Pokemon Is Now Playable In Minecraft (Sort Of)
If you’ve ever played Pokemon and thought, “This would be better if it was the same but blockier and in Minecraft,” then today might be your lucky day. Pokemon Cobalt and Amethyst is a fan-made project which is now playable inside Minecraft on PC/Mac.
The add-on, which has been developed by a group of modders headed up by Phoenix SC, includes a whole new map: the Suliqu region. It includes unofficial Pokemon, a custom soundtrack, and a whole new plot to follow.
Everything is, of course, made within the constraints of Minecraft–so battles, conversations, and more are all a little more blocky than your average Pokemon game.
To have a look for yourself, check it out here, or take a look at the video above.
Cobalt and Amethyst is not the first fan-made Pokemon game. A number of standalone Pokemon titles have been made by community members, though a number of them have shut down.
Minecraft’s latest official update brought new mobs, blocks, and wings to consoles, while the game is confirmed to be coming to Nintendo Switch.
Minecraft was also recently updated to add new skins and environments from the Fallout franchise, and got a new soundtrack from composer Gareth Coker.
Pokemon’s latest mainline games, Sun and Moon, recently became compatible with Pokemon Bank. Another Pokemon game has also launched, seemingly out of nowhere, and today is Mewtwo’s birthday, apparently.
Got boxes? Donate them to ‘Build the City: Minecraft Madness’
HAMPTON, Va. (WVEC) — The Hampton History Museum is in need of volunteers, boxes, and other supplies to help build a large-scale model of Downtown Hampton. The project will be a part of a free family event the museum is hosting called “Build the City: Minecraft Madness.”
The event will occur on Saturday, March 11. It will be held from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Carousel Park.
The event is based on the popular videogame Minecraft, in which players build constructions out of cubes. In this event, the children will be able to participate in a construction of Downtown Hampton using boxes, which will resemble the cubes used in Minecraft to build houses and other structures. Other recyclables, construction paper, chalk, and paint will be also be used.
No prior knowledge of the videogame is needed to volunteer, or participate, the museum just asks that people bring a positive attitude and a desire to inspire children’s creativity.
The museum will be taking donations of cardboard boxes and other reusable materials for the event, such as egg cartons and paper towel rolls.
Boxes of all sizes will be accepted, but the museum has a dire need for smaller boxes like the ones used for Girl Scout cookies, tea, toothpaste, and cereal.
If you are interested in donating to the event, please drop off all donations to the museum at 120 Old Hampton Lane between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday.
For more information on the event, how to volunteer, or to recommend a source for more boxes, please call Museum Educator Kris Peters at (757) 727-6838.
Got boxes? Donate them to ‘Build the City: Minecraft Madness’
Dig for treasure, enjoy a Minecraft festival or go to the zoo: Five things to do this half term
Half term is nearly here – looking for something to fill the time up?
Here’s five:
1. Take a trip to the zoo. Ever popular Flamingo Land opens its zoo for half term and from February 11 parts of Dino-Stone Park and the outdoor Pirates of Zanzibar acrobatic show will also be on. There’re more than 140 species of animals at the zoo in Malton, North Yorkshire, just over an hour’s drive from Teesside. www.flamingoland.co.uk for mor information.
2. A pop up farm brings the joys of the countryside to Lightwater Valley near Ripon for half term – and selected rides at the North Yorkshire theme park will also open at the Fab Feb Family Fun event designed to appeal to the eight and unders. Thurs Feb 16 to Tues Feb 21, £6 per person, tickets must be booked in advance.
3. Got a Minecraft fan in the family? There’s a festival all set to celebrate the video game, returning for a third year to Northumbria University Student’s Union, Newcastle on Saturday and Sunday, February 11 and 12. Nethermined also includes a special Parents Zone offering tips for safe online play. Family tickets are £60, www.nethermined.com/tickets
4. Enjoy storytime at Drake Bookshop in Silver Street, Stockton on Monday, February when 13 Lord Lieutenant of Durham, Sue Snowdon joins in a half term storytime special. She’ll be reading Shark in the Park by Nick Sharratt, the fun starts at 10.30am.
5. Treasure is top of the pile for intrepid kids this half term at Preston Park museum and grounds, Eaglescliffe. There’s a packed line up of activities from fossil hunts, the chance to Dig For It and become an archaeologist for the day as well as a screening of big screen blockbuster Jurassic Park. February 11 to February 26, most activities free with museum entrance, £2.50/£1.50, family £5.
Dig for treasure, enjoy a Minecraft festival or go to the zoo: Five things to do this half term
Minecraft isn’t just a game. It’s an art form.
Minecraft’s status as a hit game is well-known — but its massive success has made it more than just a game. As the above video shows, it’s also an art and business for creators who’ve embraced Minecraft’s unique, blocky world.
That’s exactly what James Delaney and Blockworks, a design company he co-founded, have done. The group made distinctive maps for Minecraft that have educated players and risen to the level of art — all while occasionally making a nice profit too. Their works are collected in the coffee table book Beautiful Minecraft, which features works ranging from surreal landscapes to surprisingly affecting “human” structures, all crafted using Minecraft’s blocks.
The artistic opportunities flow from Minecraft’s open structure. Though players can participate in the classically video-game-like “Survival Mode,” they can also do whatever they want in the game’s “Creative Mode,” which removes any threats and turns Minecraft into a blank canvas. For designers like those at Blockworks, Creative Mode gives them an opportunity to collaborate on new worlds, or “maps,” that are incredibly intricate, despite the limited “cubist” nature of their materials.
The creativity “Creative Mode” enables is obvious in the work that talented designers produce. Sometimes Minecraft artists will create interactive worlds that replicate historic events; other times, Minecraft’s many cubes coalesce into a sculptural image, the same way pointillism’s dots disappear to form a picture. These images and worlds can be eerie, magical, and surprisingly beautiful.
But perhaps most surprising of all, Minecraft worlds can also be a business. Companies like Blockworks make maps for private Minecraft servers (computer networks that host Minecraft games), and they also occasionally design maps in collaboration with institutions and companies like Minecraft owner Microsoft. That’s allowed the group to make some cash from its far-flung syndicate of talented designers.
Of course, this is a game, so there are still risks. Even in a seemingly open world like Minecraft, Microsoft can shut down lucrative collaborations between designers and big brands that want to commission in-game advertising. That adds one more complication to the intersection of gaming and art — there are business interests too, and they can’t be moved as easily as a couple of Minecraft blocks.
Lithuania builds Tesla factory with Minecraft
VILNIUS: Lithuanian entrepreneurs eager to woo Tesla Motors to their shores have built an entire factory to impress the electric carmaker… inside the Minecraft video game.
