You1 can now explore the St. Kilda archipelago, a tiny collection of islands 40 miles off the Scottish coast, in Minecraft. This is great because it rains less in Minecraft, and the wind won’t shear your face off.
The last islanders left the main island of Hirta in 1930 after life there became unsustainable.
People only now live on Hirta on a temporary basis to work at the military site, or on wildlife conservation projects. …
The map is available for public download to allow gamers all over the world to explore the archipelago’s history, heritage, stories, people and landscapes.
St. Kilda really is perfectly-sized to be a Minecraft map: a main island about 2km long and some smaller outlying ones. I hope they made it so the Minecraft version is fully playable, and not just a vast block of stone under the surface.
1. Can anyone actually find the download? Am I going crazy?
At the end of last year, the Fallout Mash-Up Pack was only available for console versions of Minecraft. However, developer Mojang has just announced that the post-apocalyptic pack will soon be available to play on the Windows 10 and Pocket Edition versions of the game. A small preview of what to expect can be seen in the teaser trailer for the console release of the pack, below:
This is a very interesting combination, as the RPG survival experience offered by Fallout meets the sandbox, block-dominated world of Minecraft.
Many of the characters and visual quirks of the nuclear wasteland game seem to be available, as the pack boasts 44 different skins, and several “mutated” mobs. In addition, it looks like all of the previous Fallout landscapes have been combined into one, so you can hop from Diamond City to elements of the Capitol, for example, something which is not possible in the normal Fallout titles.
As if the latest Fallout game was not already customizable enough, the wasteland is now completely subject to your own imagination and the freedom offered to you by Minecraft’s blocky world.
If you want to buy this pack, you will have to do so via the in-game store. It is priced the same as its console equivalent, at $5.99.
The famed hedge maze created by John B. McLemore and prominently featured in S-Town — the internet’s latest podcast obsession from the creators of Serial and This American Life — has officially been given the Minecraft treatment. That’s right, one dedicated fan of both podcasts and video games scouted out the IRL maze and rebuilt it one pixelated bush at a time.
While less visually astounding than, say, recreating Game of Thrones’s King’s Landing in its entirety, rebuilding the maze from aerial footage is not just impressive, but it’s crucial to John B.’s legacy. From the photos that have surfaced showing the sad after-effects of the abandoned hedge maze, it doesn’t seem possible that anyone will see the maze reach maturity. This Minecraft creation give us a chance to experience the 64-solution (one is rumored to be unsolvable) puzzle.
YouTuber Coty Batemon claims to live not far from the land in which McLemore creation is rooted. Using the exact coordinates, Batemon captured footage via an aerial drone. Batemon then supposedly rebuilt the maze in Minecraft. In the below video, he proceeds to get a little lost himself for a bit before finding a chest at the center. Fast-forward to the end if you want to see the slow zoom out.
And, for an easy visual comparison, here’s the real maze and an aerial view of the Minecraft counterpart:
Curves don’t hold up well in pixels, but the recreations seems fairly accurate.
Scotland’s remote St Kilda archipelago has been digitally recreated in video game Minecraft.
Games company ImmersiveMinds spent more than 125 hours and used more than three million virtual bricks on the 1:1 scale map of the islands.
St Kilda lies about 40 miles (64km) west of North Uist, the nearest inhabited place to the archipelago.
The last islanders left the main island of Hirta in 1930 after life there became unsustainable.
People only now live on Hirta on a temporary basis to work at the military site, or on wildlife conservation projects.
The Minecraft version of St Kilda has been made to help mark Tuesday’s World Heritage Day.
The map is available for public download to allow gamers all over the world to explore the archipelago’s history, heritage, stories, people and landscapes.
Nick Smith, heritage manager at Western Isles’ local authority Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, said: “This is a really exciting way to use technology so that people can discover a remote and difficult to access place.”
The team from ImmersiveMinds worked closely with Jonathan Wordsworth, the St Kilda archaeologist with The National Trust for Scotland, to ensure that this digital world is as accurate as possible.
The virtual build features abandoned blackhouses, boats and underground structures called souterrains.
Snapshot 17w15a has been released for “Minecraft,” and this latest update preview brings some new features as well as several bug fixes that players have been looking for.
Facebook courtesy of MinecraftA new Snapshot was released just recently for ‘Minecraft’
Before diving into what Snapshot 17w15a contains, players should know more about how to activate it for the game. They can do this by first navigating over to the Launch Options tab and then checking off the box that says “Enable Snapshots.” They should then save the change they just made.
Players who will be activating the newest Snapshot or any Snapshot for that matter are encouraged to back up their files first to avoid any issues that may stem from their worlds possibly being corrupted.
Once players have taken care of all that, they can go ahead and see what is inside the latest Snapshot.
According to the changelog posted over on the game’s official website, players now have access to colored beds, and these are ones they can make either by using dye on a white bed or by crafting one while using some colored wool.
“Minecraft” players can now also toggle the narrator between options such as off, chat only, system messages only, and chat & system. A new toast notification has also been added via Snapshot 17w15a for toggling the narrator.
Advancements should now also come with descriptions while some of the titles in the game have been changed as well.
Stairs have also been improved, and they are now designed to function better with things such as fences, glass panes and walls.
As for the bug fixes, one in particular addressed by Snapshot 17w15a ensures that the statistics page should now work properly.
Improvements for many of the tamed animals have also been applied, and several fixes for the game’s parrots have been added.
More news about “Minecraft” should be made available in the near future.
Super League Gaming, a Santa Monica, California-based gaming company, partnered with Harkins Theatres to host tournaments for kids and teens in one of its Gilbert locations.
“We’ve looked at Phoenix and long believed it was a great city due to its family-friendly focus — we partnered with Harkins, and they helped us decide that Gilbert’s audience in particular would be a great place for this offering,” said Ann Hand, CEO of Super League Gaming.
Kids cheer at the Minecraft City Champs events.
Competitors vie for a spot on the city teams, which include the Phoenix Blaze team, to compete nationally. Events kicked off in March and continue to run through May.
“Super League is bringing an experience that kids already love — playing Minecraft — to a local level,” said Hand. “With Super League, gamers have the opportunity to play face-to-face with their local team, building, creating and battling against other local communities which fosters a stronger sense of teamwork and city pride.”
Hand said the demographics for the tournaments historically has been between the ages of 9 and 13, while the gender skews male.
A Harkins representative for Scottsdale-based Harkins Theatres, said the partnership is part of the company’s venture into unique viewing experiences.
“Whether it’s broadcasting the NCAA Finals, showing the season premiere of BBC’s hit show Sherlock or allowing gamers to play their favorite games on the big screen, Harkins is always looking for new opportunities to create memorable experiences for guests,” said the Harkins spokesperson. “The in-theater Minecraft tournament is just one more opportunity to use the state-of- the-art technology and larger-than-life screens to bring fans together to share in an experience unlike anything available at home.”
The theater chain also has endeavored into eSports by broadcasting video game League of Legends national and global tournaments at various Valley locations. The Harkins representative said the company is in the process of planning for more eSports broadcasting.
