Author Danica Davidson is at it again. She’s expanded her list of ‘Unofficial Overworld’ adventures, with an exciting new installment to the series. This marks the sixth story she’s written in the world of Minecraft She also discusses her work outside the Minecraft realm.
LOS ANGELES, CA – JUNE 15: Mojang’s ‘Director of Fun’ Lydia Winters speaks about ‘Minecraft’ during the Microsoft Xbox E3 press conference at the Galen Center on June 15, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
William Wilson: What brings you back to the Books for Minecrafters series as a writer?
Danica Davidson: I’ve been writing different types of stories as far back as I can remember, but what I really appreciate about the Minecraft game is its creativity and the mythos it’s made for itself. When I was a kid, I liked writing adventure stories and bringing them in to share with my classmates, and this just feels like a continuation of that. Writing books for Minecrafters allows me to write about a world full of detailed monsters and extravagant settings and it really lets the imagination be limitless.
Wilson: What inspires you when you write these stories?
Davidson: A sense of fun and adventure. I try to end most my chapters with a cliffhanger, to keep things exciting. The books are written from the point-of-view of eleven-year-old Stevie, so I always go back and read stories I wrote when I was eleven to make sure I get the right voice.
Wilson: Please tell our audience about your new books. What can new readers and current ones expect?
Minecraft snapshot 16w32a is out today, and it mostly has under the hood changes, with the big ones being unveiled at Minecon later this year. However, that doesn’t mean snapshots will be too weak until then – changes will trickle in over the next few weeks. You can check out some of the notable changes below, and the full changelog here.
Some mobs are now more afraid to get wet in the water
There are now more spawn eggs for many different mobs and this time they are working properly, so we’ll keep them
Mob types are now separated like this:
Guardian and Elder Guardian
Skeleton, Stray and Wither Skeleton
Zombie, Zombie Villager and Husk
Horse, Skeleton Horse, Zombie Horse, Mule and Donkey
Changed the duration of hunger and saturation effects
Broke some bugs so they should not happen anymore
Resource pack format changed slightly, it’s now using version 3
Version 3 resource packs have to use lowercase filenames for everything
Most commands can now use blockstate definitions instead of a numerical metadata value
Snowmen are now 10% less derpy
More robust handling of invalid items and hopefully less duping bugs due to this change
Lightning storm will now attract less skeleton horses
How much of a phenomenon is Pokémon Go? Enough so that it’s started something of a civil war between members of the team behind the video game sensation Minecraft.
See, when the game first launched, Mojang — the Sweden-based game studio that created Minecraft, acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014 — tried to get all employees to unify and join up with Team Mystic, Pokémon Go’s blue team.
But here in America, the Bellevue, Washington-based Minecraft team was more split. Some of them were willing to go along with the Swedes, while others wanted to go with the red Team Valor or the yellow Team Instinct.
Amid the chaos, though, came inspiration: Spencer Kern, an artist with the Minecraft team in Washington, found himself getting very into Pokémon Go.
In the original Pokémon games that Pokémon Go is based on, players can run to a handy Pokémon Center in each city to heal up their pocket monsters and get ready for the next battle. In Pokémon Go, the thing that gets hurt more than anything in your smartphone’s battery, as the game chews up power like nothing else.
“I thought it would be fun to re-create a Pokémon Center from the main games and use it as a charging station for trainers to hang out and heal their power drained phones,” Kern writes.
And so he did, building an awesome project that doubles as something of a social hub for Pokémon trainers in real life. Here’s how.
Xbox games may one day support interactive streaming, in case your Twitch chat is not nightmarish enough already.
Microsoft has signed up to acquire Beam, “an innovative and interactive livestreaming service that gives viewers the ability to watch and play along with their favorite game streamers in real-time”, for Team Xbox.
What does that mean? It means that livestream viewers will be able to interact with the stream in both subtle and meaningful ways. The examples Microsoft gave were switching between player perspectives in Sea of Thieves (sure, whatever) or spawning items and setting challenges in Minecraft (a bit more dramatic).