Responding to a plan announced last year by Tesla CEO Elon Musk to build a second factory in Europe, 40 gamers used the popular online building game to construct a virtual replica — in just 35 hours — of the company’s battery production plant.
But this time, instead of the original site in the US state of Nevada, the plant was located in the Baltic EU state.
The gamers then posted a 2:28-minute video on YouTube, showing off their model, which is complete with solar energy panels and electricity generators.
“Welcome to the dream,” reads a caption seen in the 3D video as the viewer is shown through the virtual plant.
It appears the gamers knew how to appeal to the tech geeks at Tesla, which tweeted on Saturday: “Lithuania knows the way to our heart”.
Lithuanian entrepreneur Vladas Lasas, who was behind the initiative, said his nation of three million faces tough competition from at least 10 European countries.
“We have teams to build a virtual factory in less than a week. And we could have real teams working in real factories within a couple of years,” he told AFP on Saturday.
Lasas said the new “gigafactory” would provide a significant boost to the Lithuanian economy, and could help curb emigration by young people to richer Western EU states.
Tesla has another plant in the Netherlands.
Lithuanian Economy Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius hailed the initiative and said “it was only the beginning in the effort to have Tesla in Lithuania”.
“This non-governmental initiative proves that our IT specialists are not only talented but also inventive enough to surprise the world,” he said.
Gamifying Museums Pt 1. – How Minecraft is Taking Visitor Engagement to the Next Level
Gamification, the practice of using gaming techniques and games such as Minecraft to increase consumer engagement, has long proved its worth in the retail sector.
Now, the world of museums is increasingly waking up to its potential to immerse audiences, create loyalty and deliver a new way of learning.
An early adopter in this sector was Tate who launched Tate Worlds in 2015. The application used the popular Minecraft gaming platform to create a series of 3D maps based on a number of key artworks owned by the Tate. Users can explore these ‘worlds’ while learning about the works and the artists in a dynamic, involving way.
Inspired by the success of Tate Worlds, the Museum of London launched its Great Fire 1666 project last year which recreates the City of London in 3D as it was before and during the fire. A third map about rebuilding the city after the fire is due to be released in February.
In this, the first of two Blooloop articles on gamifying museums, we spoke to Adam Clarke, Lead Artist and Project Manager on Tate Worlds and Josh Blair, The Museum of London’s Digital Learning Coordinator.
101 Ideas for Minecraft Learners
Adam Clarke, well-known to Minecrafters as Wizard Keen, is a digital artist who saw Minecraft’s potential for education years before he became involved with the Tate project.
“I had started a YouTube channel, creating a series of videos called 101 Ideas for Minecraft Learners, ” he says. “It was really to fill a space that I felt wasn’t being filled: parents and teachers and young people needed ideas and legitimacy. I had, and continue to have, so many ideas about how Minecraft can be used for education.”
Experimenting with map-making, Clarke had created a map of Cumbria using real satellite data. He then imported it into another programme and painted on the historic monument, Hadrian’s Wall. This led to a Museums at Night project at Tullie House in Carlisle, a museum close to Hadrian’s Wall.
With a major museum project under his belt, he now qualified for entry to the Tate’s annual IK Prize competition.
“My wife (the poet Victoria Bennett) said: This IK prize – are you going to go for it? I said: I don’t know. When is it for? She said: Tomorrow.
“This was at dinner time. So, we put our son to bed and we wrote down a proposal.”
Walking Into Artworks
Clarke knew exactly what he wanted to create:
“It would be about walking into artworks, using Minecraft as a tool to create immersive art history projects that can be experienced. We’d use the engagement of Minecraft, which seems to be a place where young people are confident. It speaks directly to them about worlds they’re super-familiar with. Minecraft continues, unlike Facebook, to be a place where Mum and Dad tend (only tend – I play it every day) to shy away from.”
Clarke then forgot about the IK prize so, when he was short-listed, it came as something of a surprise.
“We were the only proposal in the North of England to be chosen. We weren’t ‘professionals’, it was me and my wife – just artists thinking and being curious about how this stuff could be used – round a kitchen table. And, we had a seven-year-old who plays Minecraft quite a lot.”
Tate Worlds
Although Clarke and his wife didn’t win, their idea had created a spark at Tate.
“Two weeks later, the Tate got back in touch. They had some money, and thought our idea was really great and would like to produce it in some form or other. How, they wondered, could we do that?”
Thus Tate Worlds was born.
“We’ve produced several maps for Tate Britain, and have another two maps to produce, ” he says.
Tate Worlds proves, as Clarke knew it would, that Minecraft could be used by museums and galleries as a highly compelling, interactive, educational tool.
Players are encouraged to enter and explore the virtual worlds inspired by particular artworks, learning art history by problem-solving.
“In terms of engaging new audiences, and young people who find it difficult to get a foothold in cultural events or information, what the Tate did was to legitimise Minecraft for that audience.”
Project-Based Learning
Clarke is an enthusiastic advocate of the way Minecraft allows children to learn actively, without being ‘taught’ in a conventional sense.
“I come from an art background, and from an arts practice way of looking at things. How do we solve a problem? We gather information, we do research, we put it all together and we might use a design process – we can produce a range of outcomes, and then be selective about those outcomes.
“This is about project-based learning, project-based solutions.”
Clarke and his wife have chosen to home educate their son.
“Minecraft has been a key component of his own learning, and his sense of how to solve problems and collaborate with other people, ” he says.
“The way Wonder Quest is made is very much in that collaborative spirit.”
Wonder Quest
Wonder Quest is a children’s edutainment show developed by Joseph Garrett in partnership with Disney’s Maker Studios. It features Clarke in the persona of Wizard Keen and Garrett in his guise as YouTube megastar Stampy Cat.
“I get on a Skype call at 4pm with Stampy, and with the two writers and producers in Los Angeles, and together we might get in touch with Dragnoz who is a guy based in Spain, ” explains Clarke.
“We have these different people all over the world coming together in a Minecraft server, using lots of different bits of technology to create an entertaining little show.
“We’re all connected to a Minecraft server, plus we might be using Skype, plus we’ll probably be using Dropbox at the same time to share skins and content that we need to have instantly. And, a person who’s sitting at a desk in Los Angeles is typing up something I’m able to read instantly, and we’re both working in a Minecraft environment.
“There’s a three-dimensionality; an environmental space that we’re working in, almost like a TV studio or a set – it’s a theatrical space.”
With the advent of shows such as Wonder Quest and the Minecraft Education Edition, the game is now finding its way into the classroom. Exactly where it should be, according to Clarke.
“I’m interested in how we might use technology in the future – what do we learn from video games, and the skill-sets we’ve acquired – how might that affect the future of the quality of the communication that we give to each other?”
