Multiple Game Styles

So, since my last post, quite a lot has changed. Brand new features were introduced in Minecraft snapshots, and now I’m back to comment about them. At least, the ones I know about!

New Blocks

As we all know this update would introduce 40 new blocks at least, and boy oh boy is that a nice palette! I’m not listing every block here, but I think it’d be worth mentioning some of them.

Stone Slabs and Stairs are gonna make natural caves look much more, well, natural.

Granite, Andesite and Diorite variants of Stairs, Walls and Slabs - now these blocks can be used for something in their raw form.

Brick Stairs, Slabs and Walls are so nice, and with these new textures... Perfect.

New Crafting Stations and... Storage?

Well, apparently they’ve been noticing how huge silos have to be to store their precious cobblestone because they’ve introduced a new “chest” into the game. It’s the Barrel which can hold up to... 27 stacks of items? Really Mojang? Why would I even bother making one if I can just make a chest with 8 pieces of wood and a double chest with 16 that’d hold 54 stacks?!

The new crafting stations... In my opinion, that’s great. I mean, it doesn’t really make much sense to make some items in a wooden table, so separating them between dedicated tables would be great IMO.

Plus, as a programmer, I know how easy that is to implement. They could make one crafting station for each item and block of the game, and, as long as that makes some sense, I’d be okay with that.

No, I’m kidding. Don’t do that Mojang.

Pillagers

When they do stuff right you notice it. Pillagers are fun just to watch. You could spend days just looking at them trying to destroy a village.

They spawn quite far away from villages, like, 100 blocks or so, and slowly they get closer and closer to it.

They also have banners that can be collected which even have their name in a different color. Collectibles are fun.

Scaffolding

Thanks, God. I love it. Scaffolding was a genius move. Even with its current limitations (i.e. one can only place it up to 4 blocks away from a source block), it is so much better than Dirt! I'm already using it in my world.

Since bamboo is so easy to find and grows so quickly you can make tons of it as fast as your eyes can blink.

The New Textures

Finally, let’s talk about the new textures. The v3.1 ones. I’m not going to talk about every block - no one wants to read so much. xD

I’m a big fan of the new Sand and Sandstone blocks if you ask me, and also a big fan of the new Cacti. About the polemic stone block, I really do like the new texture, but not as the stone. Maybe they could add it as a new block, the Rough Stone.

The tools, the weapons, and the armors look so good! You know, those new sprites really do show more toughness. And that Golden Sword... I almost feel like I’d be able to see my face reflected in it.

I like the new Granite texture, the Diorite looks more realistic, and the Andesite looks a lot better, but I never fancied those blocks building-wise. The Obsidian texture - I’m so used to it now that it’s weird to look to the old one. The new is a really good one.

The Glass looks so much cleaner now, and I really like that. It even looks more like real glass.

Crossbow

A nice weapon, indeed. You can load it and it stays loaded no matter what, if you need to attack some mobs quickly that’s as easy as pressing 1 and right-clicking. It’s a strong and practical (and cheap) weapon. You can even machine gun with it! It has three enchantments right now, and there’s a fourth one that’ll be added soon to the game. They are:

Triple Shot - You shoot 3 arrows at once.

Piercing - Your arrows pierce enemies dealing damage to the ones behind them.

Fast Charge - The Crossbow loads faster.

??? - ?????

36312DISCLAIMER: None of the images I used are actually mine. I just got them from google images to better explain what I’m trying to say. All of the rights go to their owners.

You know, I always thought that Item management in Minecraft is a pain in the backside, and with this new update, the 1.14 one, there will be at least 40 new blocks, as Mojang announced in their Twitter account. Fortunately, in Minecraft 1.13 you can place chests side to side, without having to alternate them with trap chests.

It was thinking of those issues that I came up with this list that will show you 5 types of storage systems and tell you when to use each one of them. So, let’s begin, shall we?

Actually, no. Before that, let me ask you one thing: do you know Land Of Enchantments? No? What about Don’t Die then? You don’t? Well, that’s a shame, because those are the best games that I know of (innocent face)! So visit my Twitter profile to know more about them, since I’m spam tweeting about them! Back to the post!

5 - Classic Redstoneless

That’s the old way of storing items. You just stuff them in chests. But I’ll give you a few tips to improve this method.

First of all, use space in a smart way. Instead of placing chests side by side facing you, place one behind the other. Like that:

Not this:

Can you see how much more chests fit in the space?

Also, use item frames to show you what goes inside each chest, so that you don’t get lost.

WHEN TO USE:

Use this system for items that can’t be stacked, such as tools, weapons, armor, enchanted books, so on and so forth. Don’t use this for storing Cobblestone, Dirt or whatever because this is a really inefficient way of keeping items.

4 - Basic Sorting Storage System

Almost everyone uses this one because it’s just so handy. But it ain’t the most efficient to store huge quantities of an item, for which you may want other storage types.

You can easily expand this system downwards, but at some point, you’ll reach bedrock. Again, not the most efficient for huge quantities of items.

I personally make it three double-chests tall, making it have four double-chests of storage capacity.

WHEN TO USE:

Use this for common and stackable items, such as ores, wood, colored stuff, stairs, slabs, stone, etc. I still don’t recommend using it to store extremely common items, such as cobblestone, dirt or sand.

It is also great for you to use in your own mineshafts so that when you get outside of the tunnel you just mined, you can place all of your items in a chest and they’ll be transported to the main storage system, and get back mining.

3 - Storage Silos

Storage silos are really almost the same thing as the previous, but they have one advantage: you can see how many chests have been filled without having to open them since this system displays it with lamps.

The main disadvantage is that it takes much more space, but a cool thing is that it is really easy to expand, both upwards and downwards.

