In the autumn of 2013 I had joined yet another new Minecraft
server called Vancraft
and after looking around for a bit I decided to start another project. This
time I wanted to create something in a swamp, a sunken temple to be precise. I got the idea from the original Temple of
Atal'Hakkar in World of Warcraft which is a pyramid-like temple with only
the very top rising above the water with the rest of the temple below the water
line. So long story short after a lot of effort dredging the lake bed, digging
a hell of a lot of stone, fighting off zombies and clearing out the water it
was built, and this was the result.
The original sunken temple
I was pleased with it at the time but I knew that I would
need to go back and re-do it in creative mode to make it bigger and better than
before and that’s what I did. Finding a swamp was easy this time as you can
just generate a world which is the one biome so all I had to do was find a nice
big lake to put the temple in. Once I found a suitable place it was a process
of working out the how wide and tall the temple was going to be, how deep it
went and how much of the temple was above the water and of course which type of
stone. I decided on Mossy Cobblestone as this seemed the most appropriate
choice for a temple in a swamp. And so for the second time I went through the
process of dredging out the bottom where the base of the temple was going to be
and building up from there which didn’t take too long. I then built all the way
up to the top above the water, I had decided to do more of a rectangle then a
square so it took me awhile to decide on what the top of the temple was going
to look like.
This is the only shot I got of the build in progress, nice sunset though
When I first created the entrance to the last temple I didn’t
include a door just a stairway but we got attacked by so many zombies that I
had to seal it off with a door and entryway. So built over the entrance to the
temple with a sort of curved roof and decorated with blocks of emerald which I
chose basically because they were green and looked cool. After I had finished
though I thought it needed something more so I created a sort of spire at the
front which actually make it look more like a chapel than a temple but oh well
it looked pretty good anyway.
Yeh it kinda does look like a chapel, and hurrgh look at that water oh yes it's beautiful!
So then came the task of clearing out the water, previously
this was done automatically by the helpful owner of the server Van, however
this time I was on my own and without any knowledge of commands in Minecraft so
the only option was sponges, many, many sponges. So I swam around placing
sponges all over the floor and gradually dried out the entire bottom.
Spongey!
But of course
I had to dig down a lot more to reach the bottom of the temple perimeter and
you know what that meant, TNT and lots of it. This was probably the most fun
part of the whole process I placed TNT everywhere and blasted the floor out
from under me until it got the right level, in the process I managed to blow up
parts of the temple walls and had to patch a few leaks but got it done in the
end and ended up with a relatively smooth floor.
Boy do I love TNT excavation.
I built a stairway to the bottom but then I had a dilemma, I
hadn’t thought of what I was going to put on the bottom, I didn’t really know
what the temple was for. The last time I made the temple it I just covered the
bottom with sand and left a pool of water and it was my ‘Sunken Temple of
Solitude’. Though this time I decided it would be a temple for the worship of Slime(s) I didn’t want to
cover the entire floor with slime though so I made some bouncy ‘slime block
pits’ and also some water pits but left the floor as stone, I considered making
the entire floor slime but meh the whole point was more for the outside of the
temple not the inside.
Slimes, Slimes everywhere
I made a pyramid of emerald blocks as these were
basically the symbol of the temple and a green beacon to go on top which
unfortunately cut through the staircase but there wasn’t much else I could do.
As an additional decoration I hung vines all over the temple which looked
pretty cool on the inside once they were fully grown. And then of course it was
time to spawn the slimes which I put all over the place but unfortunately most
ended up killing themselves somehow and also because the place was so dark
other monsters such as skeletons, zombies and bats had spawned too but oh well
it was fine.
Once the vineshad grown it looked pretty cool, I had to lighten this picture up to see anything
In the screenshots and movie I am using the KOP
Realism 64x64 Texture pack with RRe36's
Shaders (High) from the Optifine mod.
