The UT System and Kate the Chemist are using video games to spark interest in STEM with their new Careers in Chemistry project.

Careers in Chemistry was created with help from DISCO Learning Media, a UT alumni-created education innovation company, for the website Minecraft: Education Edition, a version of the popular video game Minecraft. In Minecraft Edu, players use the open-world crafting mechanics to explore topics ranging from coding to art and design. The module will be available for download in the middle of February through the Minecraft Edu website.

The UT System brought on Kate Biberdorf, also known as Kate the Chemist, to help write the project. Biberdorf’s innovative chemistry demonstrations launched her into national popularity with appearances on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Wendy Williams Show.

“When you step into a digital platform, you really can tap into the make-believe, but in reality you’re showing them how these (chemical) pieces can come together,” chemistry professor Biberdorf said. “They think they’re doing magic but really it’s science, and it’s just a great way to promote the level of STEM.”

Through Careers in Chemistry, players will explore four unconventional chemistry-based career paths: chef, science journalist, chemistry teacher and art conservationist. The game will guide them through activities based on these jobs in which the player will combine chemicals to achieve in-game goals.

“Chemistry is one of the most popular subjects in the Minecraft Education environment right now … but what was overall lacking was this idea of how you actually get a career in chemistry,” DISCO President Juan Garcia said. “Minecraft educators are trying to target high school age ranges with their content, so we thought this was a perfect opportunity.”

The classic version of Minecraft has over 91 million monthly players, a large chunk of which are under the age of 21. This age group has seen a 12 percent decline of interest in STEM careers between 2017 and 2018, according to Junior Achievement, a nonprofit dedicated to youth education.

Nichole Prescott, assistant vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, said this game is part of the UT System’s overall goal to reinvigorate interest in STEM and prepare K-12 students for college.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ 2015 assessments, only 25 percent of high school seniors are proficient in math and only 22 percent are proficient in science. 

“When we look at the educational attainment in the state of Texas, there are some major gaps and there are a lot of gaps in STEM fields,” Prescott said. “Even within the STEM fields, there’s not a lot of diversity of students going into STEM, so we really want to increase access of students of all types to get interested in going into a STEM field.”

Biberdorf said she joined the project to inspire young people, especially girls, to join STEM fields.

“There’s something about that middle school age where … all of a sudden, girls believe that they can’t do science or can’t do math,” Biberdorf said. “What I’m hoping to do is open the doors for more girls, and boys in general, and show them what you could do with this knowledge.”

When Cory Burdette awoke recently to learn that Winter Storm Gia had caused a two-hour school delay in Reston, Va., he seized the chance to do a little family bonding. Plopping down in front of the TV, Burdette and his 5-year-old daughter spent the morning together playing “Minecraft,” the Lego-like adventure game where players construct buildings out of virtual blocks.

“We play all our games together on the Xbox,” he said. “In ‘Minecraft,’ we both get to build a house together, find monsters and explore.”

The first time he fired up the game, Burdette had to wait for “Minecraft” to download and install on his Xbox before launching it. But by the time his daughter is old enough to play more adult games, that wait could be a thing of the past.

Major companies from Microsoft to Verizon are exploring how to replace game downloads with Internet-based game services hoping to do for video gaming what Netflix and Spotify have done with TV and music. Instead of being run directly from a device, high-quality games of the future could be streamed from a data center, with most of the computations and image rendering being performed by powerful servers many miles away before being piped online to players’ phones, PCs and consoles.

Unlike passive forms of media such as movies and music, playing games over the Internet calls for highly responsive technology that can interpret a player’s actions from afar, process them within milliseconds and relay the results back to the player and her opponents instantaneously.

The challenge has stymied gamers and game companies for years. But with advances in computing power, the adoption of high-speed broadband and fresh investments by tech behemoths, what was once a lofty technological and cultural goal for the game industry now seems closer at hand than at any point in the past decade.

“Game streaming services will be the ultimate driver of a rapid transition from the sale of games in boxes to digital consumption,” Yosuke Matsuda, president of the game company Square Enix, declared in a New Year’s letter to the public. “Streaming also lends itself to new subscription-based business models, so we believe deciding how to engage with these forthcoming trends will be key to future growth.”

As more Americans turn to mobile and online entertainment, executives across the media landscape have recognized that they are competing for the same, quickly diminishing resource: consumer attention. Even Netflix this month acknowledged that it views the hit game “Fortnite” as an even bigger competitor in some respects than HBO.

In the war for consumer attention, cloud-based gaming represents tens of billions in additional profit for game publishers alone, analysts say. Beyond the simple convenience of playing games off a central server, what makes the idea so attractive is the capability to turn even the weakest laptop into a fully functional gaming rig.

That could make it far easier for people to play video games on whatever device they have, wherever they may be, according to Brian Nowak, an industry analyst at Morgan Stanley. “As a base case, this new technology has the opportunity to expand the addressable player base by lowering barriers to entry around AAA games,” Nowak wrote in a research note this month.

Recent high-profile experiments with cloud-based gaming include Google’s Project Stream, which wrapped up a beta trial this month that allowed testers to play “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey” online for free; Microsoft’s Project xCloud, which promises to enable game streaming over mobile data connections; and Verizon Gaming, leaks of which emerged earlier this month. On Monday, reports suggested that Apple may be planning a cloud-based games service of its own, and e-commerce giant Amazon is also said to be doing the same. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

The jolt of interest in cloud-based gaming reflects how quickly the landscape for video games has shifted in recent years.

The popularity of mobile gaming has some publishers such as Epic Games, the maker of “Fortnite,” moving to build its own app marketplace for games — circumventing the traditional app store middlemen such as Google. But in Project Stream, Google may be hinting at one possible strategy for outmaneuvering Epic in return: by eliminating app downloads altogether.

The last major attempt to build a cloud-based games service was known as OnLive, which launched in 2010 with five data centers scattered across the country. The service showed promise, but many gamers discovered that their own experiences differed drastically from those of professional reviewers. In particular, players said, OnLive was marred by input lag, or a significant delay between user actions and results on the screen.

“The latency between you controlling the game and it reacting was really bad on OnLive,” said Ethan Hawkes, a lifelong gamer who lives in Irvine, Calif. But times are different now, said Hawkes, who tested Google’s Project Stream. “The tech has finally caught up.”

Other gamers said that while the technology has come a long way, it still isn’t seamless.

Another Project Stream tester, Chris Cantrell, said Google did a good job showcasing how its servers could faithfully reproduce the high-fidelity graphics of a single-player game like “Assassin’s Creed.” But that game notably does not come with fast-twitch, competitive multiplayer, a staple of modern gaming culture and a data-intensive hurdle that tech companies must still address as many households are already streaming multiple services at once.

“[’Assassin’s Creed’ is] a slower game, and so you don’t have to be as precise. But you can’t play ‘Call of Duty’ on this connection,” said Cantrell.

Meanwhile, the growing consolidation of media and technology firms raises other questions for the future of streaming games. For example, Verizon’s fledgling gaming service would likely compete against similar platforms run by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Some gamers, such as Burdette, fear that could lead to Verizon giving preferential treatment to its gaming service on its own broadband network at the expense of its competitors.

