Nintendo’s ink-splashing hoedown Splatoon reimagined in Minecraft? As inevitable as death by ink-wielding cephalopod. A YouTuber named SethBling just made it so. Round of pixelated PC paintball, anyone?The Wii U game, which challenges teams to cover more of the map in ink than their rivals can, launched in late May to critical acclaim. But if you don’t have a Wii U, now you can halfway pretend that you’re playing Nintendo’s subversive team-shooter on a PC. It’s not precisely Splatoon, mind you, but SethBling’s take manages to hit several key notes.
In Splatoon, two teams of four players square off as ink-gun toting bipeds, each group working to saturate as much ground surface area as possible with their team’s color before a timer runs out. As each player’s ink supply dwindles, they can flatten into a zippy little squid, jetting around surfaces (as well as up or down vertical ones) they’ve painted.
Likewise, in SethBling’s Splatoon/Minecraft mashup, two teams of four (or more, if you like) square off in familiar orthogonal levels wielding any of three Splatoon-inspired weapons.
The goals (paint everything!) and timescales (three minutes per match) and transformable wall-climbing squid-thingies are basically identical. Unlike Splatoon, you can play in first- or third-person mode.
What’s missing? Splatoon‘s zany unlockable weapons, and the option to quick-launch across the map to any allied position. But that’s just a matter of time, right?