And man did the water look spectacular not to mention the sky and sunsets. I
only realised now that my monitor at home must be very light compared to other
monitors as viewing on other screens is much darker and I actually had to
lighten up two of the pictures as they were just too dark on other screens I
tried. But anyway I’m happy with the result, it was the first Minecraft project
I’ve worked on in awhile and don’t know when I’ll back to the game but I don’t
think I’ll be gone forever, no siree.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! Well 2018 was quite a year in gaming and I hope you enjoyed all of the posts despite the fact that there was unfortunately only 8. As you can see I'm still going and this year I hope to do at least one blog post a month but with things going on and work commitments i'll see how I go. I still have a large backlog of posts so I'll get through them as best I can. Here's to a great 2019!
This was an interesting one that I purchased from GoG.com. A
Star Wars game where you play a Clone
Trooper, though it has been done before though in the original two Star
Wars Battlefronts. I was looking forward to playing a game that did not seem to
feature Jedi of any kind. And I’ll admit I enjoy playing a linear First Person
Shooter, I’m not sure why maybe it’s just because it’s simple unlike all of the
completion-focused sandbox games with random encounters and respawning enemies
and objects to collect which take up so much of your time. With those linear
shooters it’s just like bang-pow, well that was that bit let’s keep goin, and
when you play it on easy you don’t get bored and can power through it, not that
I’m trying to power through the game I just like to get it done and not get
stuck anywhere. Star Wars
Republic Commando is one of these types of games, of course it’s not
jumping around shooting like a maniac like Doom, it’s a game about tactics, a
little bit of tactics, but tactics none the less. You are commanding 'Delta Squad', an elite group of clone commandos, through three missions
during the beginning of the Clone Wars as your first mission is on Geonosis
which we all remember from Episode
II Attack of the Clones.
Ooooo my pre-battle-scarred helmet
When starting the game you have the title crawl of
course then after a short cutscene where a Kaminoan
introduces the clone commandos and their purpose as well as the war situation you are then booted to the troop
deployment on Kamino and wow it was pretty intense seeing all the
troops flying when you’re currently by yourself.
Huge docking bay, hundreds of soldiers, pouring rain, it's like the start of every war deployment
You are then flown to Geonosis
where you are introduced to your abilities and some commands things like
healing from bacta stations and taking out gun emplacements with thermal
detonators. You then meet your first Squadmate Scorch the younger-sounding
wisecracking demolition expert And soon after you meet Fixer the squad’s slicer and
no-nonsense by-the-book career soldier and finally Sev the bloodthirsty tough
guy sniper who adorns his armor with red paint which may or may not be blood.
Dey be my squad
Now that my squad was at full strength I got to practise
giving orders and fighting with them, if there is a fairly powerful enemy you
can assign the squad members to target them by pressing the F key. Along the
way there are various locked gates, terminals and mounted weapons, you can use
these yourself of course but the best course of action is to assign a squad
member to the task, I enjoyed doing this as you watch the squad member carry
out their task or use their gun emplacement. I had to do this quickly as soon
as you entered an area enemies often came at you, other times I got everything
set up just right then initiated the enemy attack by advancing slightly.
Commanding 'Sev' to initate a door breach
One of
the best moments was when I had all three squad members on Sniper positions
pointing at a door down a hallway, I then crept up to the door and opened it
then watched as the enemies that came out got shot to pieces by sniper fire.
During play my usual course of action was to assess the area for anything I
could order to squad members to man then usually ran around on my own providing
additional fire or getting up closed and meleeing enemies which I often did as
ammo was relatively sparse.
Snipe away boys (I have the Sniper attachment in too)
Your main weapon was the DC-17m Interchangeable Weapon
System, which has rifle, sniper and grenadelauncher attachments, the sniper and
grenade launcher were very useful and you really had to conserve the ammo, you
also had the weaker but self-recharging DC-15S and your
trusty Knuckle plate vibro blade which I
actually used quite a lot for the fact that one of the most common enemies you
encountered was the B2 Super Battle
Droids and if you didn’t have any
sniper or grenade ammo they took such a large number of regular rife rounds to
kill that most of the time I just ran around them in circles stabbing with my
knuckleblade which proved even faster then shooting them with regular rounds.