“They will definitely prioritize their own services if they find it lucrative enough,” said Burdette. “Throttling will absolutely be an issue.”

Verizon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on how the company might treat its cloud gaming service on its network.

Burdette expects that with enough Internet bandwidth, it will be only a matter of time before game streaming truly takes off. Gamers are hungry for a way to play premium titles without having to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on specialized equipment like a console or gaming PC, he said.

Until that time comes, he’ll continue playing locally stored games with his daughter — “a die-hard ‘Minecraft’ fan.”

Hytale developer Hypixel Studios talked to DualShockers about the game, giving us their thoughts on comparisons between it and Minecraft.

In a recent interview with DualShockers, Hytale Publishing Lead Chris Thursten talked about the workings, thoughts, and actions behind the creation and development of Hypixel Studios’ upcoming game. We asked Chris how the team felt about the game’s constant comparisons to Minecraft since its announcement and how far they were planning to stray from those origins.

“It makes sense that people will make the comparison, but blockgames are a genre and we believe there’s plenty of space for something new,” says Chris Thursten. The team originally found its footing through the creation of Minecraft server network Hypixel, which grew to become the largest server on the hit game and amass tens of millions of players.

Of course, with those origins it’s hard not to compare Hypixel Studios’ upcoming title to Minecraft and the team understands that. However, Thursten tells us the developers are hoping for these comparisons to die down as Hytale becomes its own product and recognizable brand.

“Hytale is its own game, and over time we expect that the comparison will be made less and less. We’ve got a huge amount of respect for Minecraft, Mojang and Microsoft – there’s definitely space for both to coexist!”

It’s important to note that Hypixel Studios are indeed planning on keeping Hytalesupported in the long run. This is similar to Minecraft, which has developed and pumped out regular updates for just under a decade though support recently ended on legacy platforms. It’ll be great to see just how fleshed out this game can become, even more than the incredible base features we’ve seen in the announcement trailer. 

The game will be launching with an extremely huge amount of content and tools for players to immediately stick their toes in and get to creating alongside playing. The team’s current goal seems to be pumping out an incredibly large amount of baseline content and then allowing players to thrive in their custom tools that will be releasing alongside the game.

The team will be “providing lots of support for the game after release,” Chris Thursten told DualShockers. “[Hypixel Studios will] discuss more details about this further down the road!”

According to the official description of the game, Hytale “combines the scope of a sandbox with the depth of a roleplaying game, immersing players in a procedurally generated world where teetering towers and deep dungeons promise rich rewards throughout their adventures. Hytale supports everything from block-by-block construction to scripting and minigame creation, delivered using easy to use and powerful tools.”

Our full interview for the game will be coming to DualShockers in the coming days, so make sure to stay tuned.

Sandbox games are an interesting category because they allow players to test their own imagination. These games usually have few to no limits and they are great for players of all ages. There are many sandbox games out there, but today we are going to discuss two of the most well-known ones: Roblox versus Minecraft. Let’s compare these two.

Price

The cost is an important factor for many players. If that is the case for you, there’s a big chance that you will appreciate that, up to some point, Roblox is available for free. On the other hand, if you want to play Minecraft you will need to spend $26.95 to purchase it. In Roblox you will be able to play a couple of levels for free.

Are they kid-friendly?

Sandbox games are usually great for children, and these two are no exception. However, you should keep an eye on them. For example, your child might look up content related to the game. Minecraft and Roblox have huge fanbases so you need to make sure that your kids access safe content outside of the game.

You should also know that Roblox also has ads. Violence exists in both ways, although there is nothing graphic or scary.

Game Modes

You can decide how you want to play these games. Roblox comes with two game modes: creating and playing. If you want to develop your creativity, the creating mode is usually recommended. The playing allows you to play games designed by other users.

Meanwhile, Minecraft comes with three different difficulty levels. There are is also a lot of content online that can improve your game. From mod packs that can be used to add new things to your game, to online tutorials that can show you how to play.

Modders are magical. In only a short amount of time after Resident Evil 2 was released, they have been able to create some really interesting and strange mods for the remake.

Not all of these mods are necessarily helpful or needed, but not all mods need to fix a game. Sometimes I just want a mod to really mess up my character’s face.
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Weird Faces

This mod was featured recently in an episode of Highlight Reel, Kotaku’s weekly series about funny and impressive clips from video games. Still, I wanted to include it because it just looks so amazing and bizarre.

The creator of this mod, DPO23, has released a new video showcasing his strange creation and I can’t stop watching their mouths…..they scare me. This mod reminds me of some the Source animated machinma folks have made in the past. Except now the faces look more real and that makes this all funnier and more disturbing.

Old Camera Angles

The Resident Evil 2 remake takes a lot of inspiration from Resident Evil 4,including having an over the shoulder camera angle. But modder Enveloping Sounds has created a mod that takes RE2 back to the 90s.

This fixed camera mod even adds in camera shake when shooting. It’s impressive and seems to be working with both Claire and Leon. The mod hasn’t officially released yet, but hopefully it comes out soon. I’d be curious to play RE2 remake with this more classic camera angle. I feel like Mr. X would be even more terrifying.

Playing As Different Characters

Resident Evil 2 will receive a future update which will add new characters and stories to the game. For those who don’t want to wait, modders are allowing players to jump into the shoes as various Resident Evil 2 characters.

Want to play as Ada Wong throughout the entire game? You can do that just that!

Other mods let players jump into the shoes of Sherry, the little girl featured in RE2. Although now with this mod she can use a mini gun.

There is even a mod that lets fans play as the big armed soldier himself, Chris Redfield. This mod is possible because players found his model in the files of RE2. Now with this mod you run around Raccoon City as Chris Redfield. Chris is most likely a leftover of RE7 and RE2 using the same engine. Still nice to see the big in Resident Evil 2 remake.

Resident Evil 2 has only been out for a few weeks and players are already creating mods that change the game in some wild or cool ways. I can’t wait to see what these creative modders can cook up after a few more months.

Minecraft was released in 2009 and since then has been updated constantly. Updates have added new worlds, new creatures, modding tools and more. But finally, after 10 years of waiting, Minecraft finally has composting.

Sure, the last major update for Minecraft added cool underwater sea life, but can a dolphin turn useless plants into fertilizer? No. Instead you’ll need the new composter block. This new block, which was added in the latest PC snapshot update, allows players to turn old plants and veggies into useful bone meal, which in Minecraft can make plants & trees grow faster and bigger.Outstream Video

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The new composter can be built using a few pieces of wood and fencing. Once built players simply throw in some unwanted seeds, plants or food into the wooden box. Once enough organic materials has been added players are able to harvest some bone meal. How plants and seeds become bone meal is just another strange Minecraft mystery. Best not to think about it.

Fans had already created mods adding their own custom composter blocks into the game, like this mod added last year. But now composting is part of the vanilla Minecraft experience.

While the new composting block is useful for turning excess crops into bone meal, players are also using the new block for decorations purposes. Some Minecraft fans think they look like bee hives and are using the compost blocks as fake bee hives.