At the end of last year, he was in Canada and the US at a number of museum conferences, including Museum Next, talking about the role of engagement in Minecraft.
Interactive Clay
One gets the sense that what Clarke has created so far is just the tip of the iceberg:
“Minecraft continues, for me, to be one of the most exciting spaces to work in. I don’t see it as a video game, but more as a platform where I, as a creative artist, can still find new things to play with. Some people say it’s digital Lego. I say it’s much more like interactive clay, and I use it as an artistic medium. It’s a new digital space that I’ve been seeking for a long time.
“I think kids like it because it’s so unintimidating. They have full access to something that is easy to use from the very beginning. Unlike adults who are completely intimidated by it, kids can just pick it up and use it in moments, and get a huge amount of pleasure out of it, and feel like they own it, as well. Nobody’s telling them what to do; nobody’s telling them how to do it. They have to discover it for themselves.
“There are very few places where all those things come together; where kids get autonomy and to be creatively playful at the same time.
“Kids are turning to video games to find it, and Minecraft is ideal.”
Museum of London’s Great Fire 1666
Having seen Tate Worlds, Josh Blair and his team were quick to see the potential of Minecraft for the Museum of London’s Great Fire 1666 project.
Clarke, who had been talking about doing the Great Fire of London for a couple of years, was more than a little pleased when Blair approached him.
“I bit his hand off, ” says Clarke.
“We’re completing that project at the moment: there’s a third part that’s going to come out in February 2017 which is the rebuilding of London, so we’re working closely with the School of British Architects as well, who have all the historical stuff and original plans from
the 17th Century. It’s fascinating.”
Josh Blair, Digital Learning Coordinator at the Museum of London, was the project leader on the Great Fire 1666. Part of a team of three that work within the learning department, he is in charge of the digital learning that happens on site at the Museum of London, and at the Museum’s other two sites, Museum of London Docklands and the Archaeological Archive.
“We have a series of learning sessions that use digital technologies. Within that, we harness the power of digital as well as our collections and the stories we tell. We use this tool to help learning and to create different experiences.
“So, we primarily use iPads, use different apps – we have things with green screens, we use photography, we use animation, we use mind mapping apps across all our programmes. Now, we’re looking to use digital not as a magic bullet, nor as a quick sell to get kids interested, but as a tool that helps us tell the story.”
A Platform Children Automatically Understand
The Great Fire 1666 recreates the City of London in Minecraft before the fire, during the fire and after the city is rebuilt.
“It’s been an amazing project to be part of, ” says Blair.
“Minecraft is an incredible game that captivates and inspires users of all ages around the world. Its reach and versatility offers museums a fantastic platform to share our knowledge and collections, and to create engaging experiences.”
He had been using Minecraft as a teaching tool before the project’s inception:
“We used Minecraft within our learning sessions, on tablets, and we used it in our archive as part of whole day of sessions. We had children rebuild certain landmarks in London using Minecraft in teams, looking at foundations, looking at archaeology, looking at realistic resources. It’s a platform that children automatically understand, have a passion for and are excited by. They were doing things that were just fantastic using Minecraft, so we saw that this was an amazing learning tool that we could use to engage people.”
A Tool for Telling Stories
Last September was the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire so the museum was already busy creating a new exhibit and a brand new website dedicated to the Fire.
“We also thought that the work we had done with Minecraft so far really lent itself to this story. It lent itself to the idea of building a city, playing through the story, understanding the story, being able to spread our message and give children a learning experience. And, also, trying to engage and have as many people as possible experience the collections, sharing the knowledge that we have here.
“With the Great Fire story we create an immersive experience which is primarily fun – it’s interesting, you’re exploring and seeing the city like you’ve never seen it before. We haven’t just put dry information everywhere and said, this is what this looked like. Actually seeing it, they’ll understand it far better than if we explained it through text. It gave us this ability to be able to show people what London was like in 1666.
“The people we worked with were incredibly creative and managed to recreate it pretty much as it would have been.“
For the project, Clarke assembled the same team he had worked with on Tate Worlds: the professional Minecraft building team at Blockworks, and the game designer, Dragnoz.
Blair: “We had seen, when researching the project, what museums were doing. We thought what had been done with the Tate was fantastic.
A Fully Explorable, Fully Playable New World
“Adam was really excited about the prospect of this project. We were able to team up our collections, knowledge and the historical artefacts we have within the museum with his Minecraft expertise and standing, to create this fully explorable, fully playable new world.”
Children played a key role in the development process of the learning sessions at the museum.
“Lots of the learning we had early on in the smaller sessions with Minecraft came from what children told us they enjoyed as they were feeding back on our sessions.
They were suggesting, ‘We could do this – why don’t we link up into servers? If you gave us 45 minutes instead of 30 we could do this. If you said we couldn’t use certain things, certain resources, it would be more interesting’. They were really leading our learning, and getting to educate us, which was fantastic.”
From the outset, there was a certain lack of understanding within the museum itself.
“It was quite difficult to educate the museum about what we were doing. They’d heard about this phenomenon, but didn’t quite know what it was. There were a lot of conversations and a lot of translations from the Minecraft side of things into museum language.
“It was a fascinating conversation to have, and now most of the museum knows what Minecraft is and have played it, and love it.”
Historically Accurate Minecraft Maps
The Museum of London’s Great Fire 1666 project is in three parts.
“We sat down with Adam and with James Delaney from Blockworks who were mapping out what this could be. There were a million different iterations we could have created, but we thought as the current exhibition, Fire Fire, is split up into three sections, and the website Rhiannon (Looseley, Digital Learning Project Manager) was building was in three sections, tackling the story in three parts felt quite natural: before, during and after the fire.”
The three Minecraft maps are very different.
“The first is the recreation of the city as it was in the 17th century. Blockworks built it for us to be as historically accurate as possible. They used maps from our archive so they could map each road exactly as it was in 1666.
“We selected notable landmark buildings which we would then recreate, including the old St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, London Bridge and the Royal Exchange. Then, they created this huge city that is fully explorable.”
The first map is that exploration: players look around the city, discovering what it looked like in 1666:
“The houses were made of wood; they were quite close together; there were lots of open flames everywhere. This map is about understanding the kind of factors that influenced the fire then, and why it was such a terrible disaster.
“Within that, we had Adam and Stampy record audio facts for us about the fire.
“We also put some paintings and items from our collections into Minecraft form, hiding them around so people can find and collect them. This encourages people to look round the city as much as possible.”
A Learning Resource
The second map, released in September 2016, records the actual fire.
“You play through mini games explaining what happened in the fire. So, you wake up in Pudding Lane and have to escape the fire; you meet Thomas Farriner and have to try to put the fire out. Dragnoz created brand new Minecraft models based on our collection’s items from that era. He created fire squirts and buckets and an old fire engine. So, you can experience the tools they would have used to fight the fire at the time.