You could also use enemy weapons such as the Geonosian Elite Beam Weapon, Accelerated Charged Particle
Array Gun or WookieeBowcaster though only one at a time could be
used, the genosian weapon was particularly good.
The first part of the Prosecutor mission, I use a few different weapons including some trandoshan weapons.
As you battle through the level’s you and your squad will
often lose health when you deplete your shield, your shield auto recharges but
too much damage will deplete it then go through your health. Interestingly your
squad does not have a medic, you can heal yourself though wall mounted medical
units and your squad usually heal themselves automatically if they need it but
sometimes need prompting to do so. If you do lose all of your health you go
into a ‘downed’ state and require another squad member to revive you. If the
last squad member dies then it’s all over. There were some situations where all
my squadmates had died and I was running around by myself praying I could clear
out the remaining enemies, but most of the time if you studied your
surroundings and planned ahead you would be fine. For clones your squad members
certainly have very different personalities despite the fact that they are all
supposed to be clones in fact it only seems like you and your commander who don’t
have much of a personality. The squad is fun to play with they have a good
amount of banter with Scorch and Sev being the most talkative it’s basically
Scorch as the young joker, Sev as the tough guy and Fixer as the straight
no-nonsense guy bringing them in line. Your own character ‘Boss’ has a fairly
neutral gruff older tone and like Fixer does not really have a sense of humour.
Your squadmates commend you if you make a good shot and grumble if they have to
be revived, It’s quite not akin to Battlefield
Bad Company but it’s still pretty good.
Destroying the Spider Tank on Geonosis
The game came out in 2005 but still looks pretty good, the
bulk of the storyline is made up or three missions which have many sub-stages
and missions inside of them, the initial walkthrough and first mission being
the first battle of Geonosis which you would remember from the movies
where you battle many geonisian warriors as well as the trade federation
droids. I had a few slip ups here where I ran out of ammo and had to make do
with my fist blade and the pistol and died a few times but got through it ok,
those damn flying genosians were tough though that beam weapon they have really
helped and that fight with the spider
tank was pretty cool. The next missions a derelict Acclamator-class assault ship
designated the Prosecutor, the squad has to infiltrate the ship and
find out what happened to the crew. You start this mission alone as you and
your squadmates have been split up between sections, the first time you enter
it’s pretty damn dark and spooky. The ship has been taken over by some Trandoshan slavers and you can use their Accelerated Charged Particle
Array Guns which are basically shotguns, you also encounter larger
trandoshans with the LS-150 Heavy
Accelerated Charged Particle Repeater Gun (seriously could they make these
names any longer) which is basically a minigun and is very powerful but chews
through ammo like a boss.
Alternate weapons were useful for conserving ammo for your main weapon.
You do meet some other troopers from the original
crew of the Prosecutor though like the introductory part of the game and like
any game where you are supposed to be alone, any contact with allies is
fleeting and they quickly meet their messy demise. You eventually meet up with
your squadmates and then have to plow through the ship to get to the bridge,
this wasn’t too hard the final bits were pretty challenging though you had to
really scramble around to kill things like those droid dispensers that kept
churning out super battle droids. These and enemies on turrets or just rooms
with lots of enemies can be challenging in itself especially if you have
limited cover or no heavy weapons at your disposal.
Having access to a turret really helps, I was like running back to them constantly to make best use of them.
The final mission is Kashyyyk
where you personally help the Wookies who have been
enslaved by more trandoshans. This was pretty cool as the only ever time I’ve
seen the wookie homeworld was in Battle of Kashyyyk in Episode
III and also in the Age of Empires style, Genie Engine representation in Star
Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. Well this time around it looks pretty cool
albeit in a much more condensed environment, with giant trees and foliage all
around. I actually liked the way you started in the jungle then as you got
higher you went into the trees, the best part about this mission was fighting
alongside the wookies and the Wookiee chieftain Tarfful
although I accidentally blew them up a few times. This mission had several
run-ins with the trade federation IG-100
Magnaguards and one of the fights Tarfful actually joined in on so it was
difficult trying to kill the droids and not hit Tarful as well. This scenario
actually ended with the Battle of Kashyyyk though Delta Squad
weren’t around for it though I’ll give a small spoiler you do actually hear
from Yoda.