Currently, if you want to do some composting yourself, you’ll need to play the Java version of Minecraft and activate snapshots in the Minecraft launcher. Though like most snapshot features, these compost blocks will be added to other versions of the game eventually.

This article is part of the upcoming guide Game-Based Learning: Preparing Students for Their Future.

I find it baffling that in 2019 I still have to explain why it’s important to play with students, especially when Fortune 500 companies are gamifying their workplace and their customer outreach, profitable gamer-culture on YouTube is on the rise and colleges have eSports teams.

It’s even more baffling when you acknowledge that throughout history, renowned philosophers and educators—including Plato, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Froebel, Piaget, and Papert—have lauded the power of play in teaching, especially for young learners. Modern research has continued to demonstrate that playful learning improves educational outcomes, even more so when it’s digital and multi-modal. I’ve certainly found that to be true in my years teaching non-traditional learners.

Modern research has continued to demonstrate that playful learning improves educational outcomes.

Despite popular myth, games actually discourage negative behaviors, benefit mental health and improve social skills. Of course, not all games are created equal. Certain elements are consistently present in quality gamesand quality learning tools. The best games are just fun, and the learning is almost invisible. I’ve always felt that the most powerful justification of learning through play is intrinsic motivation.

This is important because school tends to focus on extrinsic rewards like grades, stickers or candy, which are ineffective and possibly harmful to a student’s long-term educational needs. Games can help internalize motivation, building student perseverance and grit. Think about a child still trying to get Mario to make that jump after falling fifteen times. That same student may give up in class after one half-hearted try.

For these reasons and others, I have long sought to use games, both analog and digital, to instruct my classes filled with students who are non-traditional learners, many of them with autism. Not only do games bring learning to my students in ways that are unobtainable in direct instruction, but they also promote social connections through play and reinforce the development of 21st century skills. Perhaps better called essential modern skills at this point, these are particularly embedded in digital games. Since my early teaching days, I have sought to instruct in an open environment, allowing choice and personalization for hands-on and playful learning. With this same intention, I introduced Minecraft into my classroom.

Not only do games bring learning to my students in ways that are unobtainable in direct instruction, but they also promote social connections through play and reinforce the development of 21st century skills.

Minecraft Education

I learned about Minecraft when I overheard students expressing excitement about playing it outside of school. I decided to check it out for myself. I didn’t really understand it at first, but it seemed like a good way to begin teaching some of the design principles I modeled in my classes. So it began as STEM design challenges for my older, more adept students. Soon though, I realized it could be used for much more. I had skilled students recreate historic moments and allowed other students to explore and learn from those creations.

It’s important to recognize that, even as the gaming universe continues to expand, Minecraft stands as a unique experience in digital games. I can think of no other game that exemplifies creativity and autonomy in play in quite the same way. I have heard it compared to digital LEGOs (another worthwhile classroom tool) which is apt, as they both provide an open space for students to easily create directly from their imagination the world as they envision it. And while I love LEGOs, Minecraft is definitely easier to build in scale and clean up, not to mention less likely to hurt your foot in a misstep. Minecraft gives children a way to use their creative faculties in an environment unbound by rules.

I hit upon real success when I began to apply it to social-emotional learning. I would come to realize that the community is one of the most powerful, as well as one of the most precarious, parts of the game. The collaborative environment that could be so beneficial for learning could also be littered with many of the other negative issues we find elsewhere online. So, I paid for a small private server for my students to explore and work together safely.

Minecraft, Autism and 21st Century Learning

I was unaware of this early on, but eventually discovered that I wasn’t the only one who found Minecraft useful as an assistive technology for people with autism. Research shows how players “modded” their environment to “support self-regulation and community engagement.” And problems inherent in an open online setting, like bullying, oversharing and miscommunication, were resolved when I learned that an education editionhad been developed for Minecraft and that, even within the consumer version, a private community had been created specifically for people with autism called Autcraft.

I’ve found Minecraft to be an exemplar of those 21st century learning traits mentioned previously. The game personifies creativity and collaboration. If designs are complex, they require planning and critical thinking to solve such challenges as determining what material will meet our aesthetic or how we can adapt to the natural environment around us. When the teacher requires other design challenges—accounting for material cost or using sustainable materials—students must access higher order thinking skills.

One of the major benefits of the game, specifically for children with autism, comes with communication. Chat features are enabled with speech-to-text functionality, which lets struggling readers and writers plan and participate with the community at their own pace without the pressure of a face-to-face conversation. In fact, the game dynamic of signs that relay information is similar to the way we use vocabulary on real-world objects to teach language in early-childhood and language-challenged classrooms. This encourages social interaction in a comfortable manner within the game’s well-defined rules. Players are not just conversing for the sake of it but in an effort to successfully complete their in-game projects. That is huge for these students. And I have personally seen improvement in written language and increased verbalization in students with limited verbal skills through Minecraft game-play.

Practical Advice

One of the major benefits of the game, specifically for children with autism, comes with communication. Chat features are enabled with speech-to-text functionality, which lets struggling readers and writers plan and participate with the community at their own pace without the pressure of a face-to-face conversation.

I have now become skilled enough to create Minecraft worlds that engage my students in the type of learning I want to see, but I still make sure to allow enough freedom for them to have a choice in their learning. One of my projects has students with autism, who struggle with personal identity, creating a Minecraft journey that begins with self-portraits and personal narratives of their lives and families. Originally I had students do video walkthroughs to document and explain their work, but now I use speech-to-text apps to copy their ideas into writing for the built-in portfolio. There are several other game adaptations I have used from simple color-coding to using adaptive switches that have improved the game’s accessibility.

One of the most useful ways I’ve incorporated Minecraft is in recreating local environments like the school, home or a grocery store. Students with mobility or behavioral issues can now traverse those environments safely in the virtual world before attempting it in the physical world. It has really helped students feel connected to the world in ways that weren’t always possible. I loved the fact that my students were no longer confined to wheelchairs or leg braces; they could walk, create and even fly. It’s a world where they are free from ridicule, free from their real-world struggles and free to create a world that they desire. That freedom is why Minecraft continues to be a crucial tool for me and my students.

Microsoft, which owns Mojang, the company that makes Minecraft, recently released two parts of Minecraft’s code in library form. So what does Minecraft have to do with the Java community? For starters, Java-based Minecraft has spawned a new generation of Java developers. We talked to Mark Little, VP of Engineering and JBoss Middleware CTO at Red Hat about how this helps to shine a positive light on the Java language.

JAXenter: Minecraft is not necessarily the first thing one would think of when talking about Java but, as it turns out, this popular game has what it takes to breathe new life into Java. Can Java-based Minecraft spawn a new generation of Java developers?

Mark Little: Yes, absolutely. In fact, if you look at some of the articles that came out in 2014 when Microsoft announced they were acquiring Minecraft for $2.5 billion, you’ll find several which mention the developer community as one of the key reasons behind it. I’m not sure about the demographics of the Minecraft community but certainly back in 2015 when Arun Gupta, his son, myself and my son attended Minecon and gave classes throughout the day on how to mod Minecraft many of the attendees were towards the younger end of the age spectrum.

