Advanced, Play, Design - Week 10 (KJD)

Week 10 Finished Play

Theme

- This week's theme of  “Play and Nature”. I played the renowned game Minecraft with a specific world generation type and seed (seed is a bunch of numbers generated for a world generator that can be shared between users).

- The world generation type ‘Amplified’ with the seed number taken from this guide (Minecraft Best Amplified Seeds, 2020), created many high peak islands which gave the challenge to traverse in survival mode.

- On top of that, I created some simple constraints which were:

- I can’t sleep in the game.

- Play with no sound.

- Use wood-tier tools (except stone pickaxe).

- The end goal is to build a floating island.

Context

- As the end goal is to build a floating house. I have noticed that only in Minecraft, do I try to get creative when building a house as in the response video, I try to create checkered pattern houses by using different types of wood. I have seen many posts on social media where people have gone above and beyond and re-created landmarks or even whole maps in Minecraft. That too with exact colour reference.

- One study is shown here (Bashandy, H., 2020) on pages 370, 374 and 376. People have showcased design proposals by creating a neighbourhood in Minecraft. And that iterated to a floor plan that was used in construction in real life.

Method

- I created a new Minecraft world with an amplified seed world type. With that world generation, I got a lot of high peaks and floating islands which gave me a challenge when traversing the map.

- Those rules, I created for myself also multiplied the challenge factor. I had to have a short-end goal (build a floating house + farm) or else it would have been a super long video. 

Response

- Here is the response to the video. APD Week 10 - Minecraft

- Here is the explanation of the video. APD Week 10 Context Video

Reflection

- Upon editing the raw footage. I noted some key behaviours and audios that I picked up:

- I wasn’t wearing my headphones. So I heard a rare spawn which luckily didn’t attack me.

- I noticed my behaviour when moving around at night was different. I was always on high alert and kept my guard up. But in the video, it looked like I was panicking.

- When building houses in Minecraft, my creativity kicked in whenever I try to build a good house structure

- Looking back at the map with a bigger picture. The whole terrain was destroyed and that kind of linked to how most of us tend to treat this planet. We just trash it without realising what the bigger impact is until it's too late.

References

- Bashandy, H., 2020. Playing, Mapping, and Power: A Critical Analysis of Using" Minecraft" in Spatial Design. American Journal of Play, 12(3), pp.363-389.

- GamersDecide.com. 2020. Minecraft Best Amplified Seeds. [online] Available at: <https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/minecraft-best-amplified-seeds> [Accessed 15 October 2022].