The popular sandbox building game has become a medium for telling biblical narratives.
Minecraft is a video game that captures the imaginations of children and adults alike, allowing them a free rein in a world in which they can build just about anything they can dream up. The freedom of gameplay featured by the popular title has redefined the Sandbox RPG genre and people have designed some impressive structures, cities, and yes, even the Millennium Falcon.
Now groups of faithful Minecrafters are turning their efforts towards evangelization, opening YouTube channels that depict biblical narratives through the 64-bit medium and producing Minecraft-themed Bibles, which are starting to make their way into schools.
In Jersey, England, a recent donation saw 24 primary schools fully stocked with The Unofficial Bible for Minecrafters – Stories from the Bible told block by block. This book illustrates the scriptures with screen shots of biblical scenes recreated inside of the game. The images taken from in the game are arranged in comic book form and follow narratives of some of the more famous biblical stories, like the Garden of Eden and Noah’s Ark.
Trudie De La Haye, Head Teacher of St John’s School and a recipient of Minecraft Bibles, told Bailiwick Express that the Bible stories are retold in block form and describe events using Minecraft features and humor, which she believes will further engage the students.
On Youtube, another platform easily accessible to children, several channels are devoted to retelling Bible stories with the cute, low-definition blocks. One of our favorites is Pixel Heart Bible, a group that has covered 10 biblical stories including Noah’s Ark, The Easter Story, David and Goliath, and even the Nativity in two parts (Part 1, Part 2).
Since they condense the stories into 3-6 minute videos, they do become a little simplified and feel a bit abridged, but they’re very cute and the writers use rhyme schemes to lend a Dr. Seuss quality. The videos are also interspersed with innocent humor, which often shows off an exceptionally built scenery. One of our favorites from Pixel Heart Bible is their telling of the Prodigal Son:
The Crafted Church is another such channel that produces videos with meticulously designed scenery. They only have an abridgement of Christ’s ministry and the story Jonah, but the work they did was impressive. Similarly to the Pixel Heart Bible, The Crafted Church intersperses a bit of family-friendly comedy into their videos in order to better engage their audience. The church they built for the beginning of their videos is really nice, too.
As an honorable mention, we’d like to point out this high-quality recreation of the Book of Job, which was originally a sophomore English project, by Rapheal Clark, Eric York, Zach Burrell and Adam Kindorf. The setting is beautiful and the editing had to have taken a while to get this good.
That huge growth has come due in part to the attention that Microsoft and The Minecraft Team are giving the service. The developer has added features like search and real-money prices. And the team has also worked to regularly deliver free content to keep people coming back.Recommended videosPowered by AnyClipFortnite-Themed Xbox One May Be In The WorksPlayUnmuteCurrent Time 0:01/Duration 0:30Loaded: 100.00% FullscreenUp Next
All of that has paid off, and now the Minecraft Marketplace’s future seems very bright.
Let’s get to the charts.
Top 10 most downloaded
7. Dragons
1. Legacy Skin Pack by Minecraft
“Get cracking with these starter skins and old favorites brought over from Minecraft editions of yore. Widen your wardrobe, turn out in a tux, or rock it as a croc.”
2. Purple Parrot Party Palace 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. Part tutorial and part adventure, this map will make your parrot dance.”
3. Grid Runners by Noxcrew
“Take on Noxcrew’s Grid Runners: a mini-game map made 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.”
4. 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.”
5. Pet Shop by Pixelheads
“Welcome to Pet Shop. Choose between 17 lovely pets. Explore a town and earn coins by collecting poop or by catching stray animals. Play fetch with dogs, trim a poodle, or take a snake for a walk. Cats, hamsters, lizards, poodles, capuchin monkeys, snails, hedgehogs, snakes, German shepherds, parakeets, penguins, rats, piggies, ferrets, koalas, chameleons, and rottweilers.”
6. 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!”
7. Dragons by InPvP
“Take one of six dragons to the skies and become a legendary dragon rider. Surprise your enemies with custom attacks. Shoot fireballs and drop TNT. Explore three huge castles and the beautiful custom landscape.”
8. Advanced Farming by GameMode One
“Farm your heart out with new machines, vehicles, animals, pets, vendors, characters, and lands to explore. Fully functioning machines and vehicles. New and improved farm animals. Huge custom farm and ranch. A peaceful and relaxing roleplay countryside experience. Progress through the economy and optimize your farm.”
9. Steven Universe Mash-Up by Minecraft
“Steven enters the Minecraft universe in this Diamond-worth mash-up. Contains Steven Universe themed skins, textures, and original music from the show and all your favorite locations, from Beach City to Homeworld. Believe in Steven.”
10. 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.”