With its colorful and boxy voxel-based aesthetic, 8-Bit Hordes could be the introduction to the real-time strategy (RTS) genre that hooks otherwise uninterested Minecraft fans. It also made the jump to console, so for those among us who game exclusively on PS4, this could likely be an introduction to the RTS genre, one typically seen more in the PC environment.

As I jumped into one of two campaigns, I quickly realized that this was my introduction to the RTS as a genre. I’ve had consoles for my entire life, but never owned a PC powerful enough to run new AAA games. I’m a big turn-based tactics fan, so the act of devising a plan of attack and moving troops into position is familiar for me. But, learning to juggle mining and building and attacking was new.

It isn’t the series’ introduction to console, though. Developer Petroglyph previously released the first 8-Bit game, 8-Bit Armies, and has the series’ third entry, 8-Bit Invaders, coming to PS4 at the end of the month. So, for those who are just getting acquainted, there’s plenty more where this one came from.

Meet 8-Bit Hordes

But, does 8-Bit Hordes work as an introduction? For Minecraft fans, maybe? There are minecarts, which you, as the God-like commander of either the Lightbringers or the Deathsworn, will send to gather resources from all over the war torn maps. Once the materials have returned to your fortress, you’ll use them to create new units and new structures.

If you’ve learned resource management from Mojang, this simplified take may not do much for you. The mysterious material you extract from the ground can be used to build farms, barracks, dwarves, and dragons. This is a departure from Minecraft and, as I understand it, most real-time strategy games: you won’t need different materials to build different things and you won’t be combining distinct compounds to craft something new; like some kind of minable atom, the easilyobtainium that runs in crisscrossing veins beneath the 8-bit earth is the building block comprising everything.

That’s not really a negative. As 8-Bit Hordes may be the first RTS that console-only players get their hands on, the simplified approach works. And, laudably, Petroglyph pretty successfully mapped RTS controls to the Dualshock 4. Pressing R3 brings up a map with six sections you can transport among, making it easy to switch between troops on opposite sides of the map. L1 and R1 bring up structure and unit wheels respectively, and the triggers allow you to fix or scrap your buildings. It all maps pretty neatly and I never felt hamstrung by my lack of a mouse and keyboard.

On Your Own

I did, at times, feel hamstrung by the game’s tutorialization. Some of that had to do with presentation; 8-Bit Hordes joins the long list of console games with font so small you would need opera binoculars to read it. When in doubt about a unit’s strengths and weaknesses or the nuances of the tech tree, I was frequently standing up to walk closer to the TV, like Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass except the only crime to be solved was the one committed against my eyesight.

But, more substantially, the game quickly drops players into the deep end. After a series of painfully slow tutorial missions, 8-Bit Hordes’ campaign instantly ramps up the difficulty with a series of missions that will have the newly initiated banging their heads against the blocky walls.

Actually, none of them are all that difficult. Each just has one trick that it requires to learn. If you miss this tell, which sometimes are hinted at in the tiny blocks of text that serve as mission briefing and sometimes aren’t communicated at all, you’ll find yourself outnumbered and outmatched.

Maybe Petroglyph is assuming that more experienced players will know what to do. That’s fine, but it doesn’t match up with the heavy-handed tutorialization or the game’s marketing as a beginner-friendly introduction.

The Tightrope

That said, when those missions click, they really click. Given that each has a tell that you’ll need to discover, they can feel like puzzle boxes demanding a solution. When you find that solution and begin to steamroll the enemy hordes, it can be deeply satisfying.

But, it can also quickly become boring. Once you figure out the trick, you’re often just throwing units at your opponents with little regard for strategy. Most missions ended with me walking up to my opponent and attacking their fortress until it fell apart. I didn’t need to flank them or sneak or use any sort of cunning. I just needed to figure out one thing. That’s all the game demands.

Playing 8-Bit Hordes then is a bit like walking a tightrope with boredom on one side and frustration on the other. There are occasional moments when the game offers an exciting balance. But most of the time it fails to watch its step.

8-Bit Hordes review code provided by publisher. Version 1.0 reviewed on a Standard PS4. For more information on scoring please see our Review Policy.

Minecraft’s “19w04a” Java snapshot update, which rolled out on Thursday, enabled wall running… but not intentionally.

While the Java snapshot update added a handful of things like stone cutting and fixing unlit campfires so they no longer burn you, nowhere does it mention wallrunning, leaving players to surmise that it must have been an unintended side effect of the recent changes. Click here to take a look yourself (thanks, Kotaku).

“Just for context, this isn’t a trick or a prank or anything,” reported Minecrafter NatalieZem, who shared a brief video of wallrunning on Reddit. “In the recent snapshot, you can’t jump while pressing against a block. And apparently not being able to raise your elevation also means you can’t lower it either. Try it for yourself: All you need to do is stay sprinting into the wall and you can move along it. Here’s another video showing how easy this is to replicate.”

The bug’s seemingly been resolved now thanks to the arrival of snapshot 19w04b, much to many players’ disappointment. “This would be a cool feature though,” Redditer JamesBeYeezy opined, while owlindenial had hoped “it’s not reported. Ever.” “Would be pretty cool if implemented properly,” daydreamed Everscream.

The people have spoken, Mojang…

A keen gamer has revealed how he dedicated 100 hours towards painstakingly recreating Pimlico Tube station in the popular video game Minecraft.

Video footage shows how staggeringly lifelike the station looks without the gamer ever having visited Pimlico station.

The man, named only as David and who goes by the screen name Creator Labs, recreated the station by using reference images on the internet.

The project was started in Minecraft in December last year and was finished earlier this month. The game lets players build entire worlds out of nothing but blocks.

The man, from Germany, said he visited London in the holidays and was inspired to recreate some famous tourist spots. 

He told the Standard: “I am actually from Germany and visited London in the holidays.

“The whole city fascinated me, so that I wanted to re-create some of the places that I saw in London.

“For example I also created the Tower Bridge in Minecraft, but in a more simple way than my newest project.”

He added: “I was looking for a small station with a ceiling, which would challenge Minecraft as a game.

“Because normally it is not possible to create round objects in the game. But if you know a few tricks you can also do something like this.

“So the Victoria Line was chosen, since the stations are fairly small and allow Minecraft to still run properly as with this kind of realism, the game goes to its limits and may also stop working.”

David began to play Minecraft in 2012 and says he “gathered a lot of knowledge in these past six years”.

He said overall he was “happy with the result” as many people said that “they could not figure out how it was made with Minecraft”.

He said he decided he wanted a “new challenge” and came up with the idea of recreating a London Underground station.

“I started with the creation of Pimlico station, which is as realistic as it can get in Minecraft,” he added.

“To sum it up, Pimlico station is actually the first scene that I created that is realistic.”

Now that the project is finished, David says he is thinking “of creating scenes from museums or other popular tourist attractions from London” when he has more time.

“The only problem is, that the scene cannot be too big, since Minecraft must still handle it,” he said.