Fighting with the Wookies on Kashyyk, damn those droid dispensers
As I said before the visuals are still appealing being a bit
dated nowadays. I started out with the view set to be looking out from my
helmet, with was very immersive but I ended up just turning that off as it got
a bit annoying with the tunnel vision. It was great to visit locations from the
movies. Your hud shows you your health, shield level and grenade ammo with your
weapon ammo being displayed on the gun itself. It also shows the directs you
are being shot from and the status of your squad members, the squad hud lets
you know if you squadmates are, engaging the enemy, healing, downed or at a
specific weapon station. You also almost always have your current objective
displayed at the top of the screen which is quite helpful.
The view from inside your helmet
The levels were very linear but it was expected in a game
like this, the challenge was as you moved into each new area/room, survey your surrounds,
and organise your squad tactics. Kashyyk was probably the best looking as you progressed
through the dense jungle into the treetops. It was a unique feeling to be (sort
of) ‘just another trooper’ fighting in the battles for the Republic and not
like one of the main characters in the film deciding on the fate of thousands,
you just did what you were told, to some distress later in the game. Another thing
was you really felt like you were part of a team or the leader of a team I
should say, bantering together etc, getting through the various engagements, I
almost had like a kinship to them all in the end. Of all the old Star Wars
games I’ve played recently: Shadows
of the Empire, Star
Wars Starfighter,Jedi
Outcast even Tie Fighter I
would still only replay Republic Commando, I don’t know I just like it. Of
course it’s not the best, it’s no Jedi
Academy which I have now replayed for what would possibly be the 6th
time and I think no Star Wars game will ever trump The
Old Republic MMORPG. But for a Star Wars first person shooter this thing is
pretty damn good.
Release date: December 20, 2017 Genre: Kart racing Publisher:Rare Developer: Rare Platforms: Nintendo 64 Modes: Singleplayer Story, Multiplayer Racing and Battle Modes
Ahh kart racing games, with their cutesy characters and wacky cartoon
graphics, I’ve owned a few myself the first and foremost being Super Mario Kart on the
Super Nintendo which to this day I still regard as the best kart racer ever,
followed closely by Crash Team Racing,
and possibly Micro
Maniacs and Lego
Racers though they weren’t kart racers. Back in the day when I played the
good old N64 with friends we mostly played Mario Kart 64, however my
housemate Brok was a staunch fan of Diddy Kong Racing which
did look quite interesting as it included not just Cars but Hovercrafts and
Planes too which I understood you could use several different vehicles on the
one map which was pretty cool. I can’t remember playing it back then I can only
remember playing it a year or so ago at my house then playing it properly on
emulator on the perfectly functional Project64,
an excellent choice which I have used to this day. Diddy Kong Racing (DKR) was
created by the famous Rareware
who I’m sure you’ll know created the likes of Donkey Kong Country series and
many other well-known titles such as GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect
Dark, and Conker's Bad Fur Day, they
seemed to be able to do no wrong on the Nintendo 64 as DKR is no exception.
Just a quick note before I start, I decided to use the Mario Wiki for my hotlinks as
the Donkey Kong
Wiki has an annoying custom mouse pointer, why do people do that, really?
At least I don’t see it happening on many websites anymore.
It's go time! (almost)
The opening of the game is really enjoyable with the animated Nintendo and
Rareware logo’s (A staple through Rare-made games) then it cuts to Diddy flying
in and then starts that awesome intro that shows you all of the characters with
that very catchy boppy music, I gotta say the music in Diddy Kong Racing pretty
much beats any other kart racer I have played, even Mario Kart. After the great
intro you can select your mode, DKR is fairly simple starting with Adventure
mode and tracks mode. In tracks mode you can choose to race any track you have
unlocked via Adventure mode, tracks with a Taj the
Genie symbol are completed tracks, and players can choose any vehicle that
is compatible with the track. Tracks with a Wizpig symbol have not
been cleared, and players are restricted to the default vehicles for them.
