Survival Island

I downloaded the Survival Island scenario from here after I watched the Yogscast play it here (check out their whole channel here).  I used version 1.1 because it seemed like it was the most challenging, and it definitely had the most to do.  I completed most of the challenges (though I royally botched a key one right at the beginning), and after a while, I wanted to start over.  I had the original game save, so I started over, and now this island has been my most successful map to date.  It gives me nearly unlimited resources of most of the stuff I need, and it's been the most exciting for me.  Here's a quick overview of the island.  I'll divide this up into two or three posts.

This is a view of the whole island from a boat.

Here's my storehouse, recently remodeled.

As you can see, everything but the entrance and the very top layer is under the water.

Here's a view looking down into the storehouse.

And here's a view looking at the back of the storehouse.

I built a library on top of this enormous pole, and I recently lit up the pole with this stuff called glowstone, which is only found in the Nether.

It looks like that's all I'm going to share tonight.  I wanted to get more up, but I'm too tired.  I at least wanted to get something up, so I'll keep adding more pictures and improving on previous posts.

Zork

I thought I'd start this blog off with a quick review of my very first world, which I called Zork.  I made it with a random seed, and I used it to learn all I could about Minecraft before moving on to a new world and trying different seeds.  Here are a few pictures:

This is a nice little overview of one part of Zork.

Here's a look at the statue I created just to use up some cobblestone and dirt.  The pool house is to the right.

This is the inside of my first base of operations.

This is another look at my first base of operations.

I gave it a nice glass foyer to see when all of the creepers were out and about.

I gave myself a neat fountain out front.

These are the steps down to one of my diamond mines.

One of my diamond mines.

Another view of the diamond mine.

I'll post the tutorial I followed for diamond mining later.

I undertook a big project to see how well and quickly I could build something.  I started on this hotel, but I had nothing planned out, and I built as I went along, so it took a long time to get anywhere.  This is as far as I got before moving on to a new world.

The front of the hotel.

My hotel lobby.  It's too dark, so mobs will spawn on higher difficulties.  The ceiling around the glowstone is pure obsidian, farmed into place using the redstone trick, which I'll also post about later.

A view up the atrium over the entrance.

This is the hallway of the second floor, and the center of the floor is just a gathering room of some sort.

This is the third-floor restaurant, complete with glowstone lights above each table.

Another view of the restaurant.  This marks the top of the atrium, which only spans the first three floors.

The fourth-floor staircase coming up from the restaurant.

This is a nice big picture window.  I was proud of the carpeting here.

A look down the fourth-floor hallway.  Red carpet all the way.

One of the VIP suites on the fourth floor.

This VIP suite is bigger, and has a couch and a floor-to-ceiling picture window.

This is a look from the side of the hotel into the registration lobby.

The entrance at night.

This was my storehouse while working on the hotel.  I moved all of my supplies from my original base to this base.  I have everything stored here, though not as efficiently as I could have stored it.  I figured out a much better, more efficient storage method later, which I implemented in my Survival Island scenario.

This was the first building I made:  the pool house.  There's no lifeguard on duty, so swim at your own risk.

Here's the pool house in all its glory.

So there you have it.  I spent a lot of time working on that world, and I learned a lot about Minecraft from it.  Next, I'll post about the tutorials I tried out that helped me get ahead, and that I tried out, starting with diamond mining and obsidian farming.  That's it for now!

So, for my first post, I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself in relation to Minecraft.  I discovered Minecraft through, well...I don't remember how I initially came across it, but I do know I've been playing it for several months now, and I spend almost as much time playing it as I do watching Yogscast videos about it.  If you don't know what the Yogscast is, check out BlueXephos' channel on YouTube, which is comedic gaming at its best.  I'll head on to my next post about some of my Minecraft experiences, so check it out soon.