WHEN TO USE:

Use these for items that are really common or that you may have in larger quantities, such as clear glass, pickles, Redstone, terracotta. You could possibly use these for wood too if you have just too much wood.

2 - Bulk Storage Silos

Oh yeah baby, the best storage option for me, not only because of how many items you can store in it but because it’s so cheap! I mean, it’s the second most expensive item on the list, but it’s not as expensive as you may think.

This is a system that you can easily expand, both upwards and downwards. But, that’s not all. With only the first layer you can store up to **10.624** items! That’s crazy, right?! But for each layer you add, you’ll be expanding this system by **7.552** items!

Usually, I use a five-layer system to store my most common items, which can hold up to **48.384** items. Also, you can use Shulker Boxes as an output method so that you can get it with you when you need your items.

WHEN TO USE:

Use this to store those extremely common items in Minecraft, such as cobblestone, dirt, sand, gravel, mob drops and crops. Or, if you’re wealthy, you could store everything using just bulk storage silos.

1 - Shulker Box Storage Silo

That’s for the extremely rich guys. Hundreds of thousands of items. You can have 93.312 items per double-chest. That’s mental. But it costs just so much in Shulker boxes that you may take a long time to get the amount needed to run this system.

Just imagine those with the Bulk storage system above?! That’d be 1.306.368 items! That’s insane!

WHERE TO USE:

You decide. If you can afford it, use them everywhere you want. I can’t command you when you’re at this level, right? ;-D

So, Terraria 1.3.6 was delayed to the next year, but now we can see why. I, personally and as a game developer, do not feel bad for the delay. If they need twenty years to make the game feel as great and amazing as possible, let them do it.

Now, talking about the oasis biome, wow.

That’s really realistic. I always get impressed when I see a new biome made for Terraria by Re-Logic, mostly because they are pretty realistic, but that one has blown my mind. They even added birds flying in a V formation in the background. That’s so cool.

I’m really liking the look of these palm trees, they feel more alive now, and the grass really does bring some life to the biome. The color of the water isn’t yellow as in the desert, but it ain’t blue as in the ocean. It’s more of a green-ish blue. Something in between those two biomes.

But yeah, if they’ll add more stuff like this minibiome, let them take as much time as needed to polish it. Even if the game only gets its update released on 2020.

I don’t have much more to say though. I wanted to know how do the palm trees look like on wind. Because of their shapes, will them bend more than normal trees?

Game design is hard. It takes a lot of time, planning and is, essentially, the core of a game. I mean, within game design you have visuals, graphics, level design, soundtrack, the objectives. There’s really a lot into it.

1 - Making a Game Feel Alive

To make a game feel alive is kinda easy, but people seem to keep forgetting about it. There are a lot of ways to make a scene feel alive, and I’ll cover some of them.

Make Nature Feel Natural

That should be an obvious one, but if you didn’t think of that, here it goes. You could make trees bend to the wind, grass shake when the player steps on it, birds that fly away when the player gets close to them, and much more. There’s really no limits to creativity.

Air Particles

Look around. Look at a window, where there’s light coming in. There’s a chance that you’ll notice some dust or something like that floating around. Your game should have that too. It doesn’t need to be crazy, it’s just a subtle effect.

Interaction

Don’t you love to blow those old crates to pieces? And to cut that grass and get a bit of XP? Or to get a hidden item by interacting with a tree? Or even to walk by and see that grass waving at your touch? So, if those things are in other games, why aren’t them in yours?

An Example in a Video

Blackthornprod explains everything I told really well. I recommend you to watch his video.

2 - Mechanics and Challenges

A level should be fun to play. It doesn’t matter if your game is based on cubes. Visuals don’t make great games, at least not all alone, even if it helps to sell a game. Always remember that. 

Now, what makes a game great? Well, a lot of things can help, that’s for sure. Two of them are Mechanics and Challenges. If a game has great Mechanics, but poorly designed challenges, making it too easy or too boring for the player to surpass the game, the game will fail to entertain and, most importantly, to sell.

But that doesn’t mean that both of them need to be perfect. That’s because, by having poor mechanics and great challenges, challenges that make a great use of those mechanics, a player can and will get entertained.

Creativity and patience are the masters here. If you don’t feel creative enough to create a complex and fun mechanic, that’s no problem. You just need the creativity and patience to figure out how to make a simple mechanic fun to use, in interesting and unique ways.

An Example:

Let’s take a look at Super Mario Odyssey. It’s a great game, no doubts about that. But, let’s take a look at the core mechanic of the game; the mechanic that is the center, the root where the game’s tree grew around: the hat throw. Yes, you beat the game throwing hats. Mario’s hat. Doesn’t that sound silly? But what if I told you that you can control enemies when you throw your hat at them and that you can use their abilities? Now it sounds a lot more interesting, right?

3 - Polishing

Polishing is a damn important thing. The more you polish, the better your game will get. The better the game, more players will get entertained and hooked at it. Simple math, ain’t it? But, how does one polish a game? What is polishing after all?

Well, polishing is nothing more than tracking and solving problems. To find something that can be improved and improve it to its greatest level.

Example:

As an example, I’ll use my game, Land Of Enchantments. I’ve made a lot of trees for it, but that’s when I first started the project. I didn’t have a clue on which would be the visual style of my game, so I kept experimenting. Recently I’ve realized how ugly they are and I made an upgrade to them:

I found something that could be improved and I did it. If I were to examine every bit and pit of Land Of Enchantments, I’m really sure that, with time, the game would look like an AAA title. And that’s something that anyone can do.

Now, of course, experience counts, but if you never try you’ll never improve your skills, right? How long do you think I spent polishing this post you’re reading?