“There are games about saving people’s possessions, blowing up houses to create fire breaks. One, which is much more involved and interactive, focuses on helping Samuel Pepys.”
The third map, due to be released next month, will be about rebuilding the city.
“One of the cool features of Minecraft is building, so it really lends itself to this activity. We’re going to use the sketches of Christopher Wren and John Evelyn and Robert Hooke, the architects of the time. There were lots of differing visions of what London could look like, as it rose from the ashes. So, we’re going to examine them. We’ll look at the different ways that London could be, and help people rebuild the city as it was. Or, as a vision of what it could have been.”
The first two maps are available for free download on Mac or PC for anyone with a Minecraft account.
Democratising Museums
“One of the things we wanted to do was to show how children could use Minecraft for learning, ” explains Blair.
A key feature of previous projects has been to encourage parents and children to cooperatively build or explore.
“We wanted to show parents what Minecraft is. We wanted to show how important it is to children, how creative it is and how powerful it is.
“A lot of the feedback we got from parents early on simple. ‘My God – this is Minecraft – this is what s/he does all the time!’ Or, ‘This is what my child does the moment s/he comes home – I’ve never really looked at it before’.’
“So, with the Great Fire 1666 project we wanted to create a learning resource. Something that visitors could use either before coming to our exhibition, or after. Or, independently from it at home or in a different country. We wanted to show everyone what’s possible with it, and to encourage parents to understand that this is actually a very different kind of video game.
“Digital is part of the world now. Everyone has phones, tablets, lots of different digital devices. Museums have digital departments. People visit museums with their devices expecting free WiFi and museums are responding by providing digital experiences. There are trails and tours and augmented reality and virtual reality. This gives a lot more scope to open up the collections and give people experiences around the stories you have. There’s a lot happening with museums and digital right now.
“All museums have millions of artefacts that aren’t on show. This is a way of making them available, democratising museums and giving people access, whoever and wherever they are.”
Gamifying Museums Pt 1. – How Minecraft is Taking Visitor Engagement to the Next Level
Minecraft Update Heading Out for PS4, Xbox One, and Other Consoles
A new Minecraft update is heading out for PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, and pretty much every other platform that the massively popular open-world game is available on. This isn’t a massive update, but it is big enough to warrant checking out the extensive patch notes. It looks like all versions are getting pretty much the same patch, so just keep reading to see what to expect from this new Minecraft update.
Minecraft Update 38 on Xbox One or 1.41 on PS4 has a long list of bug fixes that it addresses, all listed in the patch notes. You can click here for the full list from 4J Studios, but we’ve pulled out a few highlights that seem like more impactful changes for the game.
This Minecraft update includes: “Fix for Horses not jumping to the correct height. Re-entering a tutorial area while the playing the Tutorial will reset the chests. Fix for Slab blocks not blocking light.
Fix for Chickens not dropping Cooked Chicken when they die on fire. Fix for Blazes not dropping Glowstone Dust when they die. Fixed the drop grate of Gold Nuggets. Fix for Zombie Pigmen not dropping Gold Ingots when they die. Fix for tamed Ocelots remaining hostile to anything they were attacking before being tamed. Fix for crash when spawning too many Shulkers. Added new 11 achievements/trophies for Survival. Added new 7 achievements/trophies for Tumble.” And more.
Minecraft updates are always a nice time to jump back into the long running game. I always seem to hit the game in waves, playing it extensively for a few weeks or months before I kind of get tired of it, or my friends get addicted to some other new game. Then a new update hits and I’m right back in the mine, desperately searching for diamonds. When was the last time you were truly hooked on Minecraft? Let us know in the comments.
Minecraft Update Heading Out for PS4, Xbox One, and Other Consoles
Minecraft Villains Skin pack now available for console editions
Mojang yesterday announced the availability of new Villains Skin Pack for Minecraft console editions. Pocket Edition and Windows 10 players already have access to this pack since last year. Each of these skins is inspired by one of the most evil things in Minecraft – cakes, silverfish, trapdoors to name just a few.
Grab it and join forces with Minecraft’s most dastardly denizens: slink from the shadows as the sinister Stronghold Seer, unleash the fury as the ferocious Lava Fiend, or, er, sell silverfish as the monstrous Silverfish Monger. The evilest of all mongers!
Then there’s the grotesque Patchkin, the enigmatic Endergaunt, the chilling Eyece, the Terror Spawner, Dungeon Spectre, Slymime and Cake Maniac. There’s evil of every flavour: 17 skins in total – the evilest of all numbers!
The pack features 17 skins and costs $1.99.
Minecraft Villains Skin pack now available for console editions
Minecraft: We Spoke to the Lead Designer Behind the Iconic Game
Minecraft is one of the most popular video games ever created. Since its humble beginnings as an indie game for the PC, the game has amassed over 100 million sales in just over five years. This makes it the second best-selling video game of all time, second only to Tetris. Minecraft has captured the hearts of both adults and children across the globe.
Minecraft’s identity is unique. Its merchandise – ranging from action figures, clothing, books, backpacks and even Lego sets – is instantly recognizable and easily findable in a variety of high-street stores throughout the world. Minecraft has become an everyday part of our lives, even if some of us don’t recognize it yet.
Highsnobiety was lucky enough to speak to the lead designer and lead developer of Minecraft, Jens Bergensten, to figure out what’s made the game the cultural phenomenon it is today.
“We Believed That Minecraft Had Peaked by the End of 2010”
Jens Bergensten has been the lead designer and lead developer of Minecraft since its original creator, Markus Persson, stepped down from his position in December 2011. Since then, the three founding founders of Mojang, the Swedish firm responsible for development of the game, have now left. Highsnobiety asked Jens if he had ever imagined Minecraft would grow into the cultural phenomenon it is now:
“We believed that Minecraft had peaked by the end of 2010, so I think it’s safe to say that it was a surprise to all of us,” Jens tells us. It’s a modest reply. After all, it’s safe to assume that back in 2010, nobody at Mojang would have ever guessed that Microsoft would eventually buy the company for 2.5 billion dollars.
An acquisition by such a large company could have been damaging for a game with its roots in indie culture. Thankfully, it’s been anything but, and the Minecraft brand continues to grow at an unprecedented pace.
A Game That Shows No Signs of Slowing Down
Over time, Minecraft’s popularity has seen the video game evolve into a series that stretches across a whole variety of different media.
Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to Minecraft in February last year, spawning rumors that Steve Carell may play a leading role in the big screen adaption of the game. Featuring in films, documentaries, a Lady Gaga music video, TV series such as South Park and even in schools as an educational tool, Minecraft has successfully cemented itself into popular culture.