When Cory Burdette awoke recently to learn that Winter Storm Gia had caused a two-hour school delay in Reston, Va., he seized the chance to do a little family bonding.

Plopping down in front of the TV, Burdette and his 5-year-old daughter spent the morning together playing “Minecraft,” the Lego-like adventure game in which players construct buildings out of virtual blocks.

“We play all our games together on the Xbox,” he said. “In ‘Minecraft,’ we both get to build a house together, find monsters and explore.”

The first time he fired up the game, Burdette had to wait for “Minecraft” to download and install on his Xbox before launching it. But by the time his daughter is old enough to play more adult games, that wait could be a thing of the past.

Major companies such as Microsoft and Verizon are exploring how to replace game downloads with Internet-based game services, hoping to do for video gaming what Netflix and Spotify have done with TV and music. Instead of being run directly from a device, high-quality games of the future could be streamed from a data center, with most of the computations and image rendering being performed by powerful servers many miles away before being piped online to players’ phones, PCs and consoles.

Unlike passive forms of media such as movies and music, playing games over the Internet calls for highly responsive technology that can interpret a player’s actions from afar, process them within milliseconds and relay the results back to players and their opponents instantaneously.

The challenge has stymied gamers and game companies for years. But with advances in computing power, the adoption of high-speed broadband and fresh investments by tech behemoths, what was once a lofty technological and cultural goal for the game industry now seems closer at hand than at any point in the past decade.

“Game streaming services will be the ultimate driver of a rapid transition from the sale of games in boxes to digital consumption,” Yosuke Matsuda, president of the game company Square Enix, declared in a New Year’s letter to the public. “Streaming also lends itself to new subscription-based business models, so we believe deciding how to engage with these forthcoming trends will be key to future growth.”

As more Americans turn to mobile and online entertainment, executives across the media landscape have recognized that they are competing for the same, quickly diminishing resource: consumer attention. Even Netflix last month acknowledged that it views the hit game “Fortnite” as an even bigger competitor in some respects than HBO.

In the war for consumer attention, cloud-based gaming represents tens of billions of dollars in additional profit for game publishers alone, analysts say. Beyond the simple convenience of playing games off a central server, what makes the idea so attractive is the capability to turn even the weakest laptop into a fully functional gaming rig.

That could make it far easier for people to play video games on whatever device they have, wherever they may be, according to Brian Nowak, an industry analyst at Morgan Stanley. “As a base case, this new technology has the opportunity to expand the addressable player base by lowering barriers to entry around AAA games,” Nowak wrote in a research note last month.

Recent high-profile experiments with cloud-based gaming include Google’s Project Stream, which wrapped up a beta trial last month that allowed testers to play “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey” online for free; Microsoft’s Project xCloud, which promises to enable game streaming over mobile data connections; and Verizon Gaming, leaks of which emerged earlier last month.

Recent reports suggested that Apple may be planning a cloud-based games service, and e-commerce giant Amazon is also said to be doing the same. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)

The jolt of interest in cloud-based gaming reflects how quickly the landscape for video games has shifted in recent years. The popularity of mobile gaming has some publishers such as Epic Games, the maker of “Fortnite,” moving to build its own app marketplace for games, circumventing the traditional app store middlemen such as Google. But in Project Stream, Google may be hinting at one possible strategy for outmaneuvering Epic in return: by eliminating app downloads altogether.

The last major attempt to build a cloud-based games service was known as OnLive, which launched in 2010 with five data centers scattered across the country. The service showed promise, but many gamers discovered that their own experiences differed drastically from those of professional reviewers. In particular, players said, OnLive was marred by input lag, or a significant delay between user actions and results on the screen.

“The latency between you controlling the game and it reacting was really bad on OnLive,” said Ethan Hawkes, a lifelong gamer who lives in Irvine, Calif. But times are different now, said Hawkes, who tested Google’s Project Stream. “The tech has finally caught up.”

Other gamers say that although the technology has come a long way, it still isn’t seamless.

Another Project Stream tester, Chris Cantrell, said Google did a good job showcasing how its servers could faithfully reproduce the high-fidelity graphics of a single-player game like “Assassin’s Creed.” But that game notably does not come with fast-twitch, competitive multiplayer, a staple of modern gaming culture and a data-intensive hurdle that tech companies must still address as many households are already streaming multiple services at once.

“Assassin’s Creed” is “a slower game, and so you don’t have to be as precise. But you can’t play ‘Call of Duty’ on this connection,” Cantrell said.

Could Microsoft be teasing an appearance by Steve from Minecraft on Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? Some fans think this could be the case after an intriguing tweet on Xbox Game Pass.

SpectacularJoSh | 1/27/2019Filed Under: “Other” Source: Nintendo Life

A recent post on the Xbox Game Pass verified Twitter account has some fans of the Minecraft and Super Smash Bros. series very excited, as it could suggest that a character from Microsoft’s popular sandbox game could be joining the roster of Nintendo’s crossover fighting game.

The speculation began on the 24th of January, during national compliment day, when the Xbox Game Pass Twitter account complimented Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the latest entry in the acclaimed long-running crossover fighting series.

While the tweet itself isn’t very telling, it’s the choice of words that has Minecraft and Super Smash Bros. fans believing this is a tease that would point to either Steve or Alex from the Minecraft series; all of this because they used the word “dig” in the tweet.

Fans of the Super Smash Bros. series know that every time a new character is introduced, it’s followed by a play on words that fits the character like “Bayonetta Gets Wicked”, “Cloud Storms Into Battle”, or “Ken Turns Up the Heat” — to name but a few. So Xbox Game Pass using the word “dig” could well be Microsoft actually teasing Minecraft characters joining Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

This is only but a rumour, but one that could well end up becoming a reality. All fans of Minecraft and Super Smash Bros. have to do now is keep their fingers crossed and hope for this to be more than just a tease

@NintendoAmerica We really really dig Super Smash Bros Ultimate #nationalcomplimentday4,5226:10 AM – Jan 25, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacy1,449 people are talking about this

Legendary game worlds and fighters collide in the ultimate showdown—a new entry in the Super Smash Bros. series for the Nintendo Switch system! New fighters, like Inkling from the Splatoon series and Ridley from the Metroid series, make their Super Smash Bros. series debut alongside every Super Smash Bros. fighter in the series…EVER!
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is currently available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.

While parents enjoyed watching Tom Cruise kick butt in his latest action extravaganza, children enjoyed reading about a wimpy kid.

Some youngsters learned how to build cities with Legos, others learned to build worlds in “Minecraft.”

Clearview and High Plains library districts released their top adult and children’s books and movies checked out from their respective branches in 2018. The children have spoken: They want to learn about “Minecraft.”

Six of the top 15 children’s nonfiction books checked out at Clearview Library District were handbooks, guides and even an encyclopedia related to the mega-popular game. A few Lego books were also on the list.

“Maybe we are raising a new generation of engineers and builders,” library director Ann Kling said.

