Minecraft Adventure Maps

Creating adventure maps in Minecraft during the Minecraft Game Design Camp in 3D GameLab.

As part of the Minecraft Game Design Camp that I am completing through 3D GameLab and facilitated by Lucas Gillispie, we are to create an adventure map in Minecraft. So, this post will document some of the processes that I am going through for this project.

Getting ideas

We were encouraged to play a few adventure maps to get ideas from them. Here is the link to a whole range of them available for download:

• Minecraft Adventure Maps

Here's a pretty cool (and short) YouTube trailer for one called "Herobrine's Mansion".

Mine won't be anywhere near as fancy!

The planning process

I had to come up with a few ideas for my adventure map, including a title, a description, the characters, and some of the challenges. This was quite challenging, and the initial plan was quite different to the current one. Anyway, this is what I've come up with so far:

• Title: An A-Mazing Adventure
• Description: Lost in the desert with no hope, you stumble across a mysterious portal that promises a free ticket to paradise. What choice do you have, but to jump in. Oh, what a-mazing challenges await you. But, will it be worth it?
• Characters: A thirsty, lost adventurer and a few mobsters.
• Challenges: The players will have to find their way through several mazes, find rewards and valuable equipment, fight a few battles, watch out for boobie traps, and run!

I've made a YouTube trailer video for the description:

The construction phase

Using Minecraft Structure Planner

As mentioned, my initial plans changed a few times. At one stage I wanted to build domes, so I was using Minecraft Structure Planner which is a free application that can be used to create structures like domes, bridges, spheres, pixel art, etc. The Minecraft Structure Planner is available free for download. When I was playing around with it, I realised that it also created mazes. So I thought it would be cool to create a series of mazes to use in my adventure map. If I fail with ideas for other challenges within my map, at least there will be the challenge of the mazes.

Here is an image of a maze created using the application:

The files are saved as "schematics" which can then be loaded into minecraft using WorldEdit commands. 

Using MinecraftEDU and WorldEdit
I could use regular minecraft, but to do what I had to do I needed WorldEdit, and I wasn't quite up to figuring out how to install plugins as yet. So, instead, I used MinecraftEDU because it already has WorldEdit installed.

• WorldEdit Reference - List of commands

Here is a screenshot of my mazes in place:

The map was created in a completely flat desert world. So I used WorldEdit to set areas as grass and to generate random forest trees. It was very cool to learn some new skills in the process.

This is all that I am willing to share at the moment. Now I have to get back to my map.