Pixelated indie RPG Minecraft now has the ability to use animated textures for its chunky world-blocks. Perhaps you're thinking that the modding community will be use this feature to create subtly-windswept vegetation and more convincing lava? No. It will be used to make you retch. — Read the rest
ThinkGeek's Minecraft Light-Up Torch is funnier if you speak one of the Commonwealth English variants where "torch" is a synonym for "flashlight" — but even in the rest of the world, it's still pretty awesome.
(via Wonderland)
The Kickstarter-funded documentary about Minecraft and its creator, Markus "Notch" Persson, debuts on Saturday, December 22 on Xbox Live.
Recently-added bugfixes—and player ingenuity!—led to a selection of Minecraft minigames built by playing Minecraft. Here's Minesweeper, created by Seth Bling. [via Digital Tools]
This adorable Makie doll went to MineCon, a Minecraft convention in Paris, with its owner MoggyMoo and her son, a Minecraft enthusiast. In honour of the occasion, Moggymoo knit a tiny custom Minecraft creeper jumper for it to wear.
(Thanks, Alice! — Read the rest
I've got one of Jane's Christmas presents taken care of.
"It’s a magnificent piece of Minecraft merchandise." Pre-order now for $21. Get it for now for $15! (Via WTC)
Matt sez, "Here's a link for the Herobrine costume I made for my son. After a bunch of requests, I put up the PDF files and instructions to make your own. It was a huge hit with the kids at his school. — Read the rest
CaptainSparklez's "Minecraft Style" is a spot-on perfect "Gangnam Style" parody featuring all the eight-bit tropes and memes we love from Minecraft, scaled up in glorious jaggievision. Love the "sexy piggies."
The Biomes O'Plenty Minecraft mod adds wild varieties of landscape to the blocky exploration and building game: wastelands, craggy outcroppings, hazy savannah, ominous woodlands, orchards, and much else besides. [via RPS]
Ben Purdy created this incredibly fun "real life Minecraft" game, which was set up and relentlessly thrashed at XOXOfest in Portland.
— Read the restI would like to, in no sarcastic manner what-so-ever, officially dedicate this to all the people who commented on my original minecraft block video and accused me of faking it via green screens, after effects, black screens, blue screen, gray screens, etc.
Jeff sez, "Some gamers need a Railgun, others choose an M1A1, most seem to desire an Energy Sword…but what we need is a pickaxe! That's right, our current favorite diversion from lab work is Minecraft. We didn't want the fun to stop on the screen, so we created giant, 3-D, papercraft Minecraft terrains on our walls and show you how to build your own." — Read the rest
A wild array of new features arrived today for Minecraft, the all-conquering digital RPG Lego addiction vortex: trading with villagers, bonus chests in new worlds, and countless new map features and block types are in the list. Most interesting of all, though, is the new (and definitively alpha) "adventure mode", which makes it far harder to move or destroy blocks—an essential tool for map-sharing storytellers. — Read the rest
I swear that when I wrote this, I had not seen this PBS Idea Channel video, which argues that Minecraft and 3D printers will usher in a post-scarcity economy.
— Read the restFrom the Jetsons to Cory Doctorow, science fiction writers of all stripes have imagined a world where any object could be instantly created.
Over at our sponsor Intel's My Life Scoop site, I wrote about Minecraft, the Metaverse, and 3D printing:
— Read the rest
When I started playing Minecraft with my kids last year, I immediately thought of the Metaverse — the shared virtual reality system in Neal Stephenson's now-classic 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash.
Famous patent troll Uniloc is suing the creators of popular indie title Minecraft (PDF), which it claims infringes a patent it holds on copy protection software.
But it might need to improve its own game, as the filing misspells its target as "Mindcraft", and developer Markus "Notch" Persson has already vowed not to give in.
One of the best things about pixel-art games is how well they lend themselves to tributes in antique media, like cross-stitch and quilts — these being fundamentally pixel-based themselves. Case in point: Carla from CoraQuilts's Minecraft Creeper quilt-top, an atemporal confection: "I just finished this quilt top today. — Read the rest
The Goodness lavishly photo-documents a Minecraft-themed wedding:
— Read the rest
Matt and Asia are simply the most perfect couple ever. They met through their church (Matt said he fell for her watching her dance, awww) but they truly bonded over the game of Minecraft.
On Something Awful, Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka's seven-year-old daughter Lauren has a guide to Minecraft for budding players and pros alike:
The RedPower Minecraft project, which has built a programmable 8-bit computer for Minecraft, has done a new release. Engadget's Mat Smith sums up the new features: "The system is made from three separate cubes, representing the CPU, monitor and disk drive, respectively, all connected by ribbon cables. — Read the rest