4 - Designing a Great Level

Well, there’s no secret formula to it. All I can say for sure is that you need to experiment and put people to play your game and test it out.

But I’ll try to help by giving some steps to follow and maybe improve or worsen the results. Be careful.

Choose the Mechanics

First of all, pick all of the mechanics that you want the player to learn and/or use. You’ll develop the level around those. Also, pick some already used ones for consistency’s sake.

Plan

Always plan everything you are putting in your game. Never add something just because you feel it is cool, you can end up with hours thrown away. Level designing is no exception. 

Grab a piece of paper and make a sketch, even if a rough one, just to idealize what you want to do. Design the level around those mechanics you’ve chosen. Make them the foundation of your building. Then, weight the pros and cons of everything you’ve added in.

By doing that you’ll find things that probably wouldn’t have worked out so well, and you’ll be aware of things that may harm your game. You’ll also know what works and learn some things that may be used somewhere else. Who knows?

Sketch and Test

Make a simplified version of the level, with little to no detailing. You’ll want people to test that. Think of it as an Alpha version of the level. By putting people to test it you’ll learn what’s way too hard to accomplish, what’s too easy, things that should be more obvious for the player, etc.

Finally, Make it Awesome

Once you’ve made all of the adjustments and the sketch is already working, then go for it. Now you have nothing to lose but time making sure that every bit of that level feels like it’s got some bit of life to it.

Music

The music is one of the most important things when it comes to games. A song can drive the player’s emotions to everywhere you want to. A note off and you can bet that the overall feeling changes. Analyze the level once more, and then think of what do you want the player to feel. Make a theme for that level. Make a more intense version of the same for when the player faces an enemy. No song or long pauses can lead to tension in a really dark game.

But pay attention to the music, and please, be careful. The wrong soundtrack can ruin a game.

5 - Story

Stories don’t really sell games when the game is not good. If you’re making a bad game, I’m sorry bro, but no great story will sell it. Well, maybe it will, but the odds are that it won’t work.

With that said, I believe that Story is the second major part of a game, with the first being the Mechanics and Challenges. A game doesn’t need a good story to sell and be fun, but a game can’t sell only telling stories.

I can’t tell you how to write a good story. That depends on your ideas. I can give you a few tips, of course, but you should adapt those to your game.

Make a core concept, make sure to add a few climax moments, and an evil villain always supports a good story.

Conclusion

These were my five tips to help you with Game Design. I may say that I had no clue whatsoever on what I would write when I first started this post. Just like with any other human, I may be wrong. I can really be wrong. So, don’t take my words for granted. You’ve listened to what I think, and you should listen to what other developers have to say too.

Do you want a pro tip? Ask. Ask how did Notch come up with the idea for Minecraft. Ask to Rare how did they make those grass shaders they use on Kameo: Elements of Power. But, more important than asking, you should listen, because people always have something to teach.

Here’s another really good YouTube channel: Game Dev Underground. He really knows what he’s talking about.

So, Terraria 1.3.6 is coming soon I guess, but while we wait for it, why not to take a look at what we already know about it? This is a list with every single Terraria spoiler until the time that I’m writing this post. Or every single one that I could find. Let’s begin, shall we?

Disclaimer - I’ll not write them in the order they were posted. This post is far away from that actually.

Splash Screen

Okay, that’s an unexpected one. Who would think that they would change the splash screen?

I think that this new one is much better and cleaner. That’s my thought.

Cenx’s Small but Game-Changing Updates

So Cenx is a genius. But that we already knew of. It’s just that now it was confirmed. What am I talking about? Well, Cenx increased torches’ and glowsticks’ stack size from 99 to 999.

That may not sound like a lot going on, but it’s a genius move for me, at least. Usually, I have a lot of trouble in the torch management department.

She also made sure that Biome Crates will always drop at least one chest item. That’s nuts.

But, on top of that, I and a lot of players that have the Blizzard Freeze curse on the PC will get happy. Cenx asked for the players who have this problem to help to make some tests. We’ll see if it gets removed anytime soon.

Why do I call these the Game-Changing updates? Well, it’s because they’ll make exploring the world a lot easier.

My Bad by Andrew “Red” Spinks

So, Red tweeted that hardcore Terraria players would get mad at him. Why? Is he removing Hardcore Mode at all? Or is that a new trap? Maybe he just made the traps quite more common in Hardcore Mode. Or did he create a Hardcore Plus Mode? Well, that’s going to be a mystery until the game releases.

New Furniture

I really like to build on Terraria, and even though it has tons upon tons of blocks, it always comes on handy to have a fresh palette available. And those new blocks, furniture items, they’re just gorgeous in my opinion. Really good. Which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below! Mine is the Solar one.

New Backgrounds

Okay, that’s a nice view. The backgrounds really needed an update in my opinion. To play Terraria with them is going to be both refreshing and a lot of fun. I’m not saying that the current ones are ugly, but they’re there and haven’t been changed in years. I really do like these ones.

Wind and Leaves

As a game developer - and a really bad shader programmer - I’ve been trying to get that effect for ages! It’s such a nice addition, and it’s one of those things that when you see it you just can’t live without.

I really want those effects! It just adds that extra bit of life that the game needed. Cheers.

Emoticons or Emotes

Okay, that just came out of nowhere. Who had the idea of adding those? It’s ingenious! How well!

I’m not that much a fan of online multiplayer in any game at all, but it’s just nice to have that kind of thing added to the game. I just wonder if we’ll need to type a code to get the emote appearing or if they’ll have a special keyboard for that in-game.

Poop!

So it seems like the Merchant just couldn’t hold it after all these years holding and pooped in front of the camera! That’s not really a good thing to do, but I don’t think that the NPCs care any longer! They’ve hidden really well the pooping act for years, but now they got so used to us that even that is public content. Weird...