As for children’s fictional books in Clearview, it was all about the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” saga. Seven of the 10 children’s books checked out at Clearview were from the author Jeff Kinney’s book saga that has inspired merchandise and movies. But the district’s top children’s book in 2018 was not the wimpy kid, but the boy wizard’s second year at Hogwarts in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.”

The most-checked-out movie for adults at Clearview was “Molly’s Game,” starring Jessica Chastain as Olympic skier-turned-illegal poker player Molly Bloom and directed by Aaron Sorkin. “The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature” was the most popular children’s movie.

John Grisham’s “Camino Island” was the top adult fiction title of the year at Clearview, and Paul Kalanithi’s autobiography “When Breath Becomes Air” was the top nonfiction title among adults.

At High Plains Library District, the sixth installment in Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” was the top adult film checked out, and the TV series “SpongeBob SquarePants” was the top children’s video checked out. The most popular adult fiction title was “A Delicate Touch” and the most popular nonfiction title was Michelle Obama’s “Becoming.”

But people weren’t only checking out books and movies in 2018. Clearview Library District also allows patrons to rent “explore kits” that allow people to test out pieces of technology before spending money on it to own.

Explore kits are divided into two categories: The more popular ones can be checked out for a week, and the rest can be checked out for a couple weeks.

A Sphero Mini, an app-controlled robotic ball, was the most checked-out kit among the seven-day options, and the Electronic Snap Circuits electronic toy was the most popular among the other category.

Here’s a full breakdown of the top checkouts.

The troubled production of Minecraft: The Movie appears to have gained some forward momentum with the hiring of Jim Berney as visual effects supervisor according to a report by Discussing Film. Berney has previously worked on films such as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Polar Express, and Aquaman.View image on Twitter

DiscussingFilm@DiscussingFilm

Visual Effects Supervisor Jim Berney (‘Aquaman’, ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’) has joined the crew for ‘MINECRAFT: THE MOVIE’. (EXCLUSIVE)1108:33 AM – Jan 2, 201931 people are talking about thisTwitter Ads info and privacy

Talk of Minecraft: The Movie goes back as far as 2014 but it wasn’t until mid-2016 that it was officially announced and given the May 2019 release date. Since the announcement, the role of director has shifted two times and the original writer has left the project. It will now be directed and written by Adam and Aaron Nee.

Steve Carell was thought by many to be involved back in 2016 but little has been said on his connection to the film since then. Little is known about Minecraft: The Movie at this stage and it’s even unclear if it will be animated, live-action, or a mix of the two.

Microsoft purchased the popular Minecraft video game franchise in late-2014 and has since continued to develop the brand with continued updates to the base game, support for crossplay between most version of it, loads more Minecraft merchandise, a Telltale Games video game, and even Minecraft-themed Xbox One consoles and controllers.

Microsoft is also currently pursuing a live-action TV series based on the popular Xbox video game franchise, Halo, which is scheduled to begin shooting this year.

Are you a Minecraft fan and are you excited for a Minecraft movie? Let us know what you think in the comments below and then follow us on Pinterest for more Minecraft content.

Over the weekend, popular online game Minecraft successfully pulled off a virtual music festival featuring performances by over 50 up-and-coming artists and producers. Fire Festivaldrew in thousands of users over two days, and created a one of a kind multi-platformexperience fit for the digital era. 

Outside of being a free virtual festival users could engage with from the comfort of their own home, Fire Festival gave users the additional flexibility of “attending” from three unique digital platforms. The event’s website allowed users to stream to the performances online. Fire Festival’s Discord chat allowed users to listen to the music and engage in conversation with fellow users. Meanwhile, their virtual grounds hosted in Minecraft gave attendees the ability to navigate a robust virtual landscape, see and hear each performance, and engage with fellow attendees in a digital setting.

Despite being a seven-year-old game, Minecraft and its community continue to push innovation. The Microsoft-owned brand continues to support over 91 million active monthly users on its platform. With such an enormous user base, brands such as Fire Festival arguably have the potential to disrupt a key revenue stream of the music business in the future. 

One of the festival’s organizers, SLEEPYCATT (real name Max Schramp), has shared recordings of each Fire Festival set via SoundCloud. Listen to the performances from the largest virtual music festival to date below. 

KENNETT SQUARE, Pa., Jan. 28, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — via OTC PR WIRE — Good Gaming Inc. (OTCQB: GMER) (The “Company”) is pleased to announce their relationship and agreement with esports team Forknife as they look to increase their Minecraft exposure.

Esports team Forknife is comprised of team members MrTop5, Bodil40, Shadical, Zeph, and Deadlox. Collectively, the team boasts a following of five million YouTube subscribers who are passionate about their esport gameplay.

Good Gaming Inc. is currently revamping their Minecade server in preparation for team Forknife’s launch into the Good Gaming Inc. server, which is anticipated to begin during the first week of February. The Company also plans to work with team Forknife on a social media campaign to promote the Good Gaming Minecraft Minecade server.

Eric Brown, Good Gaming Inc. COO, stated, “We are very pleased to have members of the esport team Forknife on board as our latest Minecraft influencers to utilize our Minecade server for gameplay. After careful consideration and several discussions, we realize they truly understand the importance of cross marketing (through various social media platforms) and our goal of making Good Gaming’s Minecraft servers the number one Minecraft servers in the world. We look forward to working with them as they promote their gameplay on our servers and work with our talented team to create the latest and most exciting Minecraft gameplay available anywhere in the world.”

For more information please visit our website:

Social networks:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GOODGMER

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodGMER/

About Good Gaming Inc.:

Good Gaming Inc. is a leading competitive gaming and social network platform targeting over 250 million esports players and participants worldwide who want to communicate with each other, develop strategies, and compete at novice, competitive and professional levels. Good Gaming Inc. has taken a strategic multifaceted approach in the esports industry with products and services ranging from multiple Minecraft servers, a proprietary tournament platform, high school esports leagues and soon-to-come virtual reality centers. The esports industry continues to experience exponential growth going from $500 million to $1.2 billion over the last two years while industry analysts forecast a $5 billion global industry by 2020. Good Gaming Inc. seeks to create and exploit opportunities as the industry allows.

Safe Harbor

This release contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements appear in a number of places in this release and include all statements that are not statements of historical fact regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of Good Gaming Inc., its directors or its officers with respect to, among other things: (i) financing plans; (ii) trends affecting its financial condition or results of operations; (iii) growth strategy and operating strategy. The words “may,” “would,” “will,” “expect,” “estimate,” “can,” “believe,” “potential” and similar expressions and variations thereof are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Good Gaming Inc.’s ability to control, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. More information about the potential factors that could affect the business and financial results is and will be included in Good Gaming Inc.’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Public Relations and Shareholder Information:

Joseph M. Vazquez III

Phone: (800) 686-5044

Email: infinityglobalconsulting@gmail.com

Minecraft maniacs and Fortnite fans assemble!

MineVention is coming to Dreamland on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th March, with a packed programme of demos, tournaments, talks and even a Guinness World Record attempt for Minecraft lovers big and small.

But they won’t be building and battling alone… for the first time at Dreamland, the online gaming phenomenon Fortnite will be pulling into the park on the iconic Razer Gaming Bus and running tournaments throughout the event.

