Hands-On: Digging Into Minecraft’s New Adventure Mode | GameLife | Wired.com
Hands-On: Digging Into Minecraft’s New Adventure Mode | GameLife | Wired.com:
Minecraft has just been updated to Beta 1.8 — heralding the arrival of the much-anticipated Adventure Update. But how much has changed, and how does it affect the beloved dig-build-explore mechanics of the blocky sandbox game?
I generated a new world to find out, and immediately spawned in the shadow of an enormous mountain. The terrain-generation algorithm has been dramatically overhauled to make the world less patchy.Minecraft’s world is already divided up into “biomes” — like forest, swamp, desert, hills, etc. Those biomes are now considerably larger, so passing through a desert will make it very difficult to find food or shelter.
I hollowed out a half-cave in the side of a mountain to use as a bolthole. There happened to be some coal inside, so I was able to build a few torches for the walls — which now give off a distinctive orange glow that lends your dwelling a warm, cozy feel. I spent the night as everyone spends their first night inMinecraft — huddling in a corner, praying that the horrific noises outside would stop.
When the sun rose, I confidently took a step out of my front door. Hissssssssssssssss BOOM. A Creeper got me — some things haven’t changed one bit. After respawning and reconstructing the entire front of my house, I ventured out a little further. Behind my mountain fortress was a vast desert, with nothing but cactus and a few scraggly bushes as far as the eye could see.
Next to the health bar at the bottom of the screen is a new hunger bar. This slowly reduces over time, and when it drops to the bottom, you’ll steadily take damage until you eat something. When it’s full, however, you automatically heal over time, and the benefits of health regeneration vastly outweigh the inconvenience of having to carry a stack of food around with you. I caught and killed a few pigs and chickens, and cooked the meat.
There’s an experience bar too, which currently does nothing. As you kill monsters, little green orbs will drop to the ground. As you pick them up they will fill up the bar, but Minecraft’s creators haven’t yet worked out exactly how they want to implement a levelling system, so for the time being it’s purely cosmetic.
See Wired GameLife for the complete article.
Minecraft has just been updated to Beta 1.8 — heralding the arrival of the much-anticipated Adventure Update. But how much has changed, and how does it affect the beloved dig-build-explore mechanics of the blocky sandbox game?
I generated a new world to find out, and immediately spawned in the shadow of an enormous mountain. The terrain-generation algorithm has been dramatically overhauled to make the world less patchy.Minecraft’s world is already divided up into “biomes” — like forest, swamp, desert, hills, etc. Those biomes are now considerably larger, so passing through a desert will make it very difficult to find food or shelter.
I hollowed out a half-cave in the side of a mountain to use as a bolthole. There happened to be some coal inside, so I was able to build a few torches for the walls — which now give off a distinctive orange glow that lends your dwelling a warm, cozy feel. I spent the night as everyone spends their first night inMinecraft — huddling in a corner, praying that the horrific noises outside would stop.
When the sun rose, I confidently took a step out of my front door. Hissssssssssssssss BOOM. A Creeper got me — some things haven’t changed one bit. After respawning and reconstructing the entire front of my house, I ventured out a little further. Behind my mountain fortress was a vast desert, with nothing but cactus and a few scraggly bushes as far as the eye could see.
Next to the health bar at the bottom of the screen is a new hunger bar. This slowly reduces over time, and when it drops to the bottom, you’ll steadily take damage until you eat something. When it’s full, however, you automatically heal over time, and the benefits of health regeneration vastly outweigh the inconvenience of having to carry a stack of food around with you. I caught and killed a few pigs and chickens, and cooked the meat.
There’s an experience bar too, which currently does nothing. As you kill monsters, little green orbs will drop to the ground. As you pick them up they will fill up the bar, but Minecraft’s creators haven’t yet worked out exactly how they want to implement a levelling system, so for the time being it’s purely cosmetic.
See Wired GameLife for the complete article.
Comments