Now, I know what you are all thinking, Minecraft? Really? You’re writing an article for a game that’s 16 years old this year that everyone has heard of and even if they haven’t played knows at least one person who has?
Well, yes, because for some reason that’s the game I’ve recently dropped the equivalent of 5 days into as well as starting a new SMP series (Survival MultiPlayer).
Now a little explanation for this.
A fellow streamer called JoronaJoe had never played Minecraft before so I offered, along with a mutual mod Veralooksatlife, to teach him and join him in a multiplayer world to show him the basics. Little did I know that this would be the start of a regular Monday stream (8pm GMT) where we play on a vanilla server (although my client is lightly modified) with the goal of keeping him alive enough to experience all the things and then fight the dragon.
No idea if he’ll stick around for the end game after that, but so far he’s hooked so we’ll see.
The first stream below is the initial start of the series where we find that Joe has stolen the village bell, and hidden it, so I get tasked to retrieve it as we don’t want to lose them just yet!
Controls
As we are playing Java the controls are keyboard and mouse, with heavy remapping available in the settings (pretty much everything can be changed).
There is also a 3rd party mod available that adds in controller support to make it play more like Bedrock if you wish.
Graphics
Still as basic as always, but if it wasn’t then it wouldn’t be Minecraft. There is one change I have done with the mods and that is more a disability feature of highlighting the ore, otherwise I struggle to see it.
Audio
The Creepers hiss as they sneak up behind you is still a scary thing to hear and the whoop whoop of the Endermen that makes you look around and then accidently look at them.
Personally I find the spiders the scariest, however I haven’t found the pale yet so haven’t discovered the creaking to see what they sound like.
I’ve also found out they’ve added new music disks into the game, however usually I play with my own music (see the VODs) as the games default music is just when the seasons change.
Accessibility Options
Being a Microsoft product I has quite a few accessibility features baked into the game, and with mods you can add even more.
Vanilla includes:
Narrator – Narrates all, just chat, or just system buttons.
Show Subtitles – This subtitles the sounds you can hear including direction arrows to show where it is coming from.
High contrast mode – I haven’t used this myself but it does turn off the animated background on the main menu and makes everything clearer.
Menu background blur – Allows you to adjust how much the background is blurred when in the menus via a slider.
Text background Opacity – this is for in-game chat, and subtitles, and can give it a full black box to being just floating on the screen.
View Bobbing – this allows you to turn off head bob which can cause some people motion sickness (this is turned off for me).
Sneak and Sprint either as toggles or as button presses.
Hide lightning flashes – this is good for people who are sensitive to this.
More details can be found here.
Final Comments
It’s Minecraft, if you’re like me you initially dismissed it as “some sort of Lego style game” or “it’s something for kids” should give it a go just the once, you never know you might like it.
If you have Gamepass it is included with it so doesn’t even cost you extra, and is available on pretty much everything now.
Personally I prefer Java over Bedrock but there are pro’s and con’s to both. Main pro for Bedrock is the ability to play on any system not just PC, however Java has more mods and the redstone seems to work better in it.
List of mods
As I know some of you would be interested here’s a list of the mods I currently use on my game.
Fabric – This enables the use of mods.
AppleSkin – adds a visualisation onto the hunger bar showing an exhaustion meter.
BetterF3 – Replaces the default F3 screen with one that can be customised.
Bobby – cache’s the world as you go through it allowing you to see further than usual.
Camera Utils – adds extra features to the camera, such as Free Cam allowing me to view things from other angles.
Continuity – This allows objects to flow into each other, like glass will now look like a single pane rather than individuals.
Entity Model Features & Entity Texture Features – This just adds new movements to the mobs, such as letting dogs lay down rather than just sitting.
Falling Leaves – does just that, adds extra falling leaves (just a visual thing, nothing actually drops)
Flashback – I added this one since the last stream, this allows me to record in-game directly but I haven’t tested it yet.
ImmediatelyFast -Improves the rendering engine of the game
Inventory Profiles Next – adds buttons that lets you move things quickly rather than individually.
LambDynamicLights – makes lights cast light, doesn’t affect the game’s actual light level just your own perception.
MiniHud – Adds an overlay to the screen, I use this to show the numbers you’ll see in the VODs for light level as well as the time (both real and in-game) and FPS.
Mod Menu – Just a menu that allows me direct access to the mod customisations as well as notifications of updates to them.
Mouse Tweaks – lets you drag items in crafting benches/containers to fill them.
Realms Button Remover – Removes the realms button on the main screen.
Sodium – enhanced rendering engine for Minecraft
Xaero’s Minimap and World Map – both can be seen in my VODs and add a small map to the corner of the screen or a full screen map. Helps me not get lost.
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