MineVention celebrates all things Minecraft through scheduled activities such as build battles, Q&A sessions, tournaments, educational talks, arts and crafts session, costume contests and on-stage challenges.

Popular Minecraft YouTubers Element Animation, TycerX and FalseSymmetry (with nearly 3 million subscribers between them) will also be available meet and greet sessions, and there will be plenty of brain-fizzling activities for Minecraft fans of all ages to get stuck into.

Fortnite fans can take part in one of the 16-player Battle Royale tournaments on the bus, with nearly 200 players aboard per four-hour session. The winner of each session will be rewarded with V-Bucks, the in-game currency used to buy skins, weapons and more. So if you think you have what it takes, head to MineVention!

Guinness World Record Attempt

On Saturday (9th March) at 1pm, MineVention will try and break their own record of assembling 337 Minecraft ‘Steves’ in one place. Guests are encouraged to help break the record by bringing and wearing the following:

A large pixelated square head with dark brown hair and blue eyes (can be handmade or purchased)
A light blue t-shirt (untucked on the left and back)
A pair of light blue jeans
A Minecraft prop (can be handmade or purchased)
Tickets for MineVention are £15 (+ booking fee) per person, per four hour session. Sessions run from 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 6pm (morning and afternoon sessions have the same content).

In addition, Sunday morning session (9am to 1pm) will be autism-friendly to create a more relaxed and sensitive environment for families with children with autism. The session content will be the same but with a reduced capacity, no unnecessary loud-speaker announcements, no loud music and reduced lighting.

The event is open to all ages (children aged 3 and under go free), and all children 14 and under must be accompanied by a paying adult (18+).

In addition, Dreamland’s indoor spaces including The Roller Room and diner, indoor arcade, and Octopus’s Garden soft play centre will also be open for families to enjoy.

To book your tickets, please visit www.dreamland.co.uk

My students come from a small, rural community and lack a broad understanding of the larger world around them. This inspired me to seek out a game, or online environment, that could provide more expansive experiences for them—a place that would allow them to explore, on their own or with others, and where I could embed history content for them to discover. On Twitter I came across an exploratory discussion of Minecraft’s potential for school use. I dove in and began a journey that ultimately changed my perception of teaching and how I interact with my students.

Minecraft is easy to use and implement in a classroom. It promotes student independence and creativity, but it is also an immensely collaborative tool that I have witnessed being integrated across all grade levels and content areas. Students can apply their understanding in truly unique and often unanticipated ways. Previously, my kids struggled with writing. Today, they are more creative and confident writers. Instead of getting 125 essays written in the exact same style with the same details, I now get unique historical narratives, rich with sensory experiences and observations made with their own eyes.

Minecraft: Education Edition—currently available for Windows 10, macOS and iPad devices—is nearly identical to the version students play on their own at home. The main difference is that the education edition comes with tools for teachers to make classroom implementation easier. If you are contemplating using Minecraft with your students, here are a handful of tips to help you get started.

Minecraft is easy to use and implement in a classroom. It promotes student independence and creativity, but it is also an immensely collaborative tool.

1. Engage kids in conversations.

Ask them what they like about Minecraft. Answers will likely revolve around the collective themes of creativity, collaboration, critical-thinking and communication. I began my journey with lunchtime conversations that helped me form implementation strategies and which ultimately led to the founding of a Minecraft club complete with membership cards. This videodoes a wonderful job of visually demonstrating the appeal of the game.

2. Explore YouTube video tutorials.

I really didn’t know anything about the game, so I did a keyword search for “Minecraft” and discovered over 140 million videos! Many of these have been created by students like ours honing their skills as content producers. Some helpful examples can be found here and here.

3. Identify your “experts” in the field.

Beginning gameplay with an experienced player or two—a student or even your own children—is a great way to learn the basics before attempting to teach with Minecraft. In class, I recommend selecting a few resident experts at the outset and asking them to mentor you and other students. This was a key revelation for me. I was not the expert, and I had to make my peace with that. It was a transformative experience. Students began to lead the lessons and roamed the room helping others. It empowered even my shy students to step forward into a mentor role.

If you prefer to do a bit of preliminary homework on your own, Stampy, the famous Minecraft YouTuber, created a very helpful video for first-time players.

I begin the school year with an open discussion about empathy and bullying. At the end of the session, students produce a “Minecraft Bill of Rights” poster that we hang in class as a reminder.

4. Explore a pre-loaded starter world available through the launcher.

Minecraft games are played in “worlds.” You will find any number of students interested in exploring along with you, so open a dialogue and uncover what kinds of worlds they value and what elements stand out. Simply boot up the game and select an available world—it will load automatically. You can also visit the online world library and download as many as you wish. Some of my personal favorites include Arctic Shipwreck, Project Storytelling, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Don’t feel that you must structure this time around learning objectives. The most useful feedback, along with other benefits, will come from unstructured play and exploration.

5. Don’t succumb to the pressure to create your own lesson at this stage.

There are plenty to investigate here. But before selecting one to try out in your classroom, you need to have a clear objective in mind. Consider joining the online community of Minecraft educators. Doing so will give you access to lesson authors and to the wider group of mentors who are happy answer your questions.

6. Try a short-term lesson with students.

Good lessons are student-centered and require little setup by the teacher, but you should still preview the lesson and “walk” through it as a student. Lessons can be easily differentiated for students and objectives modified to fit individual needs. The Building a Story Setting lesson provides an excellent introduction.

7. Discuss griefing behaviors and how to build positive relationships with Minecraft.

Griefing occurs when one or more students intentionally destroy or steal the work of another. I begin the school year with an open discussion about empathy and bullying. At the end of the session, students produce a “Minecraft Bill of Rights” poster that we hang in class as a reminder.

8. Create your own lesson.

Keep it simple with clear objectives that can be completed over one or two sessions. Students transport themselves into the game and quickly settle in. I discovered that I needed to frontload what I wanted them to achieve each session and monitor progress consistently. Take a look at how Minecraft Mentor Stephen Elford prepared students for success with his Contour Maplesson.

The ability to reach students across content and grade levels is astonishing.

It’s easy to get off task, so objectives should be attainable and positive outcomes rewarded with feedback. I prefer assessments that promote critical thinking and written reflection over build quality. My first large-scale lesson tasked students with building a Chinese city and populating it with citizens. Based on individual experience level, students assigned themselves to city blocks I had prepared and built out the city. Once completed, they wrote detailed historical narratives about the citizens that lived in “their” buildings.

9. Form a “build team” partnership with students.

You do not need to become an expert in Minecraft, nor do you need to possess advanced building skills. I formed a build team of students that got together at lunch, and they helped me build worlds for future lessons. [Photo] Each student has specialities, and together we have built some amazing worlds. One of my favorites is the Round City of Baghdad.

10. Avoid thinking of this as just building objects.

The ability to reach students across content and grade levels is astonishing. Consider what other educators have accomplished with Minecraft in the classroom.