The Building Blocks of Virtual Lego
Microsoft
What is the secret to the game’s success? This video game equivalent of Lego is simple to pick up and play, but has a surprising amount of depth thanks to a variety of different game modes.
Perhaps one of the most impressive things about the game is the way players can use their imagination to recreate locations from the Game of Thrones universe, Harry Potter, New York and even a life-sized recreation of the Taj Mahal. We wanted to know if Jens thought that the aesthetic and visuals of Minecraft helped to determine its success:
“In a sense it did help the success, as it allowed Markus Persson to develop the game very rapidly and focus on gameplay instead of visuals,” he explains. “As the game and development team grew, we realized that it was also one of the game’s strengths. This gave it a clear visual identity, while allowing the very creative Minecraft community to participate. Anybody can make a 16×16 pixel image for Minecraft.”
Minecraft Continues to Build and Improve on Its Merits
It would be foolish to dismiss Minecraft as nothing more than a sandbox creation game. Minecraft has a variety of different game modes to help it appeal to as many different audiences as possible, and Microsoft has continued to show the same amount of support for the game as Mojang post-release.
Microsoft’s commitment to Minecraft’s player base is shown through a variety of different updates across all of its platforms, providing them with new and exciting ways to play the game. Consistent patches also eliminate any bugs that may appear along the way. The responsiveness of the development team is certainly reason for praise.
Minecraft Allows for Complete Customization
The 16×16 pixels that Jens speaks of have also allowed for the release of official skin packs to be used by a variety of different characters in the game.
Among these are packs inspired by games such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Skyrim and Mass Effect, as well as loads of skin packs focused around popular films and TV shows. The beauty of Minecraft’s identity is that it pretty much allows for anything to be replicated into the game.
Growing the Minecraft Story
At the end of 2015, Telltale games (the company behind the episodic The Walking Dead and Games of Thrones titles) released the first episode Minecraft: Story Mode. Adding further exploration into the narrative aspect of Minecraft, these episodic releases allowed players to connect with Minecraft characters on a whole new level.
“Story Mode is one of many possible stories told in Minecraft,” Jens explains. “The idea is that players will make their own story in Minecraft, so we try not to explain too much in the game.”
“There are elements in the Minecraft universe that act as a narrative, such as a dragon in The End, and the evil villagers that attack the villagers,” he continues. “But they are intended as a background for other people to base their stories on.”
Following on from the success of these episodic releases, the Minecraft story continues to grow as it enters into an entirely new and somewhat unexpected medium: the novel. Last year, Mojang announced Minecraft: The Island, the first official Minecraft novel.
A Passionate Community
Behind any great game is a passionate community. Conventions such as Minecon attract scores of Minecraft fans in their thousands, with the 2015 London Minecon breaking a Guinness World Record for the largest ever attendance at a convention for a single game.
The game has literally created careers for thousands of YouTube stars, and millions of people flock online to watch a variety of YouTube-generated Minecraft content. What role do the fans of Minecraft play in shaping its future?
“We obviously listen to the feedback and take suggestions, but ultimately, we attempt to develop a game for everyone,” Jens says. “Different kinds of players like different things, so we try to grow the game without overcrowding it with any specific kind of feature.”
Looking to the Future
Microsoft
With Minecraft already exploring different genres thanks to their partnership with Telltale games, we ask Jens if we could ever see the Minecraft name extended into other areas. “Yes,” he said, “although we would probably look for game types that have some kind of crossover with the core Minecraft audience already. A racing game is, in other words, a stretch.”
For someone leading the development and design for such a popular video game, it’s easy to wonder if he could ever feel shackled by the success of Minecraft. Shortly before his departure, series creator Markus said he “doesn’t want to be responsible for something huge that [he doesn’t] understand, that [he doesn’t] want to work on.” Mojang echoed his sentiment with a statement explaining that Markus “doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance.”
“Sometimes I wish I had time to work on games other than Minecraft, but that’s a privileged problem,” Jens says. “I really like strategy games, so I would probably work on something along those lines.” He goes on to add that some of his favourite video game releases in 2016 are Inside by Playdead, Factorio by Wube Software and Cobalt by Mojang.
Minecraft shows no signs of slowing down. For a game with an ever-accelerating player base – Mojang’s website literally has a click tracker for PC and Mac purchases – Minecraft’s popularity can only continue to grow as its developers experiment with new ways to explore its worlds.
Minecraft is already available for the Gear VR and Oculus Rift, and was recently announced as a title for the Nintendo Switch. And with the Minecraft movie promising to introduce a large group of people who are possibly yet to try the game, the future certainly looks bright for the franchise.
Having achieved 100 million sales in just over five years, we can only wonder what the series will achieve next.
Minecraft: We Spoke to the Lead Designer Behind the Iconic Game
Minecraft gets a big update on Xbox One and Xbox 360
4J Studios, the Scottish game studio who developed the Minecraft console ports, has announced last week a new content update for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition and Minecraft: Xbox One Edition. The sandbox video game has received some new bug fixes and gameplay improvements as well as additional achievements for Survival and Tumble.
The changelog is identical for both versions of the game and you can find it below:
- Fix for Horses not jumping to the correct height.
- Re-entering a tutorial area while the playing the Tutorial will reset the chests.
- Fix for Slab blocks not blocking light.
- Fix for Chickens not dropping Cooked Chicken when they die on fire.
- Fix for Blazes not dropping Glowstone Dust when they die.
- Fixed the drop rate of Gold Nuggets.
- Fix for Zombie Pigmen not dropping Gold Ingots when they die.
- Fix for tamed Ocelots remaining hostile to anything they were attacking before being tamed.
- Fix for crash when spawning too many Shulkers.
- Fix for Enderman not taking damage from rain while in a Boat.
- Improvements to framerate when throwing a lot of Lingering Potions.
- Fix for Wither Skeleton being able to walk through two block high spaces.
- Minor changes to Battle Mini Game maps to close off areas that should not be accessible.
- Fix for lighting issues when digging down in spawn area.
- Fix for rename Record losing its name after being in a Jukebox.
- Added chance of Melon, Pumpkin, and Beetroot Seeds, and Jungle Saplings spawning in the Bonus Chest.
- Fix for a range of tooltips that would appear when the action was not available.
- Fix for Mob Spawner error that occured after using a spawn egg to change what it should spawn.
- Fixes to End Gateway generation.
- Fix for End spawn location being in the wrong place.
- Added a particle effect and sound effect when a mob spawner fails to spawn due to spawn limits.
- Fix for crash when placing a Sign on top of Tall Grass.
- Stop End Crystals exploding when “TNT Explodes” is disabled.
- Fix for Hoppers not collecting items above them.
