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What is it?
Minecraft Earth: Apple WWDC Gameplay Reveal
When you think about how big Minecraft could be with the current technology the answer you will find is "As big as the Earth". Well, that's exactly what the developer Mojang has done with the Minecraft.
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When you ask a question of how creative I can be in Minecraft Earth?.
The answer will be as creative as you can be.
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How?.
Because Mojang has just given the words like Freedom and creativity a whole new meaning. I was not this excited about Minecraft Earth when it was announced but after watching gameplays on the web and listening to reviewers on Youtube, I am certain that it will surpass all my expectations.
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Who's this for?.
Minecraft Earth's target player base is every one of age 7 years or older.
From Huffpost
What's new?.
Minecraft Earth brings you a whole new level of immersion in gaming. In Minecraft Earth, the player will be literally standing in their own builds. It was shown in the Apple WWDC this year.
Lydia Winters at Apple WWDC
You can see in the image above that Lydia is playing Minecraft Earth and we can also see the tool she is using currently right adjacent to her device. The screenshot also shows the inventory and the building of Lydia. The game also shows the avatar of the players in the game.
Lydia Winters at Apple WWDC
Motion Capture
The avatar of you also follows your moves through motion capture. In the video by Apple, we can see that Lydia shakes her hands in the air and her Avatar follows her does the same. The best thing I liked was how there is no latency (almost no) in avatar following the player's action and as a gamer, I know how excited it makes the gamers when they use this type of feature.
Life-Size models
The Minecraft Earth gives you the ability to transform your model size to lifelike and the results we see are awesome. The life-size models, in my opinion, give you more freedom in designing your own space as it gives you the freedom to look around as they were real and gives you the opportunity to look from all possible angles. This gives great flexibility to true artists of the game and keeps the entertainment plus engagement alive in the game.
Screenshot from Minecraft's Youtube page Video
No Flickering of Models
Another thing you can notice is how greatly models align with the real world. Compare to what I achieved in project 1 of ARVR class I would say it is a very significant upgrade.
In my understanding, things like these are hard to achieve as the modern world is constantly changing (like water, trees, and stuff) keeping the models in their place surely must be a great challenge Mojang must have faced, and I would say they have faced it pretty well. But we can not say anything for final as the game is not officially released now and all we have is videos by Mojang and the reviewers, both of which can be staged pretty well.
People Occlusion Feature
Here they have literally achieved something so epic it can not be described in words. This is every gamer's dream come true. Till now, we have only seen these things in movies only.
When the players are able to go to the world that they are able to create the design and modify there is not much left to desire to tell you the truth. Imagine creating your own world with the freedom level of Minecraft Earth (all those adventurous memories lol) and then being able to be in that world and literally interact with the objects that you have created. Gaming dose does not get better than this if you ask me. What praiseworthy is that all of it looks so seamless that you cannot tell the difference between real and augmented (according to reviewers). Though this feature is only available in IOS it blows one's mind on realizing what we can achieve with these little devices we call phones.
Full Interactibility
Lydia Winters and Saxxs Perrson at Apple WWDC
Even if you are on the life-size scale model in the Minecraft Earth you get full Interactbility with these game elements. Like in the images above when Saxxs Perrson gave seeds to the chickens they started to run towards him. So it is also clear that Minecraft Earth offers intractability with the game objects even in a life-size scale. Minecraft Earth also offers interacting with levers, bricks, tappable and in-game collectibles which gives the feeling of ultimate freedom in the game. It can also be the one of the best selling points of the game as I don't think many apps exist that give this amount of freedom related to anything.
Collaboration
Guess what?. You can also collaborate with your friends and create your models together with like-minded people. After the collaboration, you can take your crafts to the outside grounds and place it on the life-sized scale. The life sizing of the model really gives the whole new perspective to the collaboration as the scale on that size provides better observation of things. Another reason why they have included the collaboration must be because of the whole massive multiplayer games trending nowadays. Although I am sure that this collaboration feature of Minecraft Earth will stand unique in its own way.
Collaboration also makes working on models that are complex or big easier. Because if many people work on a model rather than a single crafter the process will be faster and unique.
Mods
From GameSkinny
Now, we can't just talk about Minecraft without mentioning all the awesome mods. Though this is not official (It never is), Imagine the freedom you will have now when you will mod your crafts in the real-world setting. Mods are what I call the ultimate freedom tools as they tend to be a final resort when you get bored from an awesome game. The mods on the life-size scale will be even more awesome. Just Imagine a real-sized Dianoasour or the monster truck as your craft and knowing the mods most probably you will be able to control the whole build that you have made. Mods also open the way for cheating so it will be advised if you only use it for fun rather than irritating the other players. Always remember that the other players are there for the same reason as you are, to have fun, and you should not be the reason for someone's bad mood.
Real World Collectibles
From MumboJumbo
Minecraft Earth offers collectibles in real-world locations so you actually have to go outside to enjoy the game and collect the important stuff for your in-game crafts. This also promotes interactivity in a healthy manner, though it seems like it is inspired by the Pokemon Go's feature. In the above picture, you can see the game can differentiate between the distance of objects (both real and virtual) and places them accordingly so you can see the overlapping objects as realistically as real life. Notice how the game hides the part of object that is behind the human standing.
Final Thoughts
Safety Video from Minecraft's youtube channel
I literally can not find anything bad to say about Minecraft Earth. It seems to offer all it promised and more. Collaboration makes it even more awesome than it already is. The placement of augmented models is accurate and stable, far more stable than the augmented models we have placed in unity3D as of now. The scaling makes sense and provides the excitement that you can place your model in the wild anytime you want. The collectibles required to build the model are to be collected from outside which is a great addition to the features but it also raises some safety concerns as people tend to get distracted and hurt themselves with these kinds of apps. Even the developers have made a separate video regarding the safety of the players. The video says that players may get hurt or hurt others by unintentionally walking on a busy road and cause an accident with a vehicle. It also raises concerns about unintentional trespassing. Unintentional trespassing could happen when a player can unknowingly walk into someone else's property and cause them panic or harm. The video also states that the player could fall into a water body and hurt himself and the device he is playing the game on. The player can also hurt himself by unknowingly falling from a great height. These kinds of falls are very common in hilly areas so gamers from the hilly areas should give it a strong thought when playing the Minecraft Earth.
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I'm not trying to convey here that playing Minecraft Earth is dangerous. Instead what I am trying to say is that playing this game "could be" dangerous if the player is not careful. Minecraft Earth as a game has a lot to offer to the player and players can spend months to play this masterpiece without getting bored. It all comes down to how the player plays the game and the area he/she lives in. If you live in an area that is very populated or near the road that is very busy or the water body that is very deep and can be harmful without adult supervision than the player must be careful.
From MumboJumbo
From MumboJumbo
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