked. Krebs believes this inspired Jha to take an interest in DDoS protection, and notes that Jha’s LinkedIn page includes stints at multiple high-profile Minecraft servers.

Plus, in a now-deleted (but recovered via the Internet Archive) personal bio, Jha describes himself as an aspiring Minecraft modder and game developer.

“My passion is to utilize my skills in programming and drawing to develop entertaining games and software for the online game Minecraft,” reads the excerpt of his personal bio published by Krebs. “Someday, I plan to start my own enterprise focused on the gaming industry targeted towards game consoles and the mobile platform.”

Krebs’ whole post is fascinating, and well worth reading in full if you’re at all interested in the position Minecraft servers hold in the DDoS attack business.

“The Minecraft industry is so competitive,” Robert Coelho, chief of fellow Minecraft-focused DDoS protection service ProxyPipe, told Krebs. “If you’re a player, and your favorite Minecraft server gets knocked offline, you can switch to another server. But for the server operators, it’s all about maximizing the number of players and running a large, powerful server. The more players you can hold on the server, the more money you make. But if you go down, you start to lose Minecraft players very fast — maybe for good.”

Report: Internet-breaking DDoS worm traced to chief of Minecraft-focused DDoS guard firm