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Mojang Redesigning Minecraft’s Game Menus With Help Of Paper Prototype Kits

by Stone Marshall | Aug 18, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

In a number of titles, slick and easy menu navigation is critical. Minecraft is one of those games reliant on a clean and responsive user interface. While its menus have undergone multiple revisions over the years, Mojang is looking to improve the overall design once again, this time with the assistance of the community. This redesign will apply to all the Bedrock Engine based platforms including the Nintendo Switch version of the game.

Mojang would like to know how the community wants the game menus in Minecraft to be updated:

What would you like to see from an updated Minecraft menu? There may be things you want to make easier? Or maybe there’s a way the menus could be better for your device? Or maybe you want to add something entirely new to the main menu or create world screen? Or maybe just a button that makes a pig squealing noise when you press it? (all games should have that, really).

Whatever your ideas are, we'd love to see them!

In order to find out what changes the Minecraft community wants to see in the game’s menus, Mojang has released four Paper Prototype Kits covering console, desktop, tablet, and phone – allowing fans to create their own menu designs for their respective versions of the game. You can download the paper kits via the links on the official blog page and then share your work on the official Minecraft Discord Channel.

Do you own Minecraft on Switch? Would you like to see improved menus and UI? Tell us below.

New Minecraft boss argues for US developers to have more breaks

The group head of MInecraft Helen Chiang has argued that US game makers need more time off from work.

Speaking to Quartz, Chiang said that developers from North America need more “off ramps” from work and still be able to come back without any hitches.

“I think here in the US we need more off-ramps from work, or opportunities to take a career break,” Chiang said.

“Whether it's parental leave, or elder care leave, or a sabbatical, we need opportunities for people to take a break and not have to start over from scratch when they come back.”

This is something that Chiang has learnt from working with Swedish game firm Mojang and is a stark contrast to the US working culture she was used to.

“I see my Swedish employees coming back more energised, which convinces me that we need to support more flexible work arrangements and allow for something like that in the US,” she said.

“On my team, someone is about to go on sabbatical, and someone else is taking an extended summer leave to go work on a passion project, and I don't look at this as proof that they're any less committed to what we're doing.

“When they're at work, they're working hard and fully committed, but we need to recognize there's more to life than work, and I think it's great that they're invested in things beyond the office. And I know they're going to come back re-energised and ready to take on that next set of challenges for us.”

Working culture in games development is one of the hottest topics in the business right now. At GDC this year, there were calls to unionise to give game makers collective bargaining against the extreme conditions they were sometimes asked to work in.

Good Shepherd and Devolver exec Mike Wilson has argued that developers need collective bargaining – even if that doesn't take the form of unionisation. He also said that triple-A studio working conditions are having a detrimental impact on those involved.

Chiang took the top job on Minecraft in January of this year when Matt Booty was promoted to CVP of Microsoft Studios. Previously she was GM on the franchise.

HyperX is releasing a PS4-themed version of its Cloud gaming headset

HyperX makes some of the best gaming headsets around, and now, the accessory maker has an officially licensed Sony headset for PlayStation 4 users under its Cloud brand. The HyperX Cloud is the company’s standard headset. It costs $80 for the most recent version, and the licensed PS4 version will maintain that price. For people who play way too much Fortnite, like yours truly, owning a headset like this is pivotal for hearing footsteps and pinpointing an opponent’s location.

HyperX also makes a budget headset called the Cloud Stinger for $50, more premium PC-focused models like the Cloud Alpha and Cloud Revolver costing $100 and $120, and an all-purpose wireless version for $160 called the Cloud Flight. But nearly all of its headsets are surprisingly comfortable — I own the Cloud and Cloud Flight and have tried the Cloud Alpha and Revolver — and mostly involve compromising on sound quality or shelling out extra for more robust microphone and audio controls.

The PS4 licensed model will get you a special blue color scheme, as well as the PlayStation logo emblazoned on the side. You also get a volume control module. The headset will be available on August 13th from both Best Buy and Amazon.

How Minecraft is helping kids fall in love with books

by Stone Marshall | Aug 17, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Ever wanted to explore Treasure Island or pretend to be Robinson Crusoe? Minecraft is now being used to create an ‘immersive experience’ to engage reluctant readers – we see how it plays out

Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1881 classic Treasure Island tells of Jim Hawkins’s adventures on board the Hispaniola, as he and his crew – along with double-crossing pirate Long John Silver – set out to find Captain Flint’s missing treasure on Skeleton Island. Now, more than a century later, children can try and find it themselves, with the bays and mountains of Stevenson’s fictional island given a blocky remodelling in Minecraft, as part of a new project aimed at bringing reluctant readers to literary classics.
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From Spyglass Hill to Ben Gunn’s cave, children can explore every nook and cranny of Skeleton Island as part of Litcraft, a new partnership between Lancaster University and Microsoft, which bought the game for $2.5bn (£1.9bn) in 2015 and which is now played by 74 million people each month. The Litcraft platform uses Minecraft to create accurate scale models of fictional islands: Treasure Island is the first, with Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom just completed and many others planned.

While regular Minecraft is rife with literary creations – the whole of George RR Martin’s sprawling setting for Game of Thrones, Westeros, has been created in its entirety, as have several different Hogwarts – Litcraft is not all fun and games, being peppered with educational tasks that aim to re-engage reluctant readers with the book it is based on. Lead researcher and head of Lancaster University’s English and creative writing department, Professor Sally Bushell, calls it “an educational model that connects the imaginative spatial experience of reading the text to an immersive experience in the game world”.