Conker in his Hovercraft in Pirate Lagoon, this was one of the few tracks where only one type of vehicle could be used
Whichever mode you pick you then get to choose your character in what is
probably the most entertaining character select screen I have ever seen (or
heard) and I loved the way the music changed its tune slightly whenever you
selected a certaincharacter with each
character having their own tune, it’s hard to explain you’ll just have to watch
the video, I swear every single time I play the game I spend 2 minutes listening
to all of the character tunes. There are 8 available characters at the start
with two that are unlockable, as with Mario Kart there are various stats and
weight differences with the smaller characters being easier to handle but
slower, the middleweight character being good all round and the heavier
characters have good top speed but can’t accelerate or turn very well. So I
decided to go as Conker as he is an all-rounder then Bumper
just for a change in the later game as I liked his yellow colour vehicles.
The intro and that awesome character select screen
Adventure mode is the main singleplayer mode and one of the features it has
over Mario Kart 64, the first time I experienced an adventure mode was in Crash
Team Racing and it made playing a kart racer alone so much better it isn’t just
menu, race, menu, race you have a whole world to drive around in, explore,
practice your skills and unlock new areas. This was an era where the story was
written in the instruction manual which they assume you read first and I think
I did used to do that but basically it’s all loosely tied in to the Rare Games.
Diddy Kong
is sitting at the tree house having a G&T then gets a letter from his
friend Timber the
tiger who says that while his parents were away holidaying with the Kong clan
in the Caribbean the evil paedophile Wizpig has come from outer space and taken over his island and
brainwashed some very large animals into serving him. So Diddy gets Squawks to send a
message that their coming then attempts to sober up his friends Banjo and Conker from their
hangover and they jack one of Funky’s
boats to reach Timber’s Island, closely followed by Krunch, who is after
them from a botched crack deal the previous night. Meanwhile on the island Bumper
is trying to hide Pipsy
and Tiptup from
Wizpig but she’d eaten magic mushrooms and was dancing around trying to summon Taj the
Genie although Tiptup says that he had been dead for 50 years due to
substance abuse.
Taj awarding me with a Balloon
When they all get together Bumper then has the great idea that
they should defeat Wizpig by racing go-karts, hovercrafts and planes for no
reason whatsoever and they should get practicing. Then T.T comes over and says he’s gonna do
some hot laps and dares them all to beat him and their all like how the fack is
that going to help us defeat Wizpig? And he’s like how the fack is us racing
against each other going to do that either? oh and Drumstick has been
turned into a frog, yeh I think that was the gist of it.
Timber Island, the main hub of the game, on the left is the entrance to Dino domain, on the right is the entrance to Snowflake Mountain inw hich you need the plane to navigate to.
So on starting the adventure you are greeted by Taj himself (guess he wasn’t
dead) who gives you an introduction to adventure mode before challenging you to
a kart race around the island rewarding you with a Golden Balloon which is the
main reward system in DKR, golden ballons are awarded for coming 1st
in races and challenges and they allow you to unlock more areas on the island.
So now I could enter Dino
Domain the first sub-world which consists of 4 races, a challenge level, a
boss race and a trophy race, earning stuff along the way. The first 4 races
weren’t too bad, you race against the other characters in the game using weapon balloons and
shortcuts to gain the upper hand. The weapon in DKR are pretty cool, they use a
powering up system exactly the same as Lego Racers, there are different colour
balloons that give different powerups, red are missiles, blue is boosts, green
is mines etc, yellow is shields and rainbow are magnets which is a new one, you
can pull yourself toward your opponents or pull them back to you which is
pretty cool.
Shootin a few missiles on Crescent Island
The more balloons of the same type you get the more powerful the
item is, for example 2 red balloons is a homing missile, 3 red balloons is a
group of ten (not homing though) frankly I don’t know which is better, I would
have preferred more homing missiles. Anyway you get a Golden balloon for coming
1st each time, to get the challenge level you have to find the Wish Key hidden in one of the
tracks, the challenge levels are either collection challenges like Fire Mountain where you have to fly
around and collect Dragon Eggs or a straight battle mode like Icicle
Pyramid. Diddy Kong Racing’s battle mode isn’t too bad though technically
there is only two Mario Kart style battles which were Icicle
Pyramid which was similar to Mario 64’s Double Deck
and Darkwater
Beach which was a fairly open water-filled level where hovercrafts were
used.
