So at last Minecraft’s Adventure Update 1.8 (now 1.8.1) is upon us. It’s a really substantial update as expected so not everything will be covered here. Nor, it seems, was everything included and update 1.9 points to filling a lot of those gaps. Such as adding boss mobs to Strongholds and people to villages.

Minecraft now has animated startup screen and a few more options. The main new option relates to creation mode (as opposed to the more usual survival mode) which allows flying, unlimited resources and instant mining. I guess this could be called a true sandbox mode.

Generated a new world to have a look around for the big world additions. Namely;

• Villages
• Abandoned Mineshafts
• Ravines
• Strongholds

The first world was an island more barren the Minecraft’s survival mod and surrounded by lots and lots of water. Probably an Ocean biome. Delete. New World Regen. Found the Vines almost immediately hanging off trees, apparently they can grow too if you transplant them. This was one of the new biomes, in this case swamp and you can see more mushrooms there too. There are also Ocean and Mountain biomes and all of them can be much larger now.

Ran around looking. I knew the Strongholds were rare (3 per map!!) but the others hmm, who knows. Spent the night up a pillar of quality dirt. My first sighting of the inestimable Endermen. They work pretty much as advertised. Frozen while looking at them once you look away they are upon you pretty damn quick, but not up a pillar They do shake a bit and plenty of them spawn. Notch and team did a good job. They do do convey a sense of spooky. My only strong worry with these though is the damage they will do to my structures by picking up blocks. Endermen drop Ender Pearls which have no current use.

Yes they are after me

A few creeper explosions and a hop or two away I found one of the ravines. A nice addition, they really are enormous and that lets sunlight, lava, water stream in.

I spent quite some time looking until I discovered by using seed ’666′ or ‘Lol’ a Village will spawn near your own spawn in spot. The 666 village is pretty borked you can see it for yourself if you use the seed. Villages look very European. They include small farming plots, water wells, backyards, several types of homes and sometimes a tower or smithy. The smithy has lava and a couple of furnaces.

This is the borked 666 Village

Naturally I fell in the well. Not advised without a pickaxe.

If I find the other two structures (Abandoned Mineshafts and Strongholds) with the new Cave Spider and Silverfish mobs I will share that too. Both are apparently rich in resources making the dangers worth it.

This new Cave Spider native to the mine shafts poisons and can fit through 1×1 spaces. The silverfish seem to pretend to be stone blocks and can swarm you with numbers. They might be a bit spooky in themselves.

There’s a new food system where food no longer heals directly but fills a food bar which heals you over time if over 80% full. Most foods are now stackable. There’s now raw beef dropped from cows which can be cooked to steak and raw chicken from… chickens which can be cooked too. Eating raw food can cause a kind of food poisoning which isn’t too severe but it is more efficient to cook food. There’s melons which can be farmed. Pumpkins can now be farmed too.

The combat system has also been changed. Bows can be charged up over 3 steps in under 1 second. Critical hits can be delivered by hitting a mob while falling or if you are above a mob. The main thing is the experience bar though which levels up by collecting glowing balls which drops from mobs you kill. I yet have no idea what significance this has currently.

Lighting has changed with the colour determined by the dominant source. White for sunlight, blue for moonlight and red for other sources. The moonlight blue is a serious throwback to old movies.

There’s also other new items.

• Stone bricks
• Slabs and stairs, for both regular bricks and stone bricks.
• Fence gates
• Glass panes which work much like doors and are thin
• Iron bars, perfect for holding the inlaws.

Overall the Adventure Update is a great addition and can help encourage more exploration outside the walled comfort zone.

MineCon 2011 has been announced for 18-19th November 2011 at Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.  You can get your ticket for $US99.  Notch claimed Mojang will lose money on it, not sure why.

Included are;

• Official Minecraft launch
• Keynote speeches (including one by our very own Notch)
• Build contests
• Breakout classes with all different Minecraft topics
• Costume contests
• Exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft related companies
• Meeting friends from around the world
• Commemorative merchandise

The adventure update gets more and more intriguing.

This post has spoilers for the upcoming Minecraft’s Adventure update 1.8

Click read more if you still want to see.

While Minecraft is hardly the first sandbox game, there is no doubt its popularity has caused a huge resurgence in the genre and we’re seeing a bunch of new games and new attention in the genre. The following is a shortlist of these with some general impressions.

• Minecraft – The famous Minecraft. Great crafting, popular and complex. Currently in beta. Check out my review.
• Terraria – 2D clone which has surpassed clonehood by merging combative platform elements with the sandbox elements. Check out my review.
• Wurm Online – I love Wurm but it’s a significantly different game to Minecraft. I would call it a pioneering sandbox game. Check out my review.
• Ace of Spades – Free, great change of pace which is totally combat oriented in a vague WW2 style. The block crafting aspect is used tactically.
• Dig-N-Rig – Windows only, free, 2D, sci-fi with cute conveyors
• Minetest-c55 – Free, really quite a good Minecraft clone with a lot of potential. No mobs and none of the complexity but looks good and I think I will keep an eye on it. Runs without java on Windows and Linux.
• Manic Digger – An open source Minecraft clone which gives some hope for something good in the future. Still needs work but is functional and looking good so far. Does not need java.
• Infiniminer – Actually Minecraft is a clone of this.  So this is the original inspiration. Much more mining focused and team oriented.
• Cubelands – Simple Minecraft clone that runs in the browser.
• Detonate – TNT gets a lot of fun play in Minecraft but these guys take it to extremes.
• King Arthur’s Gold – 2D like Terraria but has the combat style of Ace of Spades, albeit in a more medieval setting instead of WW2.
• Blockland
• Roblox
• FortressCraft – Xbox 360

So what’s missing?  Well that would be Lego. What the hell are they doing?

It’s great to see so many sandbox style games, I hope to see this whole genre improve over time.  Some of these may yet be reviewed and all of them are worth a quick look if you have the time to spare.

h/t: Gameblaster 64, RPS

If 3D printing in reality is too much check out this 3D printer which operates in-game using a horrible amount of redstone circuitry, pistons and other tricks.  Certifiably insane but ingenious at the same time.  He’s from New Zealand and there was wool involved but I’m not one to spread rumours…  This particular version prints an 8x8x12 block.  Each 8×8 slice has to be loaded so it’s a bit of work but the results speak for themselves.