Top 10 highest grossing
7. City Mash-Up
1. Pet Shop by Pixelheads
“Welcome to Pet Shop. Choose between 17 lovely pets. Explore a town and earn coins by collecting poop or by catching stray animals. Play fetch with dogs, trim a poodle, or take a snake for a walk. Cats, hamsters, lizards, poodles, capuchin monkeys, snails, hedgehogs, snakes, German shepherds, parakeets, penguins, rats, piggies, ferrets, koalas, chameleons, and rottweilers.”
2. Advanced Farming by GameMode One
“Farm your heart out with new machines, vehicles, animals, pets, vendors, characters, and lands to explore. Fully functioning machines and vehicles. New and improved farm animals. Huge custom farm and ranch. A peaceful and relaxing roleplay countryside experience. Progress through the economy and optimize your farm.”
3. 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!”
4. Steven Universe Mash-Up by Minecraft
“Steven enters the Minecraft universe in this Diamond-worth mash-up. Contains Steven Universe themed skins, textures, and original music from the show and all your favorite locations, from Beach City to Homeworld. Believe in Steven.”
5. Dragons by InPvP
“Take one of six dragons to the skies and become a legendary dragon rider. Surprise your enemies with custom attacks. Shoot fireballs and drop TNT. Explore three huge castles and the beautiful custom landscape.”
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. 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!”
8. Dinosaur Island by Pixelheads
“This once-idyllic island has been overrun by prehistoric beasts after the scientists lost control of their genetic experiments. Explore and discover the hidden mysteries of this intriguing island in a completely new adventure on Dinosaur Island.”
9. 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.”
10. Shopping Time by Cyclone Designs
“It’s shopping time. Spend emeralds around town to buy furniture, cars, bikes, boats, pets, and much more. Decorate a pre-built house or build your own in a vacant plot and let your creativity and imagination flow.”
The final Minecraft update for Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, and PlayStation Vita will release this week. It is a bittersweet moment for all players as 4J Studios is ending all support for those last-generation platforms. The update will arrive today, December 18, for some platforms and tomorrow, December 19, for other platforms. All of the other platforms are also receiving the update, too.
The final Minecraft update for those systems is The Nightmare Before Christmas update. The update brings spooky goodies like a Nightmare Before Christmas mash-up pack, fixes for various crashes as you would expect, and more. In addition, it also brings the end of support for those platforms. However, 4J Studios gave no word on online support so we expect the servers to remain online for the time being.
Final Minecraft Update Details
If you haven’t upgraded your Minecraft game from those older platforms to their newer counterparts, now is a great time. This is especially true given that the same update will be also released on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch this week. If you’re wondering what the exact update versions are for those older platforms, we’ve got those as well.
For Xbox 360 players, it is known as Title Update 73. On Wii U, it is known as Title Update 42. Finally, on PS3 and PlayStation Vita, it is known as version 1.82. Interestingly enough, there was no information given on future support for the Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft. That version was released after all four of the ill-fated versions so it remains to be seen what will happen to it.
On a more bittersweet note, 4J Studios also tweeted out a photo of the studio packing up all of their PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, and PlayStation Vita development kits. Now that support for those versions is done, it seems there is no need for the kits anymore.
Marcus “Notch” Persson will be forever known as the creator of Minecraft. The game is currently one of the most popular indie-to-mainstream games in history. However, it seems like Notch’s legacy will be erased from the laurels of history. In a recent update by Mojang, many references to Marcus were deleted from the game.
Mojang Deletes Minecraft Creator’s References from the Game
Mojang recently released an update for Minecraft. The update removed all references to Notch on the game’s main screen. As such, messages like “Made by Notch!”, “The Work of Notch!”, or “110813!” were deleted from the game. For those curious, 110813 is actually the date of Marcus’s own wedding.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Marcus “Notch” Persson’s name was removed from Minecraft entirely. In fact, the name of the game’s creator will continue appearing on the game’s credits sequence. Not only that, the update has only been applied to the Bedrock version of the game. However, 4J Studios seems to be working on a patch for the console version.
It’s certainly not strange to see this sort of development happen. Marcus stopped working on Minecraft ever since 2014. Back then, Notch sold the rights of the game to Microsoft in exchange of $2.5 Million USD. Ever since then, Mojang and Microsoft have been in charge of the creative sandbox game. Nowadays, the game is available for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, and even last gen consoles!
Why do you think Notch’s references were removed from Minecraft? Do you think Mojang should’ve been able to do this to begin with? What are your favorite things to do in the game? What’s your opinion on Minecraft? Do you own the game in any of the consoles? Let us know your thoughts on the VGR Forums and stay tuned for more news and updates.
Minecraft has ascended into a gaming institution like Pokémon. And now, Microsoft is adding Minecraft to Xbox Game Pass. For $10 per month, you can get Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Crackdown 3, and — beginning April 4 — Minecraft.
