I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture.
So, after taking a break from Minecraft, a new update prompted me to come back to the game for a bit. I decided that this time around, I wanted to build a castle. It's something I hadn't tried before, since they're a bit more complex than just building a giant tower straight up.
When I got in the game, I first settled in a small cabin.
Kinda lame looking, really. But, it would serve as a decent enough headquarters until I could get my castle started. Pretty quickly, though, I decided that the castle definitely had to be in the desert nearby. You see, anywhere there is grass and light in Minecraft, animals can spawn. So, my cabin, with its grass floor, had kind of... a livestock infestation.
What are this pig and cow doing together? Only God knows, and he does not approve.
This got to be annoying pretty quickly. For one thing, animals can push you, so it gets annoying trying to craft while half a dozen pigs leap into you and oink over and over. It's not good for the concentration. So, desert it was. I picked out a spot, then drew up some very detailed plans:
And started to stake out my territory.
Once I had the outline up, I smoothed it out and laid the foundation:
The sand thing wasn't really doing it for me, though. For one thing, it made an annoying sound when I walked across it. Who wants a house that's annoying to walk in? So, I decided to make a sandstone floor. The thing is, my floor was 37 x 37. 1,369 tiles. And each tile of sandstone takes four tiles of sand to make. So, I dug up several small mountains to get the 5,476 square meters of sand I needed, smushed them down, and made a sandstone floor for myself:
I know it doesn't look any different to your plebeian, untrained eyes. Trust me, though. Once you go sandstone, you never go back. Totally worth the several hours of sand-harvesting.
Now that I had a floor, it was time to start on the castle. Thing is... the castle needed a lot of stone. About 2,814 stone tiles give or take a few hundred, actually. Which doesn't sound like much compared to all that fucking sand I hauled, but stone takes longer to dig out, and it also tends to be underground, which is full of lava and other scary things. But, it was stone I needed, so I headed down to the bottom of the world and started digging. And digging. And digging. This is one of about five tunnels I dug out just to get raw stone:
Okay, it looks kinda tame, but I struck lava about ten times while getting all the stone. Lava, the last time I checked, is pretty inhospitable to life. Trust me on this one.
In the process of getting all this stone, I also found a dungeon. Little, underground, well, dungeons, which spawn monsters and are full of goodies. Also rare as hell. I kind of forgot to take a picture of it, since I was busy fighting for my life. But, in the dungeon, I found... a saddle. Dungeon-only items that let you ride animals. Each can only be used on a single pig, and you can't steer the pig, so they're pretty useless, but fun gimmick items, and I'd never seen one before. So, as soon as I got back to the surface, I found an unsuspecting pig and took it for a ride.
Once the levity was done, though, I found myself facing a new problem. I had so much friggin' stone that I was running out of storage space. I had to throw out some stuff, like a bunch of pork chops I'd just acquired in a totally non-suspicious manner.
Finally, with my newfound stone, I was able to get a good start on my castle, finishing most of the wall pretty quickly.
Once that was done, though, I had a new resource problem: I wanted a wood walkway between the walls of my castle. One that would, all things considered, take 516 wooden planks to build. That's a lot of trees. In stereotypical Captain Planet villain style, I sought out a lush island covered in trees...
... and, over an in-game day or two, caused a major ecological disaster by chopping all of them to the ground. It's sad, but sometimes progress, where progress is defined as 'building yourself a sweet-ass castle,' comes at the price of razing an island paradise to the ground.
But hey, it got me step 2 of the castle done!
Step 3 was the bigger logistical problem. I wanted smooth stone for my keep. None of this peasant-grade cobblestone I'd built the walls out of. I'd need 822 smooth stone for it. And to get a piece of smooth stone, you have to throw cobblestone into a furnace and heat it. Fortunately, my underground expedition had left me with coal. Lots and lots of coal. So, I set up a complex of six furnaces in my cabin:
Don't ask me how it's safe to sit six furnaces hot enough to melt stone next to a wooden wall. Once the stone was ready, I was able build the inner keep... which left the castle ready to move into, which meant I still had a few loose ends.
First of all was moving my stuff there. Yes, moving sucks even in video games. I had a few big chests full of stuff, and I had to unpack them all before I could move them. It took a few trips, and it wasn't a super-short walk:
That said...
I figure the Minecraft dude made pretty good time, considering he was crossing an ocean while carrying 195 cubic meters of iron ore, 30 cubic meters of gold ore, 9 cubic meters of obsidian, 46 cubic meters of stone, 165 cubic meters of fresh wood, and a ton of raw clay and coal. And 128 saplings. And a mysterious red dust that conducts electricity. And 16 pieces of flint.
Once I was moved into the castle, there was one last loose end to wrap up: my old cabin. I needed to burn it to the ground Elric-style. Because it's fuckin' symbolic or something. Also, fire is cool.