New Soundtrack and NPC!

I don’t know if they’ll change all of the OST, but it would be cool if they did so. It just sounds like they’re improving every piece of the game that they can. I totally love the new music, and I want to listen to more of it.

Now, on the Town - Night song video we have a new NPC! Yes, a new NPC that absolutely no one knows what he does. I’m starting to believe that Re-Logic is mean, they don’t tell us anything! XD

Lots of Polishing and Balancing

It’s one of their first posts about Terraria 1.3.6, and it has proven to be true. They are really doing a great job polishing the game since it looks awesome. I just can’t stress enough how important it is to polish the games.

Polishing is pretty much like improving every detail possible. For example in another spoiler Cenx (I think it was Cenx) mentioned that they solved a few naming issues with Sandfall and Snowfall blocks. Or the wind and leaves, the music. They have been doing that kind of stuff, and I must say, what a great job. Well done Re-Logic, well done.

Another polishing act is that they’ve made it possible for us to rotate statues, which is going to be really useful, building-wise. They’ve also made a few improvements to the Smart Cursor’s Pickaxe mode for multiplayer, which I’m not sure I’ll ever use. But I’m sure that there’s a lot of players out there that will!

And they’ve added support for Razer’s RGB keyboards, which... I mean, it’s cool and all, but... Will it be expanded to other models? I mean, if I want RGB effects while playing Terraria can I get the best RGB keyboard there is or will I need to use the Razer one? q(º.º)p

And, about balancing, just think of the torch stack limit increase. Or (another spoiler) making the Sawtooth Shark and the Swordfish items less common.

New Items!

Okay, if the Celebration Mk. II isn’t cool, I don’t know what is. If it is a craftable upgrade for the Celebration, I’ll be happy. If not, I’ll be happy as well, since it’s just less work to get this new item!

And the Minecarp... I don’t know what to say. Probably that’s not the last one we’re getting too, I mean, they’ll probably add other minecarts to the game as well.

It’s a funny addition anyway.

Block Swap and Floating Items

I just love the block swap idea. It gets the strength of the most powerful pickaxe in your inventory and replaces the blocks you’re clicking on with the ones in your hand. Just amazing. And we’ll even be able to swap chests! How nice that is!

Also, the floating items... For me, that’s there to indicate that the inventory is full. Maybe that’s a new debuff that doesn’t allow the players to pick up any items. Cenx said that we aren’t even close to figuring out what that is, so I guess that we’ll have to wait until the update comes live.

Moving Grass and Cowboy Costume Update

Well, two things:

1. The grass now moves when we walk by it.

2. They’ve improved the Cowboy costume’s sprites, which is really nice. Now I might even get one!

New Vanity and Damaging NPCs

Yes, there’s going to be new vanity, which is not a surprise at all. They’ve shown us a Crown which a rather “Enthusiastic” youtuber has been saying that it may be some sort of equipment, but I just think it is a vanity accessory. It may even be a redesign of the golden crown. Who knows?

And the mannequin one... Super neat! It’ll be really useful for pranking, and I just can’t wait to be wearing one of those.

Also, it looks like in the mannequin spoiler the player can damage NPCs?! What the heck? That’s so... Scary, actually... I don’t want to kill the nurse while facing the Moonlord... Oh, well...

Accessories on Mannequins

And talking about Mannequins, a really cool new feature is that we’ll be able to give them accessories! Nice!

Minecraft 1.14 - a rather promising update. At the latest Minecon, they’ve announced a lot of stuff. A lot. And it seems that shooting to all directions in my latest post, I’ve actually got something right!

Entitled the Village and Pillage update, Minecraft 1.14 promises a variety of content, and we’ll take a look at everything in here.

Village Update

So they’re finally updating the Village! They’re introducing smarter Villagers, a better house design for the Villages based on their biome (it still could be better, but who knows?), the Villagers themselves are getting a stylistic update, with their clothing varying depending on their home biome.

Talking about biome, we’ll have new Village types! We’ll have Snowy, Jungle, and others not announced ones.

The smarter Villagers apparently are going to behave like their jobs suggest, the farmers will farm more, but will the blacksmith make any weapons?! Anyways, they’re also improving trading. How would it be?

They’re also introducing a new Villager type, and they are the...

Pillagers

Okay, the Pillagers. They’re an evil version if the Villagers themselves, a way of making the Villages more interesting.

The Pillagers attack and steal everything and everyone inside the Villages. Once you find a Village, you’ll need to protect it, otherwise when the Pillagers attack you’ll lose all of the Villagers.

The Pillagers won’t come all alone, no, they also do have pets! By now it is being called the “Beast”, and that huge thing seems to be really strong.

It destroys crops as it walks, the Beast can also wear armors and a saddle. I can’t wait to see them. Now, the Pillagers take me to...

Crossbows

Finally a new proper ranged weapon in Minecraft! I mean, we have the Trident, but that’s not really a ranged weapon, is it? I never saw it as one, at least.

The Crossbows are gonna be stronger and slower than normal bows, but it doesn’t mean that they’re bad, no. Because of them, Minecraft will have three new enchantments, which are:

Fast Charge - Will make Crossbows (and potentially bows, I mean, I’m not sure on how would that work, but it would be nice to be able to apply it to bows.) reload faster.

Triple Shot - Each Crossbow shot will shoot three arrows. Again, this with a bow... C’mon Mojang!

A secret one. These are so annoying!

New Blocks

I’ll go through a list with all of the blocks being added and then I’ll give my opinion about it.

Stairs

Smooth Sandstone Stairs.

Others not announced yet.

Slabs

Smooth Sandstone Slabs.

Others not announced yet.

