Dec 29, 2010

Twin Peaks is a lie

Remember Twin Peaks, from a few posts back?


It's a lie. Here's a side view.


To my grief, Twin Peaks has indeed proved placentine, but no matter: I can work with that. I'm currently transforming Twin Peak into Twin Tower:


I've fortified the hilltop with the tree into the top level of my tower, and started working down from there.



**

Epic Island, stretching in three directions around Twin Tower, really is epic.



What makes it even more interesting is that the area around Twin Tower is honeycombed with caves.


And more caves.


I'm not normally so much into spelunking, but when you see something like this, how can you not be intrigued?


**

Twin Tower is set up nicely for now. I have big plans for the site, so I'll be back later. Now, though, it's time to swing back to base.

Every time I visit my tower, I remember why it is that I build these things. Just seeing that makes me happy.



After a quick pit stop, it's time for more work. Here's one of the dugouts for my Blood Bowl pitch:



And with that done, I'm off back to Twin Tower. Here's a view from the top level:



The secret to a good Minecraft base is simple. When I build, I prefer to use stone: it's not flammable, and it melds perfectly into natural stone. However, when you mine stone, you get cobblestone, which is a lot less tidy. Here's stone and cobblestone side by side; the stone is the smoother texture.



As you can see, I used cobblestone for the floor of the dugout, but stone for my towers. To make stone, you process cobblestone in a furnace; basically stone is cobblestone + fuel. The easiest fuel available is lumber, specifically planks, which you get from chopping down trees. So ideally, the perfect Minecraft base has a supply of lumber and cobblestone.

This is why the easiest way to build is to dig down. On the ground, you have trees you can harvest for lumber during the day, and at night, you dig down to collect cobblestone. Twin Tower is especially easy to build, because instead of having to mine for cobblestone and then build up, I'm hollowing out the peak into a tower. Here's what I get up to at night:



And with my furnace happily blazing away upstairs, converting cobblestone into stone, I'm set to begin expanding my tower. As Twin Peak has incredibly sheer cliffs to the north and west, but lower slopes to the east and south, I plan to start expanding east and south. First I'll build two auxiliary towers next to Twin Tower, so the next morning, I start building the first one.

My plan is to eventually dig out a deep trench that separates Twin Tower from the rest of the hill, so having delineated that, I start building what will become the parapet of the east tower. The sheer cliff is just to my right, so I'll have to watch my step. I place a block of stone, step to the right, place stone, step right, place stone, step right, OH SHIT

fwee

BOOM

Respawning.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My roommate and I tried out the free version, fully intent on buying the real thing sooner or later. But it turns out that the game causes both of us headache and nausea because of the first-person, 3D view. So sad. :( At least we can still marvel at your screenshots. The epic island looks incredibly epic. And caves are love.

Michael Halila said...

But it turns out that the game causes both of us headache and nausea because of the first-person, 3D view.

That's a real shame. =(

Anonymous said...

Yep. And still we had to play around as long as we could, because wheee it's a fun game. XD