{"id":10593,"date":"2011-02-07T10:14:54","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T15:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=10593"},"modified":"2011-02-07T10:15:09","modified_gmt":"2011-02-07T15:15:09","slug":"postcards-from-minecraft-part-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=10593","title":{"rendered":"Postcards From Minecraft, Part 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

pfminecraft_cathedral.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

This is the most impressive construction I’ve seen in Minecraft<\/a>. It’s not the biggest or the most labor-intensive, but it does capture a murderously elaborate building. This one isn’t on the Twentymine Server, so I don’t know where you would go to get the tour. Still impressive, though.<\/p>\n

pfminecraft_chicken.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

This is a very faithful re-creation of the Minecraft chicken, done in 12x scale. <\/p>\n

I’ve never really cared for the chicken model. It looks too much like a duck. I think reducing the beak to just a couple of pixel-blocks would do wonders for it. <\/p>\n

pfminecraft_wool.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Notch added the ability to dye wool in a recent patch. This is a welcome addition to the game. Collecting the reagents and making dyes is interesting and fun, and the ability to build with lots of vibrant colors opens up a lot of creative possibilities. Before this, you could only acquire white wool. And really, what can you make with just white wool?<\/p>\n

pfminecraft_llama.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Oh. Yeah. I guess that’s something you could make. That is… a REALLY big llama. Llamas aren’t even part of the game. There are no llamas in Minecraft. Other than this one, obviously. This project is less “building” and more “sculpting”. Nice work, llama-maker.<\/p>\n

pfminecraft_cake1.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Notch stated that if Minecraft won the 2010 Indie of the Year Awards, he would add cake to Minecraft. It did, he did, and here it is. <\/p>\n

It’s a unique food within the game, because it’s not portable. You must place the cake before you can eat it, and once once placed it can’t be moved. You can come along and take bites out of it, eating it a little bit at a time. All other food in this game goes directly from your pockets to your tummy in a single bite.<\/p>\n

pfminecraft_cake2.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

So I made my own version of the cake in 14x scale. I re-created the thing as precisely as possible, right down to the positioning of the sprinkles. The frosting is wool and snow. The orange is pumpkins and orange-dyed wool. The sprinkles are red wool.<\/p>\n

pfminecraft_bridge.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

I already showed off this bridge in an earlier entry, but I thought I’d show another view of it. It reminds me of the Hell Gate Bridge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

pfminecraft_hardcore_house.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

As a way of adding another interesting angle to the discussion of punishment in games<\/a>, I’m still playing Minecraft in hardcore mode, where death = delete the world. That’s about as punishing as a game can get short of uninstalling itself if you fail. Now, I would never, ever have fallen in love with this game if hardcore was the ONLY way to play. I would have uninstalled it in disgust the first time I died and lost everything. It’s a nice challenge to add to the game once you’ve learned all about it, but trying to learn to play on hardcore would have been tedious and rage-inducing.<\/p>\n

pfminecraft_hardcore_kitchen.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

I’ve been maintaining the same world for a couple of weeks now, and after a while it turns out that the biggest danger is just maintaining focus. Once I go for several hours without getting hurt it becomes easy to forget how fragile the avatar is, and I end up taking stupid chances. Recently I was inside my house, working on the ceiling. I could hear the zombies, but I’d gotten so used to constantly hearing zombies that I was just ignoring the sound. Then I dug a hole in the ceiling and two of them fell on my head. They took my down to half a hit point. That’s as close as you can get to death without getting a game over. That’s also the closest I’ve ever come to dying from a zombie. <\/p>\n

When this character finally dies, it will probably be because I did something stupid and careless while building.<\/p>\n

pfminecraft_gate.jpg<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Hardcore mode by itself isn’t very challenging. You can just build a dirt hut around you and go AFK, and you’ll live forever. To make hardcore games interesting, you need to set some sort of goal for yourself beyond basic survival. Ideally, this should be something that will force you to explore or mine for resources. <\/p>\n

Whenever I attained a goal, I’d set a new one. <\/p>\n