- Added new 11 achievements for Survival.
- Added new 7 achievements for Tumble.
The content update should download automatically on your Xbox 360 or Xbox One. Sound off in the comments if you think these various improvements will make your gaming experience better.
Get Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition ($19.99) / Get Minecraft: Xbox One Edition ($19.99)
Raft of new Minecraft publishing coming
Egmont will this year release four new Minecraft titles, created to replace the original ‘handbook’ series.
John Packard, publishing director for brands and licensing at Egmont Publishing, said: “We are tremendously excited to be launching the Minecraft Guides this spring as they represent a real landmark in our Minecraft publishing plans. These new titles will explore new topics in depth for players at different stages in their Minecraft journey [and] will form a key plank of our publishing for the next three years.”
Two books are scheduled for release on 1st June; Minecraft Guide to Creative (which is about building structures in the game) and Minecraft Guide to Exploration (which shows players how to defend themselves). The next two books, Minecraft Guide to Redstone (about engineering) and Minecraft Guide to the Nether and the End (about a new terrain in the game), will follow in September.
All four titles were created with input from Minecraft’s developer Mojang and will be released in hardback, priced at £9.99.
Egmont said there are also “further titles planned” for 2018 and 2019.
Minecraft is one of the most successful children’s publishing tie-ins of recent years. The series launched in 2013 with four handbooks: The Official Beginner’s Handbook, The Official Redstone Handbook, The Official Construction Handbook and The Official Combat Handbook. A fifth title, Blockopedia followed in December 2014.
By February last year had sold 620,152 copies for £2.96m to date, according to Nielsen BookScan, whilst Blockopedia had sold 187,070 copies for £2.86m.
According to Egmont, total sales of the game (across all editions) are in excess of 107 million units.
BLOCK OUT SOME CLASS TIME: MINECRAFT EDUCATION EDITION HITS V1.0
Minecraft is one of the most popular games ever made, and it appears to be just as beloved in classrooms as it is at home. Looking to continue that trend, Microsoft and Mojang have been working hard at further developing Minecraft Education Edition, and at the start of 2017, the two firms have announced that this version of the game has now hit 1.0.
Minecraft Education Edition is the same Minecraft world you know and love, but with specific features aimed at students and teachers. It has NPCs for tutorials, simple multiplayer server setup, camera and portfolio recording, in-game chalkboards and downloadable lesson plans for educators.
While all of those features have been present since the early days of Minecraft Education Edition in late 2016, now that it’s hit version 1.0, there are a number of new features to enjoy, too.
There is now a global pause button, which brings the whole world to a quick halt in order to give children a break, and which also lets the teacher control when and how the lesson ends. Text-to-speech and other accessibility features have also been added and they make it easier for those with disabilities to join in, too. A newly arranged UI makes interaction easier, and an increased world height to 256 means bigger and better projects.
Added features from the main game’s v1.0 update, like The End dimension, are now included and there are also igloos and polar bears in snowy biomes. To top it all off, there’s a new, streamlined uploading process with support for .mcworld files.
To continue encouraging teachers and educators around the world to use Minecraft Education Edition, Microsoft has also announced a new mentor system. This will see some 60 educators from 19 countries around the world posting blogs, lesson plans, live-streams and videos on a regular basis as part of a “Mentor of the Week” ongoing series.
Microsoft and Mojang aren’t stopping there though. They plan many more updates to the educational version of Minecraft throughout 2017, so keep your eyes peeled and make sure you know your granite from your redstone, as chances are your kids will be playing it before long, if they haven’t already.
BLOCK OUT SOME CLASS TIME: MINECRAFT EDUCATION EDITION HITS V1.0
NORTH EAST MINECRAFT FESTIVAL WILL TEACH PARENTS COMPUTER SAFETY…
[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Gamasutra and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource GamesPress.]
A festival celebrating one of the most successful video games will help North East parents to keep their youngsters safe online.
Nethermined – an unofficial event around the game Minecraft – will be held in Newcastle for the third time on Feb 11-12 at Northumbria University Students’ Union.
And along with giving fans of the game the opportunity to be involved in a wide range of activities including playing Minecraft, meeting some of the top YouTube gamers and taking part in workshops, special sessions have also been put in place for parents.
A special Parents Zone has been set up as part of this year’s event, where parents can get valuable tips about protecting their children who play games online, as well as learning more about their youngsters’ favourite games.
Organiser Michelle Poller, who set up the festival three years ago for her daughter who was too young to go to official Minecraft events on her own, added that Nethermined also has a strong educational value.
“It’s not just about playing games for fun,” said Michelle, from Newcastle.
“Minecraft is now widely recognised as a virtual reality educational tool and we have brought in a number of experts, including IT Educator of the year 2015, Joel Mills, who will be showcasing the way virtual reality can be used in education.
“We are hoping that this will also attract schools from across the region who should find it extremely useful.”
To allow more people to attend organisers have also now released a family ticket for £60 which can be used by two adults and two children, or one adult and three children.
NORTH EAST MINECRAFT FESTIVAL WILL TEACH PARENTS COMPUTER SAFETY…
Microsoft releases ‘Minecraft: Apple TV Edition’ just in time for the holidays
Apple’s October event was most known for the introduction of the 2016 MacBook Pro with its new Touch Bar input device. As usual at such events, however, Apple rolled out some other, lesser products and announced some things coming from partners and even competitors.
One of the latter announcements was that Microsoft would be releasing Minecraft for Apple TV. Apple indicated Microsoft’s popular open-world sandbox game would make it to its media server by the end of 2016, and Microsoft made that promise real on Monday, MSPU reports.
Minecraft runs on a host of different platforms, from PCs to Xbox One to smartphones, and it is used for fun by millions of players, as a business endeavor by YouTube celebrities, and as an educational tool by teachers and institutions around the world. Minecraft allows for open exploration of a massive world and the ability to recreate real-world sites and technologies inside of the game.
Apple has been pushing its Apple TV product as a sort of poor man’s gaming console for some time now and Minecraft will be a welcome and important addition. At this point, Minecraft support on Apple TV is a bit limited. For example, support for Microsoft Realms or Xbox Live are omitted, but developer Mojang promises support for those features and more in an update. The Apple TV version does support both Creative Mode, which offers unlimited resources, and Survival Mode, for some in-game combat action.
You can buy Minecraft: Apple TV Edition for $20 from the App Store. The Apple TV version of Minecraft supports the various DLC that’s been released for the game and some editions ship with Holiday 2015, Town Folk, City Folk skin packs and Plastic, Natural, Cartoon, and Festive 2016 mash-ups.
