Beautiful Minecraft, James Delaney. 112 Pages, Hardcover, 2016. No Starch Press. (8 out of 10)

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. 

MINECRAFT: STORY MODE – Chapter 1 “The Order of the Stone” (7.5 out of 10) Produced by Telltale Studios and based on Mojang’s Minecraft; Directed by Dennis Lenart, Graham Ross; Written by Michael Choung, Stephen Mcmanus; Starring the voices of Patton Oswalt, Catherine Taber, Dee Bradley Baker, Ashley Johnson, Brian Posehn, Martha Plimpton, Scott Porter, Dave Fennoy, Paul Reubens, Billy West, Phil LaMarr. Released on Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One on October 13, 2015.

Those familiar with both the brick-building open world phenomenon that is Minecraft, you’ll know there isn’t much plot or story inherent to the game. 

Those familiar with Telltale Studios will know their formula of taking known properties (Walking Dead, Borderlands, Fables) and creating strong narratives and characters based on those worlds, and a choose-your-own-adventure type customization where your decisions affect future gameplay options.

“Minecraft: Story Mode” is the perfect marriage of these two. Minecraft fans have been creating mods, custom maps, fan videos music video parodies, and animations for years that attempt to interject their own stories into the worlds they create. Story Mode even looks like some of these higher-quality fan animations.

It also assembles an incredibly talented voice cast, including Patton Oswalt or Cat Taber playing male and female versions of the lead Jesse. Oswalt’s performance is more distinctive and snarky, while Taber shows herself the more experienced game voice artist. Fans of her work from various Star Wars games and shows will find her a welcome, familiar companion in your adventures.

Supporting players include Dee Bradley Baker (as your faithful pig companion Rueben!), Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Martha Plimpton, Phil LaMarr, Billy West, and Paul Reubens. While barely featured in Chapter 1, Corey Feldman, John Hodgman, and Grey Griffin are all members of the legendary “Order of the Stone” promised to appear in future chapters.

Heavy on atmosphere and fun, the game works well for both adults and kids, but is certainly geared towards the simplicity of the Minecraft target audience. It even mimics game mechanics that will be familiar to Minecraft enthusiasts, such as using a crafting table, gathering materials, looting chests, etc. It also transports you to Minecraft’s other realms for brief periods, including The Nether and “The End.”

It also plays into familiar Minecraft archetypes. Indeed, each of the members of the Order of the Stone represent different kinds of Minecraft players (and traditional RPG classes): a warrior, an engineer, a “griefer”/rogue, a builder, and the archetypal storyline borrows heavily from other RPG games.

You play as Jesse, a relatively “newbie” player, as he and his friends are about to attend the local “Endercon” — part fan convention, part building competition. On your way you’ll also engage in an honest-to-goodness training montage set to music (yes, really), you get to choose a name for your team, and choose what you’re going to build in the competition. And you’re set on a path that intersects with members of The Order of the Stone and an eventual threat from a giant Wither.

The game is fun and has lots of kid appeal. But, as only the first chapter of five promised, it feels incomplete. It ends with a fateful decision and cliffhanger. I’m not sure if this is a positive or negative, but it was a real disappointment to not be able to keep going.

Story Mode is available as a download on all major platforms and also as a disc, which includes a season pass unlock code that will allow you to get future chapters as they are released.

7.5 out of 10

I know next to nothing about ‘Minecraft’. I’ve been told (many times) that until you’ve played the game yourself it can be really hard to understand just what it is that kids find so fascinating about this world of blocks. After putting on the headset, grabbing the controller at Pax Prime 2015 and started the obviously abridged demo, I got a lego movie vibe from the Telltales story mode and that is a good thing. Some might think, turning ‘Minecraft’ into a narrative driven tale would be like turning chess into a first person shooter. The whole thing feels and works better than I thought it would. 

My hands-on experience with the game did everything that you love in a Telltale series, including the addition of Minecraft-specific elements like item construction on a crafting table and wooden swords breaking with excessive use. Combat is varied for the first time ever in a Telltale title, allowing you to completely dodge environmental hazards, or if you don’t, you’ll be presented with the familiar quick-time-event style we’ve come to know and love. 

Best of all, ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ preserves the sandbox game’s block-based aesthetic. While the cinematic camera angles certainly give the world a unique look and feel, longtime Minecraft fans don’t need to worry about Telltale taking any liberties with the game’s presentation. And Telltale’s decision to recruit well-known actors for the project (Patton Oswalt & Catherine Teber) should make it easier for parents, who may not necessarily be big gamers themselves, enjoy ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ alongside their children.

‘Minecraft: Story Mode’ is being developed for PlayStation 3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Mac, certain iOS devices, Android and Amazon Fire TV. The first episode, ‘Order Of the Stone’, launches on October 13th.

Mark Dago & co. got a chance to sit down and chat with creative director of ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’, Dennis Lenart. Another Pax Prime 2015 exclusive:

https://soundcloud.com/poppundits/minecraft-story-mode-hands-oninterview-pax-prime-2015

Disney released the “Star Wars Rebels” skin pack for “Minecraft” on all systems today. The pack gets you access to over 20 characters in the “Rebels” Universe. What price do they ask for? A scant $2.99 to add this to your block-crafting glee. This skin pack joins it’s friends from “Doctor Who” Volume 1 and 2, the festive skin pack and others as more content for your open-world adventure. Sound off below if you’re picking this up!

Microsoft is expanding its video game empire, buying the wildly popular Minecraft and the tiny production studio that designed it for $2.5 billion. It’s easy to be cynical, and it’s hard to imagine Microsoft will run Mojang without trying to use Minecraft as a weapon against competitors Sony, Apple and others. However, given the stance of the ever present rabid Fanboy, many are already crying R.I.P. Minecraft.