The Icicle pyramid and Frosty village tracks
After you finish all 4 tracks and the challenge level you
then have a chance to face the boss, which are giant animals that have been
brainwashed by Wizpig, and they are quite challenging, even the Dino Domain
boss Tricky the
Triceratops wasn’t exactly easy they cheat and run ahead at the start before
the and they often throw things at you
or leave them in their trail for you to crash into . So you beat the boss then
have to complete all the races again this time doing the Silver Coin Challenges which added the extra difficulty of finding and
collecting all 6 silver coins on a track and also finish first, then after that
you had to race the boss again and win the Wizpig Amulet then after that you did the Trophy Race
which was all the races of that world in row like a Mario Kart Cup and after
that you were finally done with the area. To access the different areas you
need to drive around Timber’s island unlocking new vehicles to use through Taj
to reach different areas. I didn’t have too much trouble with Dino Domain or Sherbet Island though the
boss of Sherbet Island Bubbler was pretty damn hard and when I got up to the Snowflake Mountain
track Silver Coin challenges I was stuck on the Snowball
Valley one for a while, it’s gets pretty fackin hard going out of your way
to get the coins then still coming first.
Bubbler the octopus boss of Sherbert Island
The main feature in Diddy Kong Racing that makes it stand
out from the rest is the multiple vehicles used, you start off with the Car and after gaining more
Gold Balloons you race Taj to gain access to the Hovercraft
then eventually the Plane. Using
the car is pretty easy, I was playing using a Playstation controller so just
used R1 as the trigger button for using powerups, apart from that there was
just accelerate, brake, sharp turn and powerslide where you went on two wheels.
Most of the time I just used the brake button to make small adjustments and to
get those boost pads, the Hovercraft was probably my favourite vehicle as I
found it easy to drive an enjoyed being able to do very sharp turns by hopping.
The Plane was probably the hardest as you had to deal with the vertical axis
was well and there were often many obstacles and sharp turns in tracks where
you flew the plane so you had to be nimble and remember to knife
edge to make the corner. Crashing was often very costly as it slowed you
down a lot and took a while to get back up to speed.
Flying on the Windmill Plains Level
So after god knows how many runs I managed to finish the Snowball
Valley Silver coin challenge then race the boss again then finish the
Trophy race then I finally got up to Dragon Forest where it was a medieval theme and a
bit more challenging but I finished it ok including the Smokey
Castle challenge level. The boss Smokey
the Dragon was pretty darn hard, you challenged him in aplane and had to dive through caverns dodging
stalactites, but it was the silver coin challenges that stopped me dead, for
the life of me I couldn’t finish the Greenwood
Village, Windmill Plains or Haunted
Woods Silver coin challenges. Unfortunately I never finished them and gave
up the game but I came back eventually thanks to my housemate Brok who had
unlocked almost everything I was able to play the bits I couldn’t reach such as
racing Wizpig and unlocking the final area Future Fun Land which was pretty fackin awesome.
It was a kind of space fun park with homages to different sci-fi movies notably
Stars Wars as one track had a section that looked like the Death Star Trench
run. Of course couldn’t defeat Smokey the second time or Wizpig in both his
initial encounter and the second encounter Wizpig Strikes Back but at least I experienced
them so I could write this review.
Dang those silver coin challenges were hard.
I love the look of
the game, there is so much colour everywhere with great looking , it was made
even better by the fact that I was playing on the emulator so although some of
the text and icon graphics weren’t the best the 3D graphics were very crisp and
looked great. The water textures were really good and the overall level design
was great I’d say on par with Crash Team Racing. One thing I really need to do
is see what the Future Fun land tracks look like on the emulator as they are so
crazy and colourful it’d look nuts. Another thing I will have to go back and do
is play all of the tracks again but with a different vehicle to the default
just to see the track from a whole different angle. Though I didn’t finish the
game fully it was still great to play both on emulator and the actual Nintendo
64, it had some really innovative features like the different vehicles and the
adventure mode and the way you could use different vehicles on the one track.
