Someone Made the ‘S-Town’ Maze in ‘Minecraft’

Someone Made the ‘S-Town’ Maze in ‘Minecraft’

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.
Curves don’t hold up well in pixels, but the recreations seems fairly accurate.

Listen to all seven episodes of S-Town right now wherever you get your podcasts.

Someone Made the ‘S-Town’ Maze in ‘Minecraft’

Nintendo Switch games news: How does this blockbuster compare to PS4 and Xbox One?

Nintendo Switch games news: How does this blockbuster compare to PS4 and Xbox One?

Minecraft Nintendo Switch Edition won’t be quite as expansive as PS4 and Xbox One versions, it has been revealed.

Minecraft was recently given a May 11 release date on Nintendo Switch, although UK fans will have to wait until May 12.

But there’s good news and bad news for Nintendo Switch owners, as Mojang reveals more about world sizes and how they compare to Wii U, Xbox One and PS4.

On the plus side, the Nintendo Switch version will support worlds much that are much larger than the ones featured in the Wii U Edition.

The Wii U edition only supported the Classic world type, which is 864×864 blocks.

The Switch version also supports Classic, as well as Small worlds of 1024×1024 blocks and Medium worlds with 3072×3072 blocks.

Unfortunately, however, it won’t support the Large worlds (5120×5120 blocks) found in Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game.

Ultimately, however, the ability to play it on the go makes the Nintendo Switch version an attractive prospect.

Nintendo Switch games news: How does this blockbuster compare to PS4 and Xbox One?

Remote St Kilda islands recreated in Minecraft

Remote St Kilda islands recreated in Minecraft

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.

Remote St Kilda islands recreated in Minecraft

Is the Latest MINECRAFT POKÉMON the Coolest One Yet?

Is the Latest MINECRAFT POKÉMON the Coolest One Yet?

As has been well-documented, Minecraft is a sort of breeding ground for Pokémon fan recreations. Somebody made a working Game Boy Advance capable of playing Pokémon Fire Red last summer, while another fan created an entirely new 3D Pokémon adventure, all in Minecraft. If you’ve been reading the site for a while, you might also remember the fan who was working on a fully functional recreation of Pokémon Red. He was off to a strong start in 2015, and now, the project is finally finished (via Polygon).

When we last checked in on Mr. Squishy, who went by Magib1 at the time, he had the Pokédex, basic game mechanics, and the world map done. Now, he’s finally finished, and the game is a true port, meaning that he didn’t just make a Game Boy emulator in Minecraft and load the Pokémon Red ROM into it: He recreated the entire game from scratch.

In the above video interview with Polygon, Mr. Squishy explains how that process worked and why it was necessary:

Minecraft has command blocks, which allow you to write code in-game. There’s no easy way to just take the ROM for one of these old games and dump it into Minecraft. To get all of the functionality in the game, you basically need to re-code everything from the ground up inside the game, so that’s what I’ve done here.

Mr. Squishy also documented the process on Reddit and answered some questions there, revealing that so much effort went into this endeavor: He walked over 1,760 in-game miles and used 357,000 command blocks over the 21 months it took to finish the project. Even all of the game’s original glitches have been recreated. Now that’s dedication.

Of course, this Minecraft-based Pokémon game is a totally different beast from the other aforementioned efforts…

The Pokémon Fire Red remake is more graphically intensive since it’s a GBA game, but movement is a bit choppy and it’s still very much a work in progress (although the latest version of the game has made great strides and it looks fairly accurate at this point).

Then there’s Pokémon Cobalt and Amethyst, which is in a completely different league. Instead of recreating an existing game, this one is a completely new adventure in 3D. It copies the original game mechanics, and it’s sort of like a merge of Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Sun and Moon, so it’s very robust. It has an original plot and even a bunch of brand new Pokémon, so the game definitely goes beyond the call of duty.

Each of these fan projects are special in their own way, and a testament to how versatile of a creation environment Minecraft can be to people with good ideas and ambition.

Feel free to download the Pokémon Red remake for yourself and give it a go, right here. Are you going to try this out, or are you going to stick to your emulators, or perhaps an original cartridge? Hit up the comments below and let us know what you think!

Is the Latest MINECRAFT POKÉMON the Coolest One Yet?

Minecraft’ Snapshot 17w15a Introduces Colored Beds and Several Bug Fixes

Minecraft’ Snapshot 17w15a Introduces Colored Beds and Several Bug Fixes

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.

image: http://d.christianpost.com/full/103559/590-218/minecraft.png

image: http://d.christianpost.com/full/103559/590-218/minecraft.png

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.

Minecraft’ Snapshot 17w15a Introduces Colored Beds and Several Bug Fixes

Santa Monica company bringing Minecraft tournaments to Valley

Santa Monica company bringing Minecraft tournaments to Valley

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.

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.

Santa Monica company bringing Minecraft tournaments to Valley