“Impossible!” You splutter. “Surely if such technology existed everyone would put it in their games and Telltale’s Crowd Play would work with Twitch and other streaming services I definitely remember right now because the market is not utterly dominated by one brand at all!”
Nah though – it’s not science fiction. Both Rise of the Tomb Raider and indie horror Daylight had interesting Twitch chat interaction, so it’s clearly possible.
I’m too old to enjoy streaming (get off my lawn, etc) but it’s clearly one of the most important realms in modern gaming, so this is exciting news for Microsoft. It’s nice to see Team Xbox climbing aboard the social bandwagon Sony and the PS4 ran away with this generation (dat Share button); let’s see how badly it gets messed up by Microsoft’s obsession with OneDrive and gatekeeping
You can step into your Minecraft creations starting next week — if you own an Oculus Rift.
Mojang employee Tommaso Checchi confirmed on Twitter that an update for the Windows 10 version of Minecraft will add Rift support, and that the update is coming next week, according to WinBeta. This means gamers will be able to put on the Rift headset and walk around the world of Minecraft using an Xbox One controller.
The new feature will only be added to the Windows 10 version of Minecraft, but don’t worry about not having that version. If you already purchased Minecraft, you can get the Windows 10 version for free by logging on to the Mojang website and redeeming your copy in the Windows Store.
Microsoft acquired Mojang, the company behind Minecraft, in 2014. By making Rift support exclusive to the Windows 10 version of Minecraft, Microsoft is giving gamers a reason to try out the Windows Store, which might help that struggling platform gain traction.
But the business angle on this story isn’t nearly as interesting as the opportunity to fully immerse yourself into the pixelated world of Minecraft. The first-person building game seems like a perfect fit for virtual reality, especially when you consider all the crazy creations people have made in the game over the years. There’s certainly a whole lot to explore.
Of course, Minecraft is far from realistic: Its famously blocky graphics looked nostalgic even back in 2011, when it was first released. But simple graphics don’t make this game any less immersive, and the creativity of its users is no small part of that. We look forward to what VR can bring to this game on the Rift.
But if you can’t wait a week for VR Minecraft, the Pocket version of the game already works with Minecraft Gear VR. These are exciting times for brick builders everywhere! Also watch: Oculus Shows Off Oculus Medium 3D Sculptures
There have been lots of speculations going on around Rockstar Games’ upcoming title, GTA 6, from the new features it will offer down to the locations it will introduce. Now, latest rumors have surfaced pointing to the possibility of the new installment arriving with VR capability. Apart from that, it is also said to introduce a massive map that covers all of the ones found in previous GTA titles.
According to Game & Guide, GTA 6, once it arrives, will have a VR (that is Virtual Reality) feature — something that a good number of fans have been clamoring for. And indeed, if it becomes a reality, it will present a new kind of excitement for the fans to experience.
Aside from the aforementioned feature, GTA 6 is also rumored to introduce the biggest map in the franchise. This gameplay map, for lack of a better term, is deemed to be a combination of all the maps from previous titles in the franchise. Of course, it remains a mystery as to how it will be made accessible in the game — let alone the truth about its existence.
As for the GTA 6 setting, a handful of locations have been placed on the list – from Japan to London to San Diego. However, the one that intrigues the community the most is London. That, according to Ecumenical News, Rockstar might possibly take the new title to Europe — particularly in the aforesaid country.
But of course, London is not something new to the franchise. It has already been utilized in the past — specifically in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The only catch, however, is that it was set in year 1961. The speculation about GTA 6 being set in the aforementioned location stems from the number of British staff involved in developing the game. Advertisement
Although it holds true that Rockstar has yet to confirm these rumors, there is every inch of possibility that either one of these rumors might come true. As for its release date, GTA 6 is believed to be released sometime between 2018 to 2020.