Oh and the music the soundtrack was so damn good it could give Spyro a run for
its money, one of the few things that lets it down was that it only has two
true “battle mode” levels but then again Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64
only had two good ones anyway. So I will finish with this bombshell if I had to
choose between Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing? It’d be Diddy Kong Racing of
course.
My delving into Minecraft is minimal these days, I remember
the good old times where I would join a community of players and we would make
whole cities and communities. Of course I could still join a server and get
back into this again but I guess I’m just a bit fatigued with the game I’ve
been playing it that long. I used to work on my Brick Mansion every major patch
to add new things, but at some point I just decided that was enough and just
left it, mind you it had been finished for a long time I was just adding and
redecorating. Though one of things I always wanted to do was create more secret
fallback tunnels with powered minecart tracks that you could zoom along and
escape a potential invasion. I already had one from my bedroom to the nearby village
in case the house gets invaded, but I needed more, something that went far away
to an (also secret) fallback base. So I searched around for a bit and found an
island just a little bit away from the taiga forest across a small bit of ocean
and decided to was far enough away to be safe from would-be invaders.
My original escape tunnel had lots of more powered rails
I decided to make the entrance to the secret tunnel in the
pool hall as the idea was to make it a wall switch that activates a secret
door. But because I don’t know enough about redstone I just had to make it a
normal door on the wall, but the problem with that is you can see the door
right there and because the wood on the wall is jungle planks I had to use a jungle door which as you may
remember has holes in it. So it wasn’t really a secret entrance but nevermind
I’ll fix that later.
Ahh no one will notice that XD
Entryway from the (8-ball) pool room with chest of minecarts (yes minecarts) I like having the torches in their own little alcoves sometimes as it looks cool although doesn't give off that much light.
So then I started digging, and digging, and digging, and
digging out the tunnel, I joined up my original escape tunnel with the new one
so now you had two options of where to go and dug the rest of the tunnel
underneath the forest towards the sea. I stopped at one point as I noticed I
had dug into a cave, so I made another secret exit in the middle of the forest.
One of the tunnels with a ladder to the forest exit
The Taiga forest to the southwest of the mansion, you can see the cave entrance at the bottom of the screenshot
Once I was nearing the ocean things were going to get
tricky, I wanted to create a tunnel of glass underneath the ocean to the island
with the fallback base. So as soon as I came in contact with water I stopped
putting torches for light in the tunnel as it can’t have any light otherwise
you could easily see it from above the water. So I built the glass tunnel into
the bank and zigzagged across the ocean floor at one point dredging out a hill
to make it a bit lower. I got to the island and tunnelled into a large cave
which was accessible from the surface via a tall shaft, I was thinking of
making the fallback base on the surface built into a mountain but then I
thought that it may be safer built into the cave as we’re trying to hide from
invaders aren’t we? I could make a lookout on the surface I guess. Minecraft
really needs a way of making lifts as ladders are a bit too flimsy and stairs
take up a bit of space but that may be a bit sophisticated for the base Minecraft
as there’s redstone but no rope/pulley system in it really.
The entrance to the ocean tunnel
It's dark down here
See the dolphins!
Glass tunnel exit
The fallback base 'cave'
After doing some test runs I managed to give the Minecarts enough speed to get through the glass tunnel stretch without needing more speed which worked out well as without any lighting the tunnel was pretty hard to see.
A few shots of the underwater tunnels
As that’s as far as I got really I just wanted to make the
tunnels and they are pretty cool, especially the underwater bit as you can see
all of the undersea creatures. Speaking of which there are now lots of more
undersea creatures as of update 1.13 The Update Aquaticyes
there are now dolphins,
fish mobs
and turtles
to look at which is a welcome change from just the damn Squids. But anyway this was
just a quick update, I may keep working on the fallback base at some point or
maybe even update the mansion again but for now it’s finished.
