Minecraft Creations: Lanslide and Respawn Comp Roundup, Mesa Mario Kart, "Apple" Trees and Golden statues

I’ve done a few builds for Minecraft comps at lans over the past few months so I thought I’d sum them up in the one strip starting with the ones from Lanslide.

Mesa Biome Minecraft Mario Kart track

This was quite an interesting theme for a Minecraft comp as what was announced was basically create a Mario Kart track in Minecraft, though it doesn’t have to be an existing track in the Mario universe you can create a new one and also it doesn’t have to be flat. So I immediately thought, “how would we do hills and grades?” but of course I if remember the only Mario Kart I really play anymore is the SNES version and every track is completely flat so what the hell I’ll just use stairs. Funnily enough my though after that was “how would we do corners?” but I suppose I just had to deal with it and started thinking.

Basically I thought everyone else would do a Mario Kart track so I decide to pick a biome and do a track designed to the style of that particular biome. Finding one of the new Mesa Biomes I decided it’d be perfect with its flat topped mountains. I then had to work out what kind of materials the track was made out of, I missed around with various types of clay but then remembered that clay had no stairs equivalent so I went with smooth sandstone and sandstone stairs for the main body of the track with brown stained clay around the edges. I spose my intention was that you'd "run" through this track not drive a car as it's more suited to Minecraft and gives the hazards more meaning.

First shot of finished track

I didn’t really have a track layout or design in mind I just decided to build as I went (as I usually do with my Minecraft creations), I decided to make all the turns right-angled and zig-zaging with the blocks would be too time consuming and as it was becoming night I decided to light up the track with lightstone light poles. So I set the starting line on a relatively empty strip on one of the mesas then continued creating a rather elevated track for the first zigzag and left turn across the divide and onto the next mesa.

Zig-zagy!

As there was a lava pit on the next mesa I decided to run a bridge right over it and remove some blocks for a pit hazard which worked well. I contined on with a sort of elevated skybridge style until I though instead of just going above the canyon divide I’ll create some sort of underground section, and yes that meant that I needed to run the track downward and TNT a hole through the canyon wall and up through to the top of the mesa, was a bit messy but I cleaned it up and even put some lava raining down to act as another hazard.

Running smack into a lava flow, yeeeowch

The track then went through tunnel then up through to the top of the Mesa where it zig-zagged through the trees.

Oddly this was one of my favorite sections of the track, I must just like skimming through trees.

I then had to make one hell of a drop down the edge of the mesa to the red sand below. I decided to make this part of the track offroad, not that it made any difference when running of course, then wheeled it round the side of the mesa back towards the start of the track.

That's quite a drop

At that point it was suggested to me that I should make an alternate route. So at the first corner down to the sand I cut a tunnel through the opposite direction which went under the mesa and back out the south side just after the sand, had to add some lighting to the tunnel obviously.

From then on the track got a bit zigzaggy as I went round the mesa and down onto the beach for a small water hazard then right up to the start line again via this giant staircase.

Well it was a pretty good effort but unfortunately The team of people that partially created Royal Raceway ended up taking first prize with me in second, and yes the team of people, I don’t know how I was supposed to compete a team of 5 people but anyway, was a job well done and I didn’t need that new mouse.

Shot of finished track

Nightmode! and may I point out that unlike the winning team my track was usable during the night.

The Lanslide Apple tree and Logo

The category for this months comp was “Apple” and not specifically the Macintosh Apple that we know, just Apple in general so after thinking for a while I thought, what am I good at? trees, so I decided to make an Apple tree. I was determined this time to make a proper tree not a boxy thing with other trees stacked onto it like I did before, I contracted the trunk like a usual square Minecraft trunk but then added some other logs around it so it wasn’t a square mass, I also added some slight kinks to the trunk so it looked a bit more realistic to the photos of apple trees I had searched for online (yes I actually used photos for reference)

For the branches I found the best way of doing this was just flying backwards and holding down the right mouse button to place block creating a sort of jagged line and I dipped a bit to create a slight curve when making the branch. I used dark oak wood for the trunk and branches for a difference and had to do a bit of adding and pruning of the logs to look correct, also used Dark oak leaves in keeping with the dark oak theme, they ended up looking pretty good even though I just “sprayed” them on really by moving around and holding down right mouse.

Once I thought I’d made enough branches it was then time for the apples which was a bit of a dilemma. I first tried just throwing actual apples all over the tree, but they were too small to see and ended up disappearing anyway, so then I tried using red stained clay but that didn’t look any good either. So after some advice from others I decided to use redstone blocks as they were the most red thing I could use, I also tried creating apples out of pixel art but they ended up being too big. So I just made these square things that I could pass off as apples. Once I’d finished the tree I looked at it and though it needed something more, plus I hadn’t put the Lanslide name in there at all so I had to come up with something else. The only other thing about apple I could come up with was the Apple logo, specifically the 1980’s Apple Logo, so I reproduced it as best I could in the game along with the correct colours, and put the Lanslide  title around it matching the colours. Logo took a damn while to get right I can tell you.

Once the judging began the only other entrant was this guy who had made a man holding an apple, which was pretty good and when Nuke announced the entrants he didn’t even mention my tree just the logo above lol. In the end I took out the first prize and won a mousepad, oh joyous day, hah!

The Respawn “Fantasy” Trophy(s)

Before I start here I must mention that this was my first time at Respawn lan and it was pretty cool, biggest lan I’ve ever been to with over 400 people. I was even setting next to some guys who were fans of Minecraft.

ZOMG so many people!

The theme was quite interesting, and hard Your Respawn Fantasy. Man I was stumped for awhile before I though well I’d really like to win the Minecraft comp and I’d really like a big trophy for it, so I decided to make my own Respawn Minecraft Comp trophy. My first attempt was pretty weak but I got the design all right, a raised box down the bottom a stem and then a golden man with a pick and torch up the top. I added a plaque containing the winners name and details too.

Admins made a railroad through the super flat world

 I soon realised that to win this thing I was gone need something better than this. So with taking the advice of someone else I made it bigger MUCH bigger. When I’d finished the new version it stood almost 2 and a half times as tall and much bigger with the golden man on top reminiscent of my earlier statue of myself. 

Tah-dah! I named the smaller one the 2nd place trophy

Goddamn did they take awhile to get to the results of the competition, I was waiting around well after 12:30 waiting. Ended up taking out 2^nd place and a new mouse for my efforts, the kids from another clan next to me ended up taking out first with their Respawn fantasy “garden” which looked pretty cool I guess I didn’t need a new set of headphones anyway, I also didn’t need a new mouse and gave it to my brother lol.

All in all was a good event and glad I went for the first time.

Ahh a beautiful flatworld sunset