Minecraft Halloween Update Released

By: Derek Yu

On: October 31st, 2010

The almighty Notch has released a beefy update to Minecraft today that offers, among other things, an otherworldly new area with new block types and monsters. There are also “biomes”, which is a fancy word for different environment types (see the above video).

Notch also revealed that the “secret pixel artist” his company is hiring is none other than junkboy, the man responsible for this awesome series of demakes. Junkboy will be joining Oxeye Studios‘ Jeb and one other programmer on the talented new team that will be working on both Minecraft and an unannounced new game.

Previews!

By: Derek Yu

On: February 9th, 2010

The Behemoth’s “Game 3” is now officially called BattleBlock Theater (website under construction).

On the Super Meat Boy front, here’s a sneak peek at Chapter 2, which takes place in a haunted hospital. Lots of hypodermic needles abound! Possibly inspired by Edmund’s gruesome surgery? More videos of this chapter can be found at IGN.

Notch has been hard at work on Minecraft. This fan-made video shows off some of the new additions to the game, including crafting, farming, and DYYY-NO-MITE!

Sky Invader is a really nice-looking MMF2 game that’s in early development. In the game you control a giant alien spaceship against an army of Earth defenders. Clement, the creator, promises in the YouTube comments that the final game will be “more tactical than shooter”. Thanks to the Pixel Prospector for prospecting this one!

Lots of progress on Michal “Soldat” Marcinkowski’s Link-Dead. Michal’s been working hard on AI lately – the above video shows him fighting one of his new bots, which has pathfinding and cover/reload logic. (The graphics are still procedurally generated.)

Also, no videos but… fans of Gesundheit! and Cortex Command will be happy to know that their creators are updating once again.

Thanks for tuning in!

Minecraft Survival Mode Preview

By: Derek Yu

On: August 25th, 2009

Here’s a preview of Minecraft‘s Survival Mode, which paid customers will get to try out in a week’s time (September 1st). A lot has been added since we first posted about the game, like swimming cave pigs. That’s right, swimming cave pigs. And they have a taste for flesh, but only if it comes in a Hot Pocket.

Anyway, read more about the upcoming release here.

Minecraft (alpha)

By: Derek Yu

On: June 11th, 2009

Minecraft is a first-person building/digging game that is based on another game called Infiniminer, except that it’s prettier to look at and is playable in a browser using Java. In the game you can move around and add/remove various blocks, and that’s about it… fortunately, that’s all you really need to be able to do to have a fantastic time with it.

The creator, Notch, recently implemented a multiplayer mode, which makes the game even more enjoyable. I entered a public server where one guy was building a giant tower and two other players were helping each other with a stairway into the sky, where there were floating platforms all over the place. Someone else was asking for help repairing a road. I spent some time wandering around and eventually decided to build a Moai-like statue with a secret passage behind it that took you to an underground lake. It was pretty neat.

Minecraft is free-to-play right now, but will not be for much longer (10 euros or roughly $14 USD for pre-order). Development is moving quickly – I’ve heard of plans to implement everything from monsters and Dwarf Fortress-type features to various competitive multiplayer game modes like Capture-the-Flag. But for the moment it’s just a single-player and (mostly) cooperative sandbox. Also there’s no sound or music. But you know what, I rather like how tranquil it all feels right now…

TIGdb: Entry for Minecraft