Innholdsfortegnelse for Volume 11 i The Ultimate Guide to Minecraft!

Ever wondered how your Minecraft builds would look as a real world model? It might be time for a move East. Six students at Sarugaku Elementary School in Tokyo are taking part of Microsoft Japan’s foray into using Minecraft as an education tool for coding. The ‘Digital House Making’ course is working in conjunction with a Japanese 3D printing service that lets students see their own builds and see how to improve. Everyone on the course designs and builds their own creation and then gets to see their own projects brought to life in full colour. Microsoft Japan hopes that the extra layer of adding Minecraft into the mix will encourage students to learn more coding and also use the 3D structure as a problem solving tool for future builds.…

Awwww! These wooded jaunts certainly can make for romantic multiplayer sessions, but the more practical among you will find good cause to harvest the delights on offer here, too. Sure there are the regular trees, but scoop up all o’ them flowers for an ample supply of dyes – especially handy if you’re attempting to splash some colour onto your otherwise dull clay block demesne.…

Pop on the Lord Of The Rings soundtrack. It’s time to grab that glowing blue sword and get those hairy feet on the road to adventure. Server team Ardacraft are building all of Middle-earth in Minecraft and their mission looks incredible so far. The team started out in The Shire and now that they’ve crafted all the villages and hamlets that make up the home of the hobbits, they’re not stopping anytime soon. Was this always a quest to create all of Middle-earth, or did you start the Shire and think that you could just keep going? From the very beginning of this project, our goal was to create all of Middle-earth, and it remains that way. Though that goal is still very far away, I like to see it…

Filled with precious wood, which is vital for making tools and the workbench early in the game, forests are the best place to start out. Be careful though as they’re often hilly and dark, with dangerous mobs spawning under the leafy branches. They’re especially difficult to navigate at night as the trees can obscure your vision, so creepers become much harder to spot and can easily sneak up on you. BOOM!…

There’s plenty of life in Minecraft. From the cute and oh-so-harvestable mooshrooms, pigs and rabbits, to the slightly more problematic creepers, spiders and the rest. It’s alive with fur, legs and eyes (not always in the best ratios) but it could be alive-er-er, which is a technical term for modding in extra hooves, claws and teeth. Step outside the vanilla menagerie and there’s a range of interesting creatures just waiting to be tracked down or run away from, depending on what you’ve added. This selection of extras will quite literally mod Minecraft to life. There’s a wide range here with a variety of end results. You might simply want a few more creatures to cage and raise, or something more exotic to hunt. Maybe you fancy recreating Jurassic Park with…

You can tell swamplands not just by the darker tone of grass and obvious watery-ness, but also by the abundance of lily pads and vines growing all over the shop. Ideal for finding sugarcanes, smaller clay deposits and mushrooms, this sea-level biome also has a chance to spawn a witch's hut: perfect for getting your hands on witch loot, including the occasional potion. Watch out for smiles, though. They spawn like it's out of fashion here at night, which can make a midnight stroll an experience to forgot.…

For regulars who’ve read our last Command Block code exploration, you’ll remember that these bold blocks are the key to shaping your game exactly the way you want it to be. Set them down, code them up, and change the way the world works. You might think you know all about it, but surprise! There’s now even more you can do with them, so don’t worry if you missed our last installment - we’re going back to square one with these crafty creatures to take a look at the changes. These blocks are bigger and better than ever, so we’re diving straight back in for another session. The world of command blocks is more massive than your largest map, though. There’s so much to do, so much to code, that…

1 BEFORE YOU GO Once you reach The End, there’s no going back until you’ve defeated the ender dragon. You’ll need enchanted weapons and armour, strength and health potions, some cheap building materials, and a lot of arrows. 2 FINDING THE STRONGHOLD You need at least 12 eyes of ender – crafted with an ender pearl and blaze powder. Throw an eye into the air and it’ll float before hitting the floor: the direction it floats is the direction in which you’ll need to travel to reach the stronghold. 3 END PORTAL Head to the stronghold and search for the end portal. You’ll find it toward the bottom, suspended over a pool of lava and protected by a silverfish spawner. Pop your ender eyes into each slot of the portal…