Others

Sandstone Walls

Campfires

Bamboo

Scaffolding

I have already talked about Campfires in my latest post, so go check that out, but let’s talk about the others.

Obviously, it’s always nice to have more blocks, slabs, and stairs, so there's not much to say about them.

But two of them have grabbed my attention. They are Scaffolding and Bamboo.

Scaffolding apparently will be something really useful, beginning by the fact that once you break the bottom-most block everything collapses. That’s already a huge win. But let’s not forget about the fact that it is climb-able! Say goodbye to “dirt stairs”, and say hello to Scaffolding!

And Bamboo. Bamboo will be used to craft Scaffolding and is found in Bamboo Forests in the Jungles.

Also, we’ll have a nice mob that eats them...

Pandas

I loved that one! Pandas are so cool! Anyways, they are new mobs being introduced to the game. They’re really emotive, as you can see their emotion in their faces. They can smile, be sad, and the small ones can even sneeze!

If one of them have red eyes, don’t attack him. Not that you should attack a Panda, but this specific type is aggressive, so be aware.

Taiga

Yes, the Taiga is the chosen biome. It will be updated before the Savanna and the Desert, which will see their way to Minecraft in the next updates. How nice!

Well, that’s it, I mean, I’ve talked literally through everything we know about this next update, which is gonna be amazing. I’m really excited for when the first snapshots come out and I’ll definitely try it out.

Probably we all know by now about the 1.14 update coming soon-ish to our hands into snapshots form. And, about this update, people are only talking about the three biomes that were chosen for the voting.

Now, I sincerely don’t know why are people freaking out that only one biome is going to be updated. All of them are going to be updated, this voting is just to decide which one is the first one. Now, it’s probably by the release of 1.14 that all of them will have been released. Just little by little. If not, they’ll come to life on future updates.

So let’s take a look at what’s coming, shall we?

Savanna

The Savanna biome has three new features revealed: the Infested Thermite Blocks, and therefore Thermites will be added as well, there’s another mob too, the Ostrich, and the Baobab trees.

Let’s begin by talking about the Thermites and what do I hope they add to them.

Well, first of all, we should take damage by stepping on them. This would be really cool and would make the players watch their step really carefully while walking by.

Also, when we stepped on an Infested block, Thermites should emerge and start attacking the player. Gathered with silk touch, this would make a really nice trap. XD

They could also infest and kill plants, that would be a really nice detail to add.

Hmm...

Now, Ostriches. If we could get their eggs and make a huge omelet, that’d be nice. Or domesticate them. They run really fast, did you imagine how cool would it be to ride one of those?!

Also, what if we fed them a Golden Apple? Would they start to lay golden eggs?! Or chocolate ones?! I want to know. Now.

Oh, and would them burying their heads into the sand be of any use?

Now, Baobab trees... What if they were eleven blocks wide and 30 blocks tall? That’d be huge. It’d be massive! Absolutely massive! How cool would it be to find trees of that size?

Oh, and what if ants climbed those trees? Can you imagine? Like, the little creatures running up and down, chopping down leaf blocks and carrying bits around? How cute!

Taiga

As you can probably tell, this post ain’t ending nowhere near soon. xD

The Taiga biome will have Foxes, Berry bushes and Campfires added to it. Let’s dive in!

Foxes. So, in the wiki, they say that Foxes may be passive, which is kinda scary... Can you see it? You’re at night, surrounded by Creepers and Zombies, Skeletons are shooting at ya, and suddenly, Foxes jump out of nowhere and start attacking you! You can’t run ‘cuz they’re faster than you, and you can’t hide, because there's absolutely nowhere to hide in a Taiga biome. That’s... kinda hard.

But what if they hunt for food? Like, in groups? It would be so cool to see them waiting for a fish to swim next to the edge of a lake so that they could carry it to their puppies!

They could hide in the bushes nearby just waiting for the player to pass by and get them!

And, talking about bushes, we could have poisonous berries! I mean, why not?

We could have different types of berries and bushes, like, berries that are bigger, smaller, berries that are a better or a worse source of food, bushes that have spikes and deal damage to touch, bushes that the player can climb, etc.

And Campfires... would it be like in Terraria, where being near a Campfire regenerates health faster? Or will it make the player hungrier by making him sweat? Would it put the wool nearby on fire? Would it put the player on fire?

We could need to provide them with fuel, you know. That would be a nice detail added and would make it more realistic.

And, for map creators, it could get lit up permanently by running a Redstone signal to it or something. Also, if it is raining, we shouldn’t be able to lit it up. Actually, the fire should be put off.

Desert

You know, cool stuff! Meerkats, Palm trees and... Meerkats and Palm trees? That’s not a lot, really.

Meerkats will be pacific mobs, apparently, and I don’t know what else. They could eat the Thermites and Ostriches/Chicken eggs. I mean, I don’t know if they eat those types of eggs in real life, but it would be cool anyway.

Oh, and if they paid attention to the details, like, if all of their behaviors were respected and implemented, this would be a nice addition.

And Palm trees... Now, I’m not sure if those will only spawn on beaches, near water, or everywhere.

If we could get the Heart of Palm from them and other things as well, it would be nice.

They’ll probably create a new type of wood and a new type of leaf block for this one, and I’m really excited to see what’s coming next.

What do I hope/want for 1.14

Well, here are my suggestions:

A redesign of the Woodland Mansions, they are too ugly for me.

A redesign of Desert Temples. They are outdated.

More cave content. No, seriously, caving is the same since it was fully implemented. It could use some sort of updates.

Thermite variety. You know, black Thermites, red ones, just like in real life. They did it with the fishes, why can’t they do that with Thermites?

Dogs variety. I know that we’ll always have that dang Wolf, which is cool, but it wouldn’t hurt to add Goldens, Pitbulls, Chiwawas and that stuff.