Fanboys’s lunacy towards their preferred brands makes them want to destroy every other competitor just so they can say Sony/Microsoft won this so-called war. The internet is an avenue for both great encouragement and for lots of destructive attitudes. We have a choice to filter out those negative responses. If you obtain great success from the internet, chances are? You will also be getting backlash from those who are envious. Its not a one way street.

The REAL truth is: there is no war, there is market and competition. Sony doesn’t want to destroy Microsoft and even if they did there’s no way they, or anyone, could do it. The same goes to Microsoft. Exclusives exists because both consoles are pretty much the same (performance-wise) and the only differential are the games they have to offer. Kazuo Hirai couldn’t care less about how many XBOXONE’s were sold out there, if their console is doing well that’s all there is to it. The same goes to Satya Nadella at Microsoft. Of course that they’ll make sure their product has the upper hand, but that doesn’t mean that they have as a personal goal to put the other company out of business. That’s fanboy talk.

It’s not like Microsoft can stop what Minecraft has already become. They can ‘ruin it’ from now on, but they won’t be able to stop what’s already out there. Minecraft is much more than a game. It seems that Microsoft is trying to buy into the what Minecraft has become, which is a cultural phenomenon. It’s the third largest IP ever, selling 54 million copies and counting. It has crazy amounts of merchandise that fly off the shelves because it’s pretty much cornering the demographic of young gamers, along with a movie on the way. There is no other game you can compare Minecraft to really in how it’s penetrated the mainstream audience. And that’s without a real mobile version and a ‘watered down’ console version.

There are always more sales in the world, the fact that it’s at 54 million shows more than just your average gamer is playing this thing to begin with. The eventual true sequel could be crap and it would still sell like crazy just on the name and anticipation alone. This game is something completely different than we’ve ever seen in gaming before. As an older gamer, I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. The game is bigger than anything you can think of.

I’m happy for Markus ‘Notch’ Persson & Co and the stupidly big payday they’re getting. Because that’s the dream, right? You make something, it becomes huge, you get paid, and then you’re financially secure and can just work on ISHT you love for the rest of your life.

I love creating. I’m sure that the creative process of making a game is truly rewarding, and that the stress from building a company and a support system behind the success is a whole different side of it. Outside looking in, I’m sure it can be stifling for the creative process. Maybe he wanted the freedom to just do his own thing again and not think about success or failure. And after making a few hundred milly-billy off of it, he can say it is not about the money. He has it already. But if he were you walk away from, cash out what you can. There is nothing wrong with that.

Everyone I know would have done what he did – make no mistake about it.

-Dagobot



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While this announcement has been building up steam for weeks, Microsoft made it official on the Xbox Wire. Minecraft and Mojang are officially parts of Microsoft which means all future development will be exclusive to their consoles. Microsofts CEO Phil Spencer wrote a post explaining his thoughts on the acquisition which you can read here. MINECON is still happening next year with no interruption to continue the “creativity of YouTubers, Bloggers, innovators and players.” And they will be making more announcements in the future. 

Microsoft announced via the Xbox Wire that they have come to an agreement with Mojang and the BBC to bring “Doctor Who’ skins to the Xbox version of Minecraft. These skins will feature characters from all 50 years of the Doctor with different skin packs. Each pack will contain 6 doctors along with their companions. As of right now we know that it will include the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and his companion Clara (pictured above). The skin pack will also include the Doctor’s arch-enemy the Dalek’s.  Allons y!

Haleetron takes us back to Minecraft…

Granted, Minecraft isn’t free (even if the price is your precious time spent illegally downloading it), but once it’s yours, the self-rule and independence felt in this game is unique. One of the greatest challenges in most games is the lack of control- the physical barriers that allow you to only walk on one path, the inability to go where you want to go and do what you want to do. MineCraft is truly an escape from reality into your own fabrications of reality, and in a truly rare environment.

The visual format of the game is reminiscent of 8-bit, inducing some level of nostalgia and an immediate sense of joy and comfort. Every object, from clouds to stone to foliage, is shown as a single block of color and limited textural information, and every ounce of it can be destroyed, collected, and rebuilt into whatever your heart desires. I, personally, spent my first three hours playing Minecraft making small sculptures out of sand and wood.

If you would like to do whatever you’d like in the realm of construction and deconstruction, this game is for you. Normally, this game is played by a younger crowd, but I believe that a dive into this game at any age will inspire a deep intuition for curiosity and creativity. Beyond simply having fun killing cows and trying to mount horses, one can become intentionally lost in the lonely universe of Minecraft and explore endlessly. It feels remarkably similar, on an emotional level, to wandering into the woods as a kid- everything feels foreign and full of potential. Forts are made, tools are forged, and you shout with joy when you find a long lost ore. It’s as exciting as finding that Pokemon card you had been searching for for months, or a rock with a little seashell fossil in it. More importantly, it permits you to indulge in a long lost child-like wonderment in things that really deserve very little wonderment.

On a similarly visceral note, Minecraft gives you a nice fight-or-flight thrill customary of video games, but the sensation only applies at night, which both increases the rush of adrenaline when your attacked by vicious green creepers as well as intensifies the relief of daybreak. Never before have I been so happy to see a little square sun come over the horizon and never before have I been so afraid of such a low-res video game monster. The little bastards have a way of appearing everywhere- in your house, in holes in the ground, hanging around in trees- it’s actually terrifying.

This game is beautifully simplistic and caters to all of your cravings for creativity and creation, and in a unique cubist way, it is also a visually beautiful game. All together, Minecraft is the game for anyone looking for something new and freeing.

-Haleetron