The ultimate challenge for vanilla Minecraft survivalists, The End biome is as hard to reach as it is to survive… almost. To get there you’ll need to search out a stronghold in the overworld. This is best done by flinging an eye of ender into the air and following its airborne trajectory. Once you find a stronghold and the ender portal that resides within, you have to activate it with 12 more eyes of ender to reach The End. There’s no day/night cycle here, and aside from a massive increase in enderman spawns, you also have the small matter of an Ender Dragon to contend with.…

One of the many incredible things about Minecraft is how it just keeps evolving. Update 1.9 is another huge upgrade that really changes the way we play the game. Finally fully released in February, 1.9 has a stack of features, but the biggest upgrades can be found in new combat mechanics that make battling far more exciting than it’s ever been before. En garde! First off, the addition of shields means you can finally defend yourself against those pesky villains who’d like nothing more than to turn you into a Steve-shaped pin cushion with arrows. But the fun doesn’t stop there. Attacking now has a cooldown period that means you’ll have to time your attacks better rather than just senselessly hacking away. Swords have a special sweep attack and axes…

HOT OR NOT Update 1.9 Shields and dual wielding combat upgrades are brilliant Minecraft Story Mode Three more episodes are on the way this year Minecon 2016 It might be all the way over in California but it’ll be streamed live Ender Dragon You can’t damage it with snowballs in Update 1.9 Igloos Update 1.9 adds these ultra chilly living spaces Yes, it’s been officially confirmed (again). You can get paid just to play Minecraft all day. A luxury estate agency called Elysian Estates sent out a call for a real world ‘virtual estate builder’ last month. The job is a fixed contract with a £10,000 salary for recreating 10 of the company’s properties in Minecraft. Potential candidates were asked to craft the exterior of the beautiful Aldourie Castle on…

This normally the bit where we explain how well LEGO and Minecraft go together: like skeletons and spiders; pigs and pork chops; creepers and destroying everything you’ve spent precious days creating. And while we don’t want to patronise you - you are a Minecraft expert, after all - the latest LEGO Minecraft sets are exciting in ways even the most hardened block-fiend will find surprising. Over the following pages you’ll find details on the five latest sets, including a blocky trip to do battle with The Wither, your very own (plastic) Iron Golem and the humongous new Village set, which comes with a staggering 1,600 bricks. If you’ve ever stared at one of your Minecraft creations and wished it existed in real life - it’s fine, we’ve all done it!…

Denoted by the flat topped acacia trees dotted about its flat landscape, Savannas are a one stop shop for the budding equestrian. It’s one of the only locations in the game, alongside plains, where horses will spawn naturally. It would make a fitting place to set up a home base, especially if you can find a village to trade with (or to steal harvest from, you wrong ’un).…

# HEAT 1 Enderman Tall, dark and dangerous ATTACK STRENGTH: 7 Minecraft’s resident Mr Spooky certainly doesn’t look like he packs a punch in those long, skinny arms of his. In fact, you could almost be fooled into thinking it’s pretty silly indeed to be intimidated by a creature that resembles nothing so much as a beanpole – even if it is a beanpole shrouded entirely in black and looks like he’s been raiding the crazy contact-lens counter at his local branch of Hot Topic in order to achieve those rather unnatural purple eyes of his. But Enderman’s looks belie one seriously sinister dude, capable of teleporting anywhere within a 32-block radius and moving a whole host of different types of block. Not the Kevin McCloud type you’d like hanging…

It’s not just the prospect of shroomy soup to cook up that makes the discovery of a mushroom biome a good thing. Hostile mobs won’t spawn here, even underground or at night, so this is an ideal place to build a base. You will need to bring your own livestock and seeds for farming, though. Mushroom biomes are always found near the ocean, often as isolated islands. Build a big home and invite friends to become a real fun guy……