“Since its launch in 2009, the Minecraft community has remained one of the most active and passionate in gaming, attracting over 91 million players [each month] of all ages from virtually every country in the world,” Xbox Game Pass marketing boss Parimal Deshpande said. “Those joining through Xbox Game Pass will enter a vibrant, global community that plays across 20 unique platforms like Windows 10, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and mobile.”
More people for Minecraft Marketplace
Minecraft is not free-to-play, but it still seems ubiquitous. But by adding Minecraft to Game Pass, Microsoft could amplify that effect. And it is simultaneously boosting Games while exposing more people to Minecraft’s in-game store.
“Xbox Game Pass players will also gain access to an ever-expanding array of content for purchase via the in-game Minecraft Marketplace,” said Deshpande. “[The Marketplace] contains over 1,000 pieces of content from 60 distinct creators.”
The Minecraft Marketplace is a major focus for Micorosft. It treats it more as an ongoing service. That’s why it’s available everywhere and supports cross-play. And enabling community creators to build and sell content is a part of that. This ensures the game continues to make revenue and players have an abundance of fresh content beyond The Minecraft Team’s frequent updates.
And now Game Pass players can hop into Minecraft without spending any extra money, and they may end up spending cash in the Marketplace instead.
That huge growth has come due in part to the attention that Microsoft and The Minecraft Team are giving the service. The developer has added features like search and real-money prices. And the team has also worked to regularly deliver free content to keep people coming back.
All of that has paid off, and now the Minecraft Marketplace’s future seems very bright.
“Get cracking with these starter skins and old favorites brought over from Minecraft editions of yore. Widen your wardrobe, turn out in a tux, or rock it as a croc.”
2. Purple Parrot Party Palace 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. Part tutorial and part adventure, this map will make your parrot dance.”
3. Grid Runners by Noxcrew
“Take on Noxcrew’s Grid Runners: a mini-game map made 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.”
4. 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.”
5. Pet Shop by Pixelheads
“Welcome to Pet Shop. Choose between 17 lovely pets. Explore a town and earn coins by collecting poop or by catching stray animals. Play fetch with dogs, trim a poodle, or take a snake for a walk. Cats, hamsters, lizards, poodles, capuchin monkeys, snails, hedgehogs, snakes, German shepherds, parakeets, penguins, rats, piggies, ferrets, koalas, chameleons, and rottweilers.”
6. 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!”
7. Dragons by InPvP
“Take one of six dragons to the skies and become a legendary dragon rider. Surprise your enemies with custom attacks. Shoot fireballs and drop TNT. Explore three huge castles and the beautiful custom landscape.”
8. Advanced Farming by GameMode One
“Farm your heart out with new machines, vehicles, animals, pets, vendors, characters, and lands to explore. Fully functioning machines and vehicles. New and improved farm animals. Huge custom farm and ranch. A peaceful and relaxing roleplay countryside experience. Progress through the economy and optimize your farm.”
9. Steven Universe Mash-Up by Minecraft
“Steven enters the Minecraft universe in this Diamond-worth mash-up. Contains Steven Universe themed skins, textures, and original music from the show and all your favorite locations, from Beach City to Homeworld. Believe in Steven.”
10. 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.”
“Welcome to Pet Shop. Choose between 17 lovely pets. Explore a town and earn coins by collecting poop or by catching stray animals. Play fetch with dogs, trim a poodle, or take a snake for a walk. Cats, hamsters, lizards, poodles, capuchin monkeys, snails, hedgehogs, snakes, German shepherds, parakeets, penguins, rats, piggies, ferrets, koalas, chameleons, and rottweilers.”
2. Advanced Farming by GameMode One
“Farm your heart out with new machines, vehicles, animals, pets, vendors, characters, and lands to explore. Fully functioning machines and vehicles. New and improved farm animals. Huge custom farm and ranch. A peaceful and relaxing roleplay countryside experience. Progress through the economy and optimize your farm.”
3. 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!”
4. Steven Universe Mash-Up by Minecraft
“Steven enters the Minecraft universe in this Diamond-worth mash-up. Contains Steven Universe themed skins, textures, and original music from the show and all your favorite locations, from Beach City to Homeworld. Believe in Steven.”
5. Dragons by InPvP
“Take one of six dragons to the skies and become a legendary dragon rider. Surprise your enemies with custom attacks. Shoot fireballs and drop TNT. Explore three huge castles and the beautiful custom landscape.”
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. 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!”
8. Dinosaur Island by Pixelheads
“This once-idyllic island has been overrun by prehistoric beasts after the scientists lost control of their genetic experiments. Explore and discover the hidden mysteries of this intriguing island in a completely new adventure on Dinosaur Island.”
9. 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.”
10. Shopping Time by Cyclone Designs
“It’s shopping time. Spend emeralds around town to buy furniture, cars, bikes, boats, pets, and much more. Decorate a pre-built house or build your own in a vacant plot and let your creativity and imagination flow.”