More Redstone content! I would love a wireless adapter that we could link to a receiver (one at a time), and maybe hopper filters, or something like that. Also capacitors, RGB lights and an XBOX ONE. Okay, maybe I’ve got too far here, but more lightning color would be nice!

A village update! You know, better houses, smarter villagers, hireable people, that kind of stuff.

Hell. No, seriously, the Nether needs an update URGENTLY! A better fortress, some new mobs, that kind of stuff doesn’t hurt, you know.

A better End City. That’s not a city, it doesn’t matter what you say. So they’d better update it and make it more believable, or they’ll need to change its name.

Optimization. Minecraft isn’t truly optimized, and I struggle to play it in my computer. And it is a rather good one, you know, GTX 1050 Ti, 4GB RAM, Core 2 Duo E8400 at ~25% OC. An optimization, even if small, would already be better than nothing.

So, there are franchises that have a lot of games, and, may I say, Banjo - Kazooie is one of them. It may not have as many titles as the Mario franchise, but it definitely has quite a few. So, in which order to play them?

1 - Banjo - Kazooie (1998, Nintendo 64, Xbox 360)

Yes, the first game of the franchise should be played first. Pretty obvious, huh? In this game, you’ll start to know Banjo, the bear and his rather loud friend, Kazooie. I’ll not get into details because I do not want to spoil any fun if you’ve never played these games.

2 - Banjo - Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge (2003, Game Boy Advance)

The third game released (and one of the best, if not, may I say) tells a story between the two years that Grunty (the villain) stays buried. It’s a game originally made for the Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance, so it should be quite easy to emulate.

3 - Banjo - Tooie (2000, Nintendo 64, Xbox 360)

So, Banjo - Tooie is the franchise’s second released game, but the story it tells happens after the happenings of Grunty’s Revenge. You can download it in an Xbox 360 or buy Rare Replay (Xbox 360, Xbox One) where you’ll get this game, Banjo - Kazooie, Banjo - Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Kameo: Elements of Power, and a lot more.

4 - Banjo - Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (2008, Xbox 360)

Don’t tell me that this is a crap game, that it ain’t a Banjo - Kazooie game just because it is more of a racing game. It is a great game, and even if it takes a whole different route, well, it is still a Banjo - Kazooie game and, more importantly, yes, a platformer game. And I just love it. I love almost all Rare’s games, actually.

What about Banjo - Pilot?

It’s a spin-off.

And Banjo - Threeie?

Well, I really wanted to play this game. Unfortunately, Microsoft made Rare cancel this game (and a few others as well) so that they could work on my least favorite game ever: Kinect Sports.

You know, I don’t really understand Redstone. I can make some simple contraptions, such as a Not Gate, or an Item Sorter. But I just can’t make a 3x3 piston door. I can barely remember how to make a double piston extender (not compact)!

But today I’ve decided to select the best five Redstone contraptions. IMO.

Now, before starting, I’m sure I’m not going to find every cool contraption in the world, but I’ll try my best to get the best.

They’ll be chosen using three criteria: creativity, usefulness, and complexity. This means that not only the most complex Redstone contraptions will be featured here, but the most useful ones as well.

Actually, most aren’t single contraptions, but genres. There’s a balance in this list between usefulness and craziness.

5 - 64kb Hard Drive

This is definitely insane. A working 64 kilobytes hard drive inside Minecraft. This thing is massive, with 64 MILLION cubic meters of volume. Idk how long did it take to build this thing, and it certainly isn’t that useful. But you could save Minecraft’s Wikipedia page in it.

Maybe someday we’ll see a 1TB working computer inside Minecraft, but without proper Redstone components (transistors, capacitors, coils) we’re not going to see it anytime soon.

4 - Farms

Well, farms! It doesn’t matter which model or item, the farms are useful. There are some crazy ones though. But they’re essential if you want to have the most adventure without grinding.

3 - Super Smelters

Now, I don’t have a specific link for this one, but it is really useful. It’s the fastest way know in vanilla Minecraft of smelting stuff. There’s not a lot to talk about this one, so let’s move on.

2 - Item Sorters

Well, it’s kinda hard to pick only one, because there’s not really the best design, but only the one that suits your needs.

So I’ve provided you with a link to the one I like to use, but you also have a ton of other options, including ones that can store up to 93,312 items (1,458 stacks!)! For that one, you should visit Mumbo Jumbo’s youtube channel.

Use these with Super Smelters and you’ll have a super automatic system. Recommended.

Also, do you wonder why is it so high in the list? Well, that’s because you shouldn’t have any farms without organization, and any super smelters if you don’t have where to put your stuff.

1 - Colossus Walking Bot

If you don’t think this is good, I don’t think you could even judge these machines. Look at the size of this thing! In all of the years that I’ve played Minecraft, I never saw anything like that.

If one had the resources to build a few of these things in a Minecraft server during a war, the guy would have definitely won the war.

So Microsoft gave up on the Xbox 360 consoles a little while ago, but they’ll always have a place in my heart. I’ve spent hours upon hours playing games with it, and it was a big part of my childhood. So, today I’ve chosen my Top 10 favorite Xbox 360 games. Be aware that I’ve played all of them till the end, and that this is my opinion.

This post will be covered with spoilers that may take away some of the fun parts of playing a brand new game. Without further ado, let’s begin.

10 - Terraria

Terraria is a great game, everyone knows that. You can explore infinite worlds that are never the same, you can fight 12+ bosses, and it even has an event that you can trigger that is actually a crossover with another one of my favorite games: Dungeon Defenders 2.

I recommend you to check it out.

9 - Project Gotham Racing 3

That’s a really cool one. PGR 3 is a racing game, where you can compete online if you have an Xbox Live Gold account, or you can play in campaign mode, where you race some of the hardest bots I’ve found out there, I must say.

