Grow your own forest

The north west corner of the map has some hills scarcely populated with trees. That would be more interesting as a dense forest so a bit of tree planting was required. 

Before:

And after:

One additional advantage is that the forest canopy now removes from sight the straight map border.

The wilderness

So far the construction activities have been focus on the east coast of the map, so it was about time of  start deciding what to do with the rest. That part of the map presented several interesting features:

1) an impossible near flying rock over a cliff in a sea bay

2) a small hidden pond behind hills

3) some sunken sand pits

The initial idea is to leave this west side of the map focused on nature as the east part is on civilization.

A horse stable

A horse stable built in the town by one if the walls. If only the game had horses...

Clouds

Minecraft PE upgraded today to the new available version (0.6.0). Clouds sail now the sky.

The wall

The castle curtain wall keeps on growing following the hill shape. Two additional towers are now added to the wall.

Secondary castle gate

The building of the castle curtain walls continues around the main buildings, so it was about time for a secondary smaller access gate. The gate itself a small tower to be crossed in an L shape with two iron fences at each side (wood with current Minecraft PE blocks) for a better defense from the walls. On the first floor of the gate tower, a grid allows the gate defenders to attack attackers from above.

Dungeons

Deep under the castle are the dungeons. The first level is the detention and torture area, a big room with stone pillars lit with torches where cages hold prisoners waiting for interrogation. A grid under the cages shows the prisoners the deep cave underneath. The chill air brings the wailing of prisoners down there in dark cells

Building around the keep: the main gate

Once the main blocks of the keep are there, tower and great hall, it is about time to build around them. Basically what is needed is a curtain wall around the keep to protect it from external attacks and one or several gates to access to it. Since there is not possible to transport water in the current Minecraft PE version and the proximity to the sea, a moat around the castle is neither possible nor a priority. So, where to start? The hill on what the castle is being built descends to a bay where a harbor could be built one day, so it looks like a good idea have to place the castle main gate in that direction. That will also allow for a long walk around the great hall entrance where invaders will be trapped in the corridor between curtain wall and keep where the defenders could attack from above. For the time being the main gate will be two main towers with a bridge connecting them. Battlements and arrow slots allow defend the main gate from that bridge. The towers have stone walls and two floors wooden beam floors. Not having a final decision on the gate doors, I will build them later.

The castle grows

The original castle tower by the great hall has grown into tall tower with a watch point on top. It contains a spiral staircase and several small rooms, one per floor. Some details still need polishing but the bay view from the tower top is worth the climb.

Swimming animals

A bug? really poor AI? warm and cosy water? Whatever the reason, the consequence is that animals in current Minecraft version are stuck in water as soon as they leave the shore. They jump and swim there happily while you work moving blocks left and right. The main inconvenient of that is that when you try to obtain something from those animals (shear wool, chop some meat) the blocks sink in dark deep water where they are difficult to find and collect without drowning. A possible workaround is to swim around the animals, push them and if lucky bring them back to shore. Now you only have to avoid they go swimming again by quickly building a fence around them.

Under the castle

The initial digging under the castle was roughly shaped like a mine and used as a quarry to extract stone blocks. That was supposed to be safer than crossing the land, but a bug made enemies respawn in the subterranean torch lit areas. With time (and peaceful mode) digging went deeper and the space under the great hall became a subterranean storage area.

The castle

The castle started as small tower on a peak to have some advantage to the night monsters waves. Once the basic shelter function was accomplished, two main things happened. Under the tower I started digging for stone and other buried materials and the emptied subterranean space will later be transformed in chambers and dungeons. Above the surface, other buildings were attached to the tower, being the first what became the great hall.

The town

The town started a a small 3x3 dirt shelter for the growling enemies for my first night in the game. The shelter later became a tower and the tower part of the city walls of the still growing walled town. The latest town elements are a wooden beam inn and a square with a well

In previous chapters...

Game phases:

Initially I played Minecraft PE in survival mode where enemies attacked you at night. While it was fun for a while, the enemies became an annoyance to the building part which I found the more interesting (i.e. you spend time defending yourself from them and if killed, you lose the blocks you had created and were in your inventory). So after the last December game upgrade (v0.5.0) I changed to "peaceful" mode where you still keep the building blocks part but remove the enemies.

The world:

The initial world generated by the game was basically a hilly land with trees whith a shoreline and a couple of tiny islands. Some things I have changed so far, but it mostly remains as it was. Main areas built so far are:

1) a walled city where my first game night shelter was near the shore.
2) a castle on a peak at the edge of the map.
3) a fishing village in one of the islands.
4) a bridge from the fishing village island to mainland.

All of them are still under construction and evolving as I have new ideas for them.

I see blocks

Minewhat?

Minecraft could be considered a game, but it is basically a virtual 3D sandbox of cubic blocks. The player can use those blocks to build things in the sandbox in a similar way it can be done with real Lego blocks. To spice up the basic building experience, some gaming elements added to the formula: enemies (in survival mode) and block extraction/creation/combination.
(more information in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft )

Ok, and this blog is?

I have heard of Minecraft for some time but I only tried the simplified Minecraft flavour (Minecraft Pocket Edition or PE) so far. I have played it iOS for the last months and yes, it lacks functionality compared with the full blown PC version, but is also a easy to play version to play occasionally. I consider this blog a kind of time machine, a collection of snapshots of the evolution of the worlds I create and also a way to share them.