Microsoft releases ‘Minecraft: Apple TV Edition’ just in time for the holidays
‘Minecraft: Education Edition’ Adds Features for Teachers to Use with Students
Minecraft: Education Edition has officially released a 1.0 edition. It introduces valuable tools for students and educators alike — both in and out of the game.
With more than 25 million sales on the PC/Mac platform alone, and over 100 million total copies sold as of June 2016, the blocky virtual world is more populated than most countries on Earth. It’s moved beyond “popular game” and into “major cultural influencer” for the next generation of creative young minds.
In the recent past, Minecraft: Education Edition added thousands more users, giving teachers the chance to tap into its boundless potential for engaging students in the classroom. With 1.0, the toolset is now feature complete and ready to move into even more schools.
Teachers can use pre-made Minecraft worlds for everything from learning about windmills or ecology, to the function of the human eye. If they’re uncertain how to begin, Microsoft and developer Mojang have them covered. 60 educators from 19 countries have been recruited for regular blog posts, lesson plans, and other supplemental help for those looking to implement Minecraft into their teaching strategy.
The 1.0 version also brings some mechanical and quality of life features. The game world can be built twice as high to accommodate complex projects, teachers can pause the game across their whole classroom, and the worlds in which the children work can be much more easily uploaded and shared.
Minecraft has a great track record as an educational asset, and it’s only getting better. In addition to the robust feature set already implemented, Minecraft is positioned to be a truly valuable tool in the hands of teachers looking to engage the most connected generation in history.
Minecraft: Education Edition’ Adds Features for Teachers to Use with Students
Microsoft: Minecraft mentors help teachers grok the game
Educators who don’t know a creeper from a piston can get online help from experts on using the megahit game in schools. Also new: polar bears.
A new version of Microsoft’s Minecraft for schools means teachers won’t have to struggle for expertise or inspiration using the game with their students.
The video game, which lets players explore its signature blocky 3D realm and build all kinds of fanciful structures, can be complicated. That’s especially true if you’re building interactive tutorials for students in Minecraft Education Edition.
Hand-picked mentors can now answer teacher questions or offer guidance for particular age groups or subjects, and now there’s a larger 60-person team offering blog posts, live streams and videos, Microsoft said Tuesday as it released the updated software.
Minecraft is immensely popular with kids outside schools. The Education Edition, which costs $5 per student, is designed to capitalize on that popularity to help teachers do their job. Its wide-open customization options means Minecraft can be adapted countless ways to help kids learn, not just veg out.
So far 75,000 students are using it, Microsoft said. Teachers can use pre-packaged Minecraft worlds for tasks like exploring ecology, showing the fictional worlds depicted in books, experimenting with construction and architecture, teaching physics and recreating historical moments.
Other changes in the new version:
- Higher skies — a 128-block height limit now is lifted to 256 blocks.
- A global pause ability so teachers can put an entire classroom’s Minecraft activities on hold.
- The addition of igloos and polar bears in snowy areas.
- An easier process to upload Minecraft worlds for better sharing.
Minecraft Education Edition version 1.0 adds features for teachers and students
Minecraft is one of the most popular games ever made, and it appears to be just as beloved in classrooms as it is at home. Looking to continue that trend, Microsoft and Mojang have been working hard at further developing Minecraft Education Edition, and at the start of 2017, the two firms have announced that this version of the game has now hit 1.0.
Minecraft Education Edition is the same Minecraft world you know and love, but with specific features aimed at students and teachers. It has NPCs for tutorials, simple multiplayer server setup, camera and portfolio recording, in-game chalkboards and downloadable lesson plans for educators.
While all of those features have been present since the early days of Minecraft Education Edition in late 2016, now that it’s hit version 1.0, there are a number of new features to enjoy, too.
There is now a global pause button, which brings the whole world to a quick halt in order to give children a break, and which also lets the teacher control when and how the lesson ends. Text-to-speech and other accessibility features have also been added and they make it easier for those with disabilities to join in, too. A newly arranged UI makes interaction easier, and an increased world height to 256 means bigger and better projects.
Added features from the main game’s v1.0 update, like The End dimension, are now included and there are also igloos and polar bears in snowy biomes. To top it all off, there’s a new, streamlined uploading process with support for .mcworld files.
To continue encouraging teachers and educators around the world to use Minecraft Education Edition, Microsoft has also announced a new mentor system. This will see some 60 educators from 19 countries around the world posting blogs, lesson plans, live-streams and videos on a regular basis as part of a “Mentor of the Week” ongoing series.
Microsoft and Mojang aren’t stopping there though. They plan many more updates to the educational version of Minecraft throughout 2017, so keep your eyes peeled and make sure you know your granite from your redstone, as chances are your kids will be playing it before long, if they haven’t already.
Minecraft Education Edition version 1.0 adds features for teachers and students
Minecraft Apple TV Edition review: Block building on the big screen
Minecraft is the biggest (paid) gaming sensation of the last decade, racking up more than 100 million downloads across platforms and still growing in popularity after several years. It’s hugely popular with young kids, has a vibrant fan community, and even is used in classrooms for educational purposes. And now you can play it on the Apple TV.
Released right before Christmas, Minecraft: Apple TV Edition is essentially a big-screen conversion of the Minecraft: Pocket Edition you might know well from iPhone and iPad. It’s not only the biggest game to hit the Apple TV to date, but also simultaneously the highest-profile game on the device to require a gamepad—you won’t be able to play with the Siri Remote. And that’s for the best, because it means that Minecraft isn’t diminished in this new incarnation.
Block by block
Minecraft on Apple TV offers essentially the same experience as Pocket Edition, which itself follows the same core tenets as the original Minecraft on Mac and PC: it’s all about little blocks. Like a modern-day digital take on LEGO, you’ll wield pixelated blocks of all sorts—dirt, sand, iron ore, and much more—in your charmingly jagged world. You can use them to build a house, a city, a detailed re-creation of the Millennium Falcon… or anything else, really.
You’ll also bash them to bits as you dig into the ground and mountains, exploring beneath the surface to mine all sorts of minerals. And then you’ll craft, of course, using the myriad blocks you’ve accumulated to build swords, shovels, pickaxes, fishing rods, and other tools to help you in the lo-fi wilds. As ever, Minecraft is about as loosely structured as a game can be. You’re dropped into a world with no tutorial, a minimal on-screen interface, and no objectives or storyline. It’s up to you to find meaning and fun in each randomly generated world you enter.
Luckily, that’s not difficult: the allure of freeform, trial-and-error exploration reveals surprises and secrets along the way, especially as you learn the ropes in the Survival mode, and there’s real joy in forging your own adventure in the face of unexpected challenge. With vicious block monsters appearing every night, you’ll need to utilize the resources around you to build shelter, craft better tools, and ultimately find your way to the final realm, called The End.