Minecraft Mentors Simon Baddeley and Ben Spieldenner have partnered up to create a series of literature-rich projects that allow students to explore and interact with characters to experience language functions and themes.

Stephen Reid tackles the difficult subject of the refugee crisis in this unit devoted to exploring social and emotional learning, which allows students to experience the world from the perspective of a child refugee.

Benjamin Kelly has created a wonderful lesson focused on empathy education. A series of wildlife conservation challenges have been created for Minecraft: Education Edition users that explore concepts such as poaching and land-use conflicts.

More Resources for Getting Started

• If you are ready to learn about the capabilities of Education Edition, Microsoft has created a helpful introductory course.
• Need help with Minecraft related vocabulary? Visit Common Sense Media to familiarize yourself.
• Ready to dive deeper? The ultimate resource is the Official Minecraft Wiki.
• Looking for help understanding the keyboard controls? This article is an excellent resource.
• Read more tips for classroom management and creating a positive classroom culture.
• These case studies highlight how other educators are using Minecraft to drive learning.
• Just try it. Here’s a free trial of Minecraft: Education Edition.

John Miller, a veteran educator from King City, CA, is currently in Singapore with the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program.

This article is part of a guide to game-based learning, sponsored by Minecraft: Education Edition. The sponsor has no control over the content of this story. To learn more, please read our Ethics Statement.

December was the Minecraft Marketplace’s biggest month yet. Downloads skyrocketed to 10,872,443 on Windows 10, iOS and Android, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. December doubled the 4.57 million downloads from November, which in turn doubled October’s 2.26 million.

The exponential growth for the Minecraft Marketplace is due to a number of factors. The Minecraft Team is releasing more free promotional content. This includes items such as the Catastrophic Pandamonium world, which Marketplace creator GameMode One built in partnership with Microsoft.Recommended videosPowered by AnyClipMetroid Prime 4 Development Is Starting OverPlayUnmuteCurrent Time 0:03/Duration 0:32Loaded: 100.00% FullscreenUp Next

Catastrophic Pandamonium is a free download that highlights the Minecraft’s updated cat and panda creatures. Of December’s 10.87 million downloads, Catastrophic Pandamonium represented more than 4 million of those.

In addition to the free content, the Minecraft Marketplace is benefiting from timing and improved features. December is one of the biggest times of the year for live-service games. People who get new smartphones, consoles, or PCs for the gift-giving holidays return to something like Minecraft or to try it for the first time. And with better search and promotional features, The Minecraft Team has turned its Marketplace into a major attraction.

Let’s get to the charts.

Top 10 most downloaded

 4. Inspiration Island

 5. Purple Parrot Party Place

1. Catastrophic Pandamonium by Gamemode One: “Welcome to the Minecraft Preserve, a sanctuary for the mobs of Minecraft. Your dream job is about to become a nightmare when you realize the pandas are missing!”
2. Winter Gifts Bundle by Minecraft: “Whether you were naughty or nice this year (hopefully nice!), this bundle is our holiday gift to you! Last winter, we gave away amazing skins, worlds and adventures from some of your favorite Marketplace community creators. And now you can download them all again in this bundle of Winter Wonders!”
3. Minecraft Texture Update Beta by Minecraft: “The extraordinary Minecraft Texture Update has been on the Java Edition in beta for quite a while, and now it’s finally on Bedrock! We’re renovating the old textures of Minecraft and polishing them up for a new beginning. Don’t panic! This won’t completely overhaul the look of Minecraft — these new textures just give it a much-needed update!
4. Inspiration Island by Minecraft: “Visit Inspiration Island, a floating theme park world filled with creative challenges. Whether you are new to Creative Mode or just need a little extra inspiration, a visit here sets you on the path to craft your own groundbreaking worlds.”
5. Purple Parrot Party Place by Minecraft: “A celebration of all things purple parrot party and palace! Master the mechanics of fireworks, armor stands, jukeboxes, and banners. Traverse a jungle island to find a massive parrot temple.”
6. Legacy Skin Pack by Minecraft: “Get cracking with these starter skins and old favorites brought over from Minecraft editions of yore.”
7. Grid Runners by Noxcrew: “Take on Noxcrew’s Grid Runners: a mini-game map made up of classic Minecraft challenges where you can craft, mine and jump your way to victory. Compete against the clock for the fastest times and team up with all of your friends to find out who is the ultimate Minecraft champion! This is a free map, created exclusively for Minecon Earth 2018.”
8. ABSTRACTION: Minecon Earth by Jigarbov Productions: “Featuring the logos that were just begging to be played on, MINECON EARTH has floating landmasses with a surprising amount of hidden secrets and challenges.”
9. Luxury Life by PixelHeads: “Luxury Life is a world where you role-play life as a billionaire. Cruise the streets in a sports car or any of the 10 other vehicles, explore luxurious mansions and decorate with furniture!”
10. Aquatic Life by Cyclone Designs: “Get ready for a realistic aquarium experience with Aquatic Life! Dive into large tanks and swim with whale sharks! Discover dangerous shark species and hop on a boat and feed the Piranhas!”

Top 10 highest grossing

 4. Aquatic Life

 5. CampCraft

1. Luxury Life by PixelHeads: “Luxury Life is a world where you role-play life as a billionaire. Cruise the streets in a sports car or any of the 10 other vehicles, explore luxurious mansions and decorate with furniture!”
2. The Nightmare Before Christmas by Minecraft: “A nightmare? Before Christmas? Enjoy this themed pack by Minecraft.”
3. City Mash-Up by Everbloom Studios: “With over 1,000 hand-detailed rooms, there are stories, secrets, and mini-games around every corner. Build with the city’s full texture pack in your own worlds or take on any role you can imagine!”
4. Aquatic Life by Cyclone Designs: “Get ready for a realistic aquarium experience with Aquatic Life! Dive into large tanks and swim with whale sharks! Discover dangerous shark species and hop on a boat and feed the Piranhas!”
5. CampCraft by Blockworks: “A vast wilderness awaits you and your friends in CampCraft. Discover forest animals, ride camper vans, toast marshmallows, sit around the campfire and set up your own camp!”
6. City Life by PixelHeads: “Cruise through the big city in City Life! Chase down a bandit in your police car, save the day as a firefighter or take your dog for a walk.”
7. Spooky Pizza Place by InPvP: “Do you dare to enter? Try to survive all of the waves with five custom monsters. Includes pizzeria and surrounding buildings.”
8. Immersion: Chicago by Shapescape: “Immerse yourself in Chicago, the windy city. Visit the river with your friends, race through the streets and roleplay your daily life.”
9. Super Cute Texture Pack by Minecraft: “The Super Cute Texture Pack lets you create a cheerful world full of the cutest and cuddliest mobs! Bouncing bunnies, ultra-adorable unicorns, brilliant bumblebees and, er, burgers? Yes, burgers! This texture pack comes with 15 skins.”
10. Millionaire Mansions by Noxcrew: “Explore a town filled with beautiful mansions, sports cars, and a new toolset to help you design your dream house. Noxcrew’s Creative Toolbox is perfect for roleplay or building with your friends.”