If you don’t fancy a solo game you can play in local CO-OP, and design your own races. That’s really cool, right?

You can buy tons of different cars, and even have them displayed in some fancy garages! It’s definitely worth a try.

8 - Dragon Ball Z - Battle Of Z

I really like Dragon Ball, and the only reason I’ve not included Dragon Ball Xenoverse is that I don’t own it, and I haven’t actually played it. So I can’t give an opinion.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t own any Dragon Ball games! DBZ - BOZ tells the whole DBZ story, back from Sayans Saga up to Battle Of Gods. You can even play as Vegetto if you buy him!

As the game progresses you’ll start to get some cards that can be equipped to increase a hero’s power.

When you get to a certain point of the game (after defeating Beerus, I guess) you’ll be able to use any hero at any stage, to the point of fighting Nappa with Goku SSJG. Mindblowing.

7 - Dungeon Defenders

If you like a good strategy game, that’s definitely a must play. Dungeon Defenders is an Action, Strategy, Tower Defence game where you can play as one of the multiple characters of different classes with different powers.

You can play as an Apprentice, which is kinda like a mage of some sort, you can play as a Monk, a Squire, a Hunter and others too.

On Dungeon Defenders you must defend Eternia Crystals, which are (warning - oversimplified content) magical crystals that monsters wanna destroy. Basically.

As you kill monsters, they drop weapons and equipment that you can use to make your character insanely stronger. The weapons vary for each class. If you’re playing with the apprentice you’ll get wands, staffs, and rods. Squire, swords, and so on and so forth.

It also has an online multiplayer option and supports local CO-OP up to four players too.

6 - Perfect Dark Zero

This is a game that I wasn’t able to finish (lack of time, and, you know, X360′s problems). But it’s a rather wonderful and rainbow-ish game. Or no. You play as a secret agent that has to take down, well, I can say, super-criminals that have amazingly a lot of high tech stuff.

Again, if you don’t fancy a solo game you can also play Deathmatch mode, which even has bots for the case that you don’t have a friend available.

Now, it’s an FPS game. And I’m not that into FPS games. That’s the only reason that this is as below as it is in the list. But it is an amazing game. Rare (or Rareware) makes amazing games and I like most of their work. Most of it. (I’m referring to Kinect Sports here).

5 - Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga

God, I love this game. I’ve beaten it many times, and I still find the time to do so. Who doesn’t like at least one Lego game? On Lego... I’m just gonna abbreviate it, it’s a rather long name, you know. On LSW: TCS you play through the whole story of Star Wars characters, from the 1st to the 6th movie.

You can also play the game as Indiana Jones, for that matter. I’ve played this game a lot as a kid, and I play it till today.

4 - Viva Piñata

You can kill me because I’d rather play this one than play Tomb Raider Legends, which I also own, but it’s just that Tomb Raider isn’t my kind of game, you know.

On Viva Piñata you must grow a garden in a given area that increases as you progress the game, with the objective of becoming the best gardener in the land. Right on the beginning, you’ll know Leafos, the girl that’ll help you know the game’s controls and tell you the objectives.

The game has a whole city, you can say. It has a pinãta hunter, a doc and even a shaman.

You have side objectives too, such as finding the great Dragonache, the rarest piñata in the game. You can only have one of them per garden.

This is another game made by Rare. There are a few more in this list.

3 - Minecraft

C’mon, Minecraft! I know this game since... Since I can remember! And don’t tell me it’s a kid’s game! I know that’s the focus, but it’s still fun. Minecraft is a game that you can play with friends, online or offline, or alone if you’re fancy doing so.

Do I need to say anything else about Minecraft or does everyone know about it?

2 - Banjo Kazooie - Nuts and Bolts

I know, the Banjo-Kazooie community doesn’t like this game as a Banjo-Kazooie game, because Rare transformed what used to be a platformer game in a racing game. But I do like this game, and it was through it that I’ve known the Banjo-Kazooie franchise. And, while I like every single game, this one holds a special place in my heart.

Plus, I don’t know any other game that lets you build your car from scratch with the freedom that Banjo-Kazooie - Nuts and Bolts offers. 

1 - Kameo - Elements of Power

The number one in this list. This is literally the first game I ever played in an Xbox 360. In any console, for that matter. It’s a 360′s exclusive game, but you can play it on Rare’s game compilation released to the Xbox One console, Rare Replay.

You control Kameo, an elf that can transform into twelve different Elemental Warriors, where each one has unique skills. She can transform into a boxer plant (Pummel Weed), a dragon that creates fire tornadoes or even a yeti!

The objective is to end the war between elves and trolls and to defeat the strongest monsters, such as the Shadow Trolls, creatures that have imprisoned the Elemental Warriors, or Thorn, the king of all trolls.

Its graphics were amazing at its time, and it was one of the first Xbox 360′s games.

That’s my favorite game by far, and in my opinion the best game Rare ever made. Unfortunately, they’ve canceled its sequel because Microsoft wanted them to make Kinect Sports. The world is funny, isn’t it?

A Few Honorable Mentions (IMO as well)

Tomb Raider Legends

Castle Crashers

Battleblock Theater

Kinectimals

Burnout: Revenge

Banjo-Kazooie (Remake)

Banjo-Tooie (Remake)

Rare Replay

GTA V

Dragon Ball Xenoverse (1 and 2)

But Igor, why didn’t you put as number one the Rare Replay game if you like Rare so much?!

Well, that’s simple. That’s because Rare Replay is not a game. It is a game collection, a compilation.

What about GTA V then?

Eh...