We’ve all been there. You’re just putting the finishing touches on your majestic castle when your boss/teacher/spouse/passengers nag you to stop playing Minecraft, for trivial reasons like ‘eating’ and ‘sleeping’ and ‘keeping your eyes on the road’. Next time one of these real life creepers tries to stop your Minecraft time, slam them down with one of these. 1 WE’RE NOT PLAYING MINECRAFT, MISS. WE’RE TRAINING THE SCIENTISTS OF TOMORROW Get caught playing Minecraft at school and you’ll learn lots about detention. University of Hull students found a clever workaround. They created MolCraft – a downloadable Minecraft world that teaches you all about biochemistry. Walk through recreations of molecular chains, collect all the treasure chests, and learn some chemistry along the way. You’ll never need school again! (Maybe.) 2 SURE…

If ever there was a biome generated specifically for two lost lovers to bound across before smashing together in a springtime embrace, then it’s this one. Flat, and peppered with those titular perennials, these plains are the only place you’ll find naturally spawning sunflowers. Alongside dandelions, these can be used to obtain yellow dye.…

Ah, those first nights in Survival mode. Fond memories of huddling in your fresh new dirt hovel, waiting patiently for the sun to rise and hoping nothing and no one notices you. Just like a real holiday. It’s no wonder a home to call your own is the primary mission for most, but it can be overwhelming to think about how to put together your perfect dwelling. A well equipped house is the key to surviving, of course – but you don’t want to just survive, you want to thrive! You want to be ready to take on the world, well armed, well fed, and well supplied. And when you do, you want to win. Well don’t worry you brave survivor, help has arrived. It’s no big deal that everyone…

These winding waterways can cut straight through other biomes, or occasionally act as dividers between two different biomes. They don’t flow along a current like real life rivers, but they will usually have an ocean at one end. Very, very rarely you’ll find a paradoxical river that flows back into itself like some kind of freakish liquid ouroboros. Also available in frozen flavours. That’s the temperature, not the Disney musical, sadly.…

When we heard last year that Minecraft is coming to Samsung’s Gear VR and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets, it felt like the perfect pairing. Now that we know more it’s even more exciting. This is a VR compatible version rather than a full new edition of the game like Windows 10, but there’s plenty of juicy facts to get our VR desiring-teeth into. While you can of course jump into creative or survival mode as normal, there’s actually two different ways to play in VR. One is traditionally, with your eyes seeing what your character sees in a first person view, while the other pops you inside a virtual castle and lets you play the game on a virtual screen in front of you. It might seem strange, but…

The Caribbean? Pah, why on earth would you want to go there when you can just load up Xtr3mScorch’s incredible recreation of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag’s Havana. What do you mean there’s no cocktails with little umbrellas? This huge map’s been in development since December 2013 and has had a unique texture pack specifically created to give it the vivid colours needed to bring Edward Kenway’s Caribbean to life. There might not be any Templars to hunt down but even just wandering the streets of Havana is great fun and there’s parkour routes across the rooftops to make you feel more like an Assassin than ever. Ropes stretch between the buildings and while you could just explore the incredible recreation of the cathedral or make your way towards the secluded…

Tree houses are just cooler than regular houses. It’s an indisputable fact. We’d all have our homes nestled in the treetops if we could, but we’re stuck on the boring old ground. Not so for your intrepid LEGO Minecraft adventurers – win this Jungle Tree House set and they can live out all those leafy dreams for you. In addition to more than 700 LEGO bricks ready to be assembled into a lush wilderness, flowing waterfall, and of course a wooden abode, the set includes figures of both Steve and Alex, including all the tools, armour, furniture, and crafting supplies they need to live life out in the jungle. They’ve even got a sheep and an ocelot to keep them company. They’ll need to watch out for the included creeper…