Meanwhile, in Creative Mode, you have all of the tools, blocks, and resources ready in your arsenal, and you can even soar through the air—all of which allows you to build massive structures and create your own experiences along the way. And you can also connect to online servers for multiplayer in either mode, and play with fellow fan-made maps and makeshift minigames.
Playing Minecraft with a proper gamepad is so much better than using virtual buttons on your iPhone or iPad. While that’s adequate enough, there’s nothing quite like the steady, tactile sensation of feeling an analog stick and buttons under your thumbs, not to mention having an unencumbered view of the game on your TV. I’m using the SteelSeries Nimbus ($50), which is still the best of the bunch with Apple TV and iOS MFi gamepads, and Minecraft plays as well here as it does on other consoles and computers. While it’ll take a fairly sizable investment to start playing, it’s the only option that makes sense on the Apple TV: trying to comfortably squeeze all of the controls onto the limited Siri Remote seems an impossible task.
Double up?
Minecraft: Apple TV Edition is almost identical to Pocket Edition in nearly every respect. It has the same content as the recent 1.0 release of Pocket Edition, which also supports gamepads. However, the Apple TV Edition lacks a couple of features right now: support for Realms, the official service for setting up and running private Minecraft servers, as well the ability to sign into Xbox Live and add friends via the service. Both of those features are in development, which is great, but it’s no surprise that the Apple TV Edition’s $20 price tag is throwing some Pocket Edition owners for a loop.
While many purchased iOS games are then free to download on Apple TV, Minecraft: Apple TV Edition has its own $20 price tag that is separate from Pocket Edition’s paltry $7 charge. Seven bucks for Minecraft on your iPhone is a steal, while $20 for a home console version feels spot-on. However, given that you’re essentially getting a blown-up version of Pocket Edition, it seems strange that you’re asked to pay again, not to mention at a much higher price.
It’s a matter of Mojang and Microsoft following their usual playbook here, in which console versions of Minecraft cost $20, while Apple’s shared platform could allow for one purchase to cover iOS and Apple TV versions alike. But that’s their choice to make, and now it’s yours too. At least early buyers get a free add-on pack bundle that brings in a Christmas-themed environment, costumes, and other small digital goodies.
The Mac version is a bit more feature rich than this one (and is $27 by comparison), but playing on a TV with a gamepad is definitely preferable to using an iOS device. If you or your kids are still over the moon about Minecraft—or haven’t played and think it could be up your alley—then this may be $20 very well spent. Minecraft is infinitely replayable and Mojang keeps expanding its feature set, while online servers offer further modes and experiences. On the other hand, if you have Pocket Edition and are either perfectly content with it or don’t play much anymore, then there’s little point in buying the same game again at three times the cost.
Bottom line
Minecraft shines on the Apple TV, as playing on a big screen with a comfortable controller is even more alluring than playing on your iPhone or iPad—and it’s about on par with the Mac version in terms of overall experience. However, the price discrepancy with the Pocket Edition and need to buy this version separately may throw some fans for a loop.
Minecraft Apple TV Edition review: Block building on the big screen
Minecraft Confirmed for Nintendo Switch
No details or release date were announced. On Nintendo’s official site, Minecraft is simply described as: “Create your very own game world to explore, build and conquer. When night falls the monsters appear, so ensure you’ve made yourself a shelter before they arrive. Make it through the night and the world is only limited by your imagination you choose what you want to make or what to do.”
Switch continues Minecraft’s near-ubiquity on gaming consoles, following versions for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS4, PS4, PS Vita, Wii U, and more. More than 106 million copies of Minecraft had been sold as of last year, placing it among the best-selling games of all time.
Microsoft bought Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014, but, as tonight’s announcement proves, that didn’t stop the franchise from appearing on multiple platforms.
Minecraft received a major update on Windows 10 and mobile late last year.
‘Beautiful Minecraft’ Review
I’m a relative newcomer to the world of Minecraft. My sons have played it for years now, but I really just started getting into it myself this last summer. My younger son put me through a kind of boot camp where I had to put in sixty hours of Minecraft in about ten days…and by the end of that, I loved it. I’m not a pro, in fact I’m still a “noob” according to the kids. But I dig it. (get it?!) Sometimes it takes a greater vision to see the real potential of a building tool, and that’s what you get in No Starch Press’s new book, “Beautiful Minecraft.”
The hardcover book is a collection of dozens of different builds from James Delaney and his colleagues at BlockWorks — a consortium of Minecraft builders that collaborate on large scale projects. They run the gamut from real world architecture to science fiction to sculpture, and each page is astounding, with details you’ll be exploring for hours. There are nine chapters in “Beautiful Minecraft” —
- Fantasy Worlds
- The Builds of Tomorrow
- More Than a Game
- Sculptures
- Building a Place in the World
- Mechanical Marvels
- Re-creations
- Playful Design
- Landscapes
Each has favorite builds for me; Mats Heiberg’s “Babel” is a particular favorite. The gothic-inspired ornate island palace/cathedral/magical realm is beautiful in scope and detail. We don’t get much information about the builds — evidently “Babel” was all Heiberg working alone, and comprises 8 million blocks and took 31 days to build. Which is insane. But the results speak for themselves.
Something it’s difficult to get a sense of with the builds is the scale of them — most of these aren’t built on a conventional Minecraft scale (scaled to the size of Steve and the Creepers), but they use the blocks as smaller pieces to build structures of greater scope.
The spaceships and stations are another favorite section in the book — seeing how visions of the future could be interpreted in Minecraft is something that I hadn’t even considered while building my own little worlds. Again, the scale of these is difficult to comprehend, but they’re stunning in the complexity of their design.
I’m not sure what I was expecting with “Beautiful Minecraft” — it makes a good companion piece to some of No Starch’s other books in a “Beautiful LEGO” series. They both bring attention to the use of these children’s games and toys as a legitimate art form. Just as Nathan Sawaya’s LEGO sculptures have made people see the potential in plastic bricks, the artists (and they are artists) in “Beautiful Minecraft” make an argument for how this highly pixelated game can be used as a medium.
My one issue with the book is that there isn’t enough text from the builders. There are a few short pages explaining some of the process, but not much about the inspiration behind the projects. There aren’t “artist statements” that I feel would be illuminating, especially to some of the more abstract pieces. The bits we do get are so interesting — the difference between creating a sculpture in Minecraft (above) and sculpting in stone, for example. I would like to see more of that.
If you’re interested in Minecraft (possibly), or you have kids who are (almost certainly), “Beautiful Minecraft” is a great read. It’s one that I’ve pored over multiple times, coming away with ideasfor how to build, what to build, and consider my own miserable lack of Minecraft skills. At least with “Beautiful Minecraft,” I know where to look for inspiration.
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