You know, the best part is that now you can use almost any Xbox 360 game in an Xbox One. That’s amazing. If you don’t agree at some point or believe that I forgot something, please, let me know your opinion in the comments below!

Recently (2010 - 2018) the 2D | Survival | Platformer | Open World | Sandbox - wow that’s huge - market has grown a lot, with famous titles and others not so much. Now let’s take a look at them, shall we?

Before we start

This list will obviously be influenced by my opinion. Also, I haven’t played all of the titles shown here. I’ll be showing the games in this format: Name (Release Date - Price - Console). Let’s go!

1. Terraria (May 16, 2011 - U$19,99 - PC/Mac/Linux/Xbox/PS/Switch/Mobile)

Terraria is the most famous 2D Platformer/Survival/Sandbox game with RPG elements that you’ll find out there. It’s a game about adventures, where you fight amazing bosses, literally mine to hell, explore the world to find huge structures such as the Dungeon, and much more.

With a random world generation every time you create a new one, it’s really hard to get bored exploring them.

Also, if you don’t fancy a single-player game, it has full multiplayer support too! How cool is that?

Quite literally, the sky is the limit on Terraria. The game is available to tons of platforms, with tons of different prices too. I’ve played this game and I can say that it made its way to my Top Favourite games really easily.

If you get sick of vanilla gameplay, you can always throw some mods into it, because the mods community is really big and keeps growing. You’ll find famous titles such as the Calamity Mod, Thorium, Spirit, and hundreds of others.

The game still has updates released from time to time, and another really cool one is coming this year still, which we’ll cover in another topic. So why not to buy it?

2. Starbound (July 22, 2016 - U$14,99 - Windows/Mac/Linux/Xbox One/PS4/PS Vita)

Being developed by Chucklefish - and being one of my favorite titles too - Starbound is the most similar game to Terraria you can find out there.

Just like Terraria, Starbound has a random world generation, but it’s a single world per game. Or should I say Universe? Starbound isn’t limited by only one world, no, you have an entire Universe to explore (literally). Thousands of worlds generated randomly, so you can play and replay as many times as you want. Do you want a new Universe? Just erase the Universe folder from its data and a fresh universe will be there for you.

With three game modes, those being Casual, Normal and Hardcore (permadeath), you’ll have tons of challenges to overcome. And frustration, with the latter.

Did I talk about its story? I don’t think so. The game has an amazingly immersive and deep story, with tons of different elements composing the game in a way you wouldn’t imagine.

It also has native mod support (which I like to call NMS for short, XD), which is a big win for it!

3. Junk Jack (November 7, 2011, or August 29, 2013, not sure! - U$14,99 - Windows/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS)

Junk Jack is one of the many games I regret not playing. No, seriously, I wanna play this game. But since I haven’t, please pardon me if I write any nonsense! :p

Unlike Terraria and Starbound, the game has 12 procedurally generated planets that can only be accessed by portals that you acquire during gameplay (13, if you also take the starter world). It’s an interesting mechanic, I must say.

The game has other familiar mechanics, such as the circuits that remind me of Redstone. Or the grid crafting, that also reminds me of Minecraft. And that’s something I like, familiar stuff.

Something that surprised me while reading about the game is that in its Steam page, Pixbits (the game’s developer) states that the circuits can be used to make functional CPUs. What?!

And as if that wasn’t enough, the game also has a creative mode!

Also, the game’s graphics are amazing! They really do draw attention and boy oh boy, does that wooden door look familiar!

Also, the game has multiplayer, for what it seems.

Even if I haven’t played the game, all of the above makes me put it this high on the list. Next one!

4. Asteria (July 4, 2014, U$4,99 - Windows?)

I may have not played this game, but I know it really well.

With a full Mod Support and community, I doubt you’re not going to get entertained with this title. Tons of adventure and mining, 9 hand-crafted dungeons filled to the brink with challenges, and you don’t even need to worry about inventory space! 900 slots with unlimited stacking! I mean, that has to be pretty impressive, right?

A fully procedurally generated world, a cool graphic style, mods and you have a game that you can play for 100+ hours.

Oh, yeah, and it also has a creative mode. Hurray!

5. Craft The World (November 24, 2014 - U$18,99 - Windows?)

I haven’t played this game. At all. So if I say something wrong, please let me know.

Craft the World is a game where apparently you control a Godlike being, having different magic skills. You, as a divine being, must control a tribe of dwarves, which makes a lot of sense, of course.

You start the game with a single, lonely dwarf. You get more and more dwarves as the game progresses and you “experience level increases”. I wonder how does it feel like.

You must provide them with resources, such as food, and help them to fight against monsters. The game has many different levels, and in each level, a lot of underground exploration to cover. Now, as I haven’t played the game, I’m not gonna dive into details, since I might ruin myself and the game.

Why is it in the list if I haven’t played it? Well, that’s simple. It looks like a game that is fun, it has really good graphics and, from what I saw, really interesting mechanics.

So I can recommend it to you, my dear reader, even if I haven’t tried it by myself.

Honorable Mentions

Crea

Stardew Valley

Don’t Starve

Minecraft

Cube World

No Man’s Sky

Land Of Enchantments

If this was a Top 6 list, I would have definitely included Crea. Unfortunately, this isn’t.

Why haven’t I included Stardew Valley and Don’t Starve in the list? Well, they aren’t exactly 2D, you know. They are more like 2.5D, and Don’t Starve is actually more of a 3D game than 2.5D.

I don’t even need to say why neither Minecraft nor Cube World and No Man’s Sky made their way into this list, do I?

Now, Land Of Enchantments - my game - is a 3D Action/Platformer/Fantasy/Crafting game with RPG elements. Why isn’t it on the list? Well, it wasn’t released yet and it is 3D. So... no. But you should definitely go check it out! XD