If variety is the spice of life, vanilla Minecraft’s menu is about as spicy as stamp-collecting dressed in a beige sweater vest and dunked in wallpaper paste. Your choices? Steak, pork, bread, cookies, cake and pumpkin pie, repeat ad infinitum until you eventually succumb to misery and/or scurvy. No, it’s not raining: that’s just Gordon Ramsay’s enraged spittle. Now you’re in trouble. Fortunately, there’s a veritable smorgasbord of mods to satisfy our nutritional needs. The creme de la creme is Pam’s HarvestCraft, which not only adds over 1100 new items and foods to your game, but includes tons of new plants, fish and materials. To try it for yourself, ensure you’re running version 1.7.10 of Forge modloader in your game, download the mod here – http://bit.ly/1MPJka1 – and drag your…

It might initially appear similar to the regular ocean biome, but delve down into the depths and you’ll find potentially epic secrets within. In deep oceans, the sea bed can be upwards of 30 blocks deep, making navigation a real pain as light generally won’t travel down that far. We recommend a combo of a cracking quality helmet with the respiration enchantment, and the tactical use of air pocket creation for optimal exploratory options.…

DISCLAIMER: I PROMISE NO ANIMALS GOT HURT IN THE MAKING OF THIS FEATURE. UNLESS YOU COUNT THE FACT THAT A HUMAN IS TECHNICALLY AN ANIMAL, BECAUSE I GOT HURT A LOT. I suppose I’m partly to blame for what happened. I don’t think I was to blame for the fire, or the angry customers, or the really, really angry customers (those were the ones that were on fire), but I’m not completely innocent. I did help him build that dream zoo, after all. ‘Him’ was my beloved Uncle, who’d invited me to spend the summer at his incredible Minecraft zoo. I couldn’t wait! Minecraft sheep! Minecraft pigs! Minecraft dragons! (Maybe!) I too had dreamed of owning a zoo, ever since those neighbourhood bullies had called me ‘a highly incompetent young…

Jungles are the lushest of all the Minecraft biomes and are home to imposingly tall trees draped with vines. You can climb them for adventures – or harvest them to decorate your own home. Rare flora such as cocoa pods and melons spawn here, and you can also find ocelots that can be tamed and used to scare off creepers. In the PC and console versions you’ll also find jungle temples that contain a puzzle to open a secret loot-filled room. And who doesn’t like loot!…

Hey, you! Yes, you with the excellent bookazine and the weary expression. Bored of wandering aimlessly through adventure landscapes? Tired of taking tours of other people’s huge, empty castles? Then do we have an opportunity for you. Two words: Extreme. Custom. Maps. Okay, that was three words – but these downloadand-play maps aren’t about tedious stuff like counting and safety. They’re about ACTION. That’s ACTION. Yeah. And we’ve packed more action into these eight pages than Arnold Schwarzenegger riding a space rocket into the sun with a rucksackful of kung-fu penguins and fireworks strapped to his back. Oh, and he’s got roller skates on. Hold onto your diamond helmets, because these custom maps don’t let up. Whether it’s hardcore parkour in dangerous locations, crazy brainteasers that test everything you thought…

Obviously a prime source of sand, and therefore glass, Beaches also come in rarer stone or gravel forms. With sand beaches you can generally find sandstone when digging far enough down. In incredibly rare seeds you’ll find exposed dungeons here, too. Be careful when digging deeper on gravel beaches as you might fall straight down into dungeons or mineshafts hidden below.…

You might think you could never create a game as complex as Minecraft but even Notch once sat down in front of a computer, and thought “I have no idea what I’m doing.” All developers started small with simple games and ideas, working through tutorials and trying to learn more. Even Minecraft is only as complicated as it is today because it’s been updated and changed for years - all you could do in Notch’s original demo was pick up and put down one kind of block. The thing is, if you’ve spent any amount of time in Minecraft then you’ve already started to think like a developer. Yes, really! You’ve looked at a system, learned its rules and then used those rules to create amazing things. Even the biggest,…