She says, of the Litcraft Treasure Island: “We hope it will motivate reluctant readers – we can say, ‘We’re going to read the book and then at one point, we’ll go play on the ship.’ I would have loved it as a kid. It is an empathetic task – you do what the characters did yourself, so you understand why they act they way they did in the book.”

The Treasure Island “level” has been extensively road-tested by children such as Dylan, whose school is set to adopt Litcraft in 2019. “It’s really fun,” he says. “I enjoyed it because I’ve read the book, but you have to follow rules in that. In games, you can explore. Now I know exactly what the book looked like.”

What did he like most? “I like that you get to see the pictures. You don’t have to make them in your head. And I liked the ship, Ben Gunn’s cave and the parrots. And there was that weird pig that kept jumping off that cliff. That wasn’t in the book!” (“That was a game glitch,” says Bushell).

The kids know how to use Minecraft more than the teachers do. It inverts the relationship
Sally Bushell, Lancaster University

The project, which is featured on Microsoft’s Minecraft.edu website, is currently being presented to school teachers and librarians across the UK. There has been “an enthusiastic response” to the trials under way in local schools, with plans to roll Litcraft out to libraries in Lancashire and Leeds from October 2018.

Dylan, like many nine-year-olds, enjoys books but is more enthusiastic when talking about Minecraft, which he does with the casual expertise that many children have with their favourite games. He’s already made his own Hunger Games world in Minecraft at home, but couldn’t get some of his traps to work.

This know-how seems to both frighten and impress less tech-savvy adults – which Bushell hopes will not deter schools from adopting it. “The kids know how to do it more than the teachers do,” she says. “It inverts the relationship: you’ve got kids who know more than the adults. You need quite confident teachers. They’re more worried about it. I want to say, ‘Don’t be worried, because all your eight-year-olds will know how to do this.’”

Libraries are particularly interested in the possibilities of multiplayer, Bushell says, adding that one of the future projects will be Lord of the Flies: “In that case, you want all the kids in there playing out a scenario and asking philosophical questions. We hope they do some reading, then play the game, then do some empathetic writing based on what they did in there.”

The Kensuke’s Kingdom map, based on Morpurgo’s story of a boy washed up alone, is particularly aimed at engaging reluctant readers and has just been completed. “The library resources we are putting together include audio and in-game reading and writing as well as graphic novels as a step to the full text,” said Bushell. “The resources are designed to encourage them to either return to or connect with the book through the immersive experience.”

Bushell said more literary Minecraft islands will follow. “Treasure Island is the first world for Minecraft.edu but they anticipate a series – most likely, the next will be The Swiss Family Robinson, The Tempest and Robinson Crusoe,” Bushell says. A recreation of Dante’s Inferno, with a map for each level of hell, is also in development.

But what book does Dylan hope to see next? “The Hunger Games,” he says with no hesitation. “A proper one.”

Minecraft to get new menus soon on all ‘Bedrock’ platforms

Minecraft remains an incredibly popular game even to this day, but there are some issues which need to be addressed. For example, the user interface (UI) could be much better and more streamlined. Luckily, Microsoft is aware of these problems and plans on updating the menus in the near future.

Today, a post on Minecraft's website detailed some of the changes coming to the game. The team wants players to contribute their menu designs by downloading templates and sharing them online.

Menus! They're essential for helping you navigate Minecraft and get to what you want with ease. That's why we've started working on a major redesign of the Minecraft menu… for all Bedrock Engine-based platforms (so that's Minecraft on Xbox One, Windows 10, virtual reality, mobile devices, and Nintendo Switch). What would you like to see from an updated Minecraft menu? Whatever your ideas are, we'd love to see them… share your designs with us… you can do that on our our Minecraft Discord channel.

It'll be interesting to see what fans come up with. Hopefully the developer will incorporate a lot of feedback to make navigating the UI even better. We'll keep you posted as soon as the team finalizes its plans and shares the new look. Until then, be sure to contribute your ideas. Please keep in mind that the ‘Bedrock' version isn't available on PlayStation because Sony blocks cross-play.

Keep an eye on WindowsCentral.com/Gaming for all the latest in Xbox and Windows 10 gaming, accessories, news, and reviews!

Nerf is turning Overwatch guns into foam-shooting blasters

by Stone Marshall | Aug 16, 2018 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Blizzard Entertainment is teaming up with the toy experts at Nerf to fulfill our dreams of being an Overwatch-style gunslinger.

Blizzard first announced the collaboration at last month’s San Diego Comic-Con, saying that Nerf would be launching a sleek and chrome-covered blaster gun modeled after the Hellfire Shotgun that Reaper, one playable character, uses in-game. Now, Blizzard has announced a second plastic blaster modeled after a weapon in Overwatch’s lore: the bubblegum-colored Light Gun used by fan favorite character D.Va.

According to Blizzard, the replica fires at speeds reaching 80 feet per second, and features a “recoil action” feature.

Both plastic blaster guns are made for Nerf’s “Rival” line, which are high performance guns targeted toward an older audience. Rather than featuring Nerf’s traditional foam bullets, these blasters will fire off soft, squishy projectiles, acting a bit like a less aggressive paintball gun.

Both Overwatch replicas are hitting store shelves in 2019, though their exact launch date is still a mystery. The price is also TBD — but if the other guns in the Rival arsenal are any clue, the final price could range anywhere from $29.99 up to $99.99.

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