I forgot to take into account that some parts weren't flammable, though. So I was kinda left with a ghost cabin:
And, finally, it was castle time. I think it turned out pretty good, considering I have zero architectural ability and started off punching trees:
When I got in the game, I first settled in a small cabin.
Kinda lame looking, really. But, it would serve as a decent enough headquarters until I could get my castle started. Pretty quickly, though, I decided that the castle definitely had to be in the desert nearby. You see, anywhere there is grass and light in Minecraft, animals can spawn. So, my cabin, with its grass floor, had kind of... a livestock infestation.
What are this pig and cow doing together? Only God knows, and he does not approve.
This got to be annoying pretty quickly. For one thing, animals can push you, so it gets annoying trying to craft while half a dozen pigs leap into you and oink over and over. It's not good for the concentration. So, desert it was. I picked out a spot, then drew up some very detailed plans:
And started to stake out my territory.
Once I had the outline up, I smoothed it out and laid the foundation:
The sand thing wasn't really doing it for me, though. For one thing, it made an annoying sound when I walked across it. Who wants a house that's annoying to walk in? So, I decided to make a sandstone floor. The thing is, my floor was 37 x 37. 1,369 tiles. And each tile of sandstone takes four tiles of sand to make. So, I dug up several small mountains to get the 5,476 square meters of sand I needed, smushed them down, and made a sandstone floor for myself:
I know it doesn't look any different to your plebeian, untrained eyes. Trust me, though. Once you go sandstone, you never go back. Totally worth the several hours of sand-harvesting.
Now that I had a floor, it was time to start on the castle. Thing is... the castle needed a lot of stone. About 2,814 stone tiles give or take a few hundred, actually. Which doesn't sound like much compared to all that fucking sand I hauled, but stone takes longer to dig out, and it also tends to be underground, which is full of lava and other scary things. But, it was stone I needed, so I headed down to the bottom of the world and started digging. And digging. And digging. This is one of about five tunnels I dug out just to get raw stone:
Okay, it looks kinda tame, but I struck lava about ten times while getting all the stone. Lava, the last time I checked, is pretty inhospitable to life. Trust me on this one.
In the process of getting all this stone, I also found a dungeon. Little, underground, well, dungeons, which spawn monsters and are full of goodies. Also rare as hell. I kind of forgot to take a picture of it, since I was busy fighting for my life. But, in the dungeon, I found... a saddle. Dungeon-only items that let you ride animals. Each can only be used on a single pig, and you can't steer the pig, so they're pretty useless, but fun gimmick items, and I'd never seen one before. So, as soon as I got back to the surface, I found an unsuspecting pig and took it for a ride.
Once the levity was done, though, I found myself facing a new problem. I had so much friggin' stone that I was running out of storage space. I had to throw out some stuff, like a bunch of pork chops I'd just acquired in a totally non-suspicious manner.
Finally, with my newfound stone, I was able to get a good start on my castle, finishing most of the wall pretty quickly.
Once that was done, though, I had a new resource problem: I wanted a wood walkway between the walls of my castle. One that would, all things considered, take 516 wooden planks to build. That's a lot of trees. In stereotypical Captain Planet villain style, I sought out a lush island covered in trees...
... and, over an in-game day or two, caused a major ecological disaster by chopping all of them to the ground. It's sad, but sometimes progress, where progress is defined as 'building yourself a sweet-ass castle,' comes at the price of razing an island paradise to the ground.
But hey, it got me step 2 of the castle done!
Step 3 was the bigger logistical problem. I wanted smooth stone for my keep. None of this peasant-grade cobblestone I'd built the walls out of. I'd need 822 smooth stone for it. And to get a piece of smooth stone, you have to throw cobblestone into a furnace and heat it. Fortunately, my underground expedition had left me with coal. Lots and lots of coal. So, I set up a complex of six furnaces in my cabin:
Don't ask me how it's safe to sit six furnaces hot enough to melt stone next to a wooden wall. Once the stone was ready, I was able build the inner keep... which left the castle ready to move into, which meant I still had a few loose ends.
First of all was moving my stuff there. Yes, moving sucks even in video games. I had a few big chests full of stuff, and I had to unpack them all before I could move them. It took a few trips, and it wasn't a super-short walk:
That said...
I figure the Minecraft dude made pretty good time, considering he was crossing an ocean while carrying 195 cubic meters of iron ore, 30 cubic meters of gold ore, 9 cubic meters of obsidian, 46 cubic meters of stone, 165 cubic meters of fresh wood, and a ton of raw clay and coal. And 128 saplings. And a mysterious red dust that conducts electricity. And 16 pieces of flint.
Once I was moved into the castle, there was one last loose end to wrap up: my old cabin. I needed to burn it to the ground Elric-style. Because it's fuckin' symbolic or something. Also, fire is cool.
I forgot to take into account that some parts weren't flammable, though. So I was kinda left with a ghost cabin:
And, finally, it was castle time. I think it turned out pretty good, considering I have zero architectural ability and started off punching trees:
