We've taken a brief hiatus since our last Minecraft showcase to focus on bringing you all the information and news you need on Minecraft and the upcoming Nether Update, as well as the Diablo-em-up Minecraft Dungeons. It's been even longer since we spoke with the talented company Blockworks, to get to the bottom of their incredible creations in Minecraft.
This time around, we're changing direction and focusing instead on what two ordinary people can do in Minecraft with a little bit of determination, ingenuity, and help from Minecraft's powerful mods and community tools. This is the beginning of a modern city, built by Twitter user @theotherlucy12 and her girlfriend.
Let's check it out.
Building a futuristic city inside of Minecraft
@theotherlucy12 (hereby known as "Lucy") has spent the last year and a half with her significant other to build the beginnings of a modern utopian city built on a foundation of renewable and sustainable energies. The product on display here is far from finished but already shows just how much work has been put in, and highlights yet again the sheer flexibility that can be gleaned from Minecraft by players who take the initiative to find it. It's certainly impressive to see, and Lucy has also managed to capture some gorgeous shots of her nascent creation.
The world highlights yet again the sheer flexibility that can be gleaned from Minecraft.
While Lucy's girlfriend handles the progression side of the heavily modified game, Lucy tackles the majority of construction and design tasks, working a few days out of the week, a few hours at a time, to slowly build towards a functioning and self-sustaining city of astounding proportions. As cool as it is to see now, another year and a half from now, it may feel like a completely different place.
As you can see from the map above, the project already encompasses a massive part of their world, with various sections of the city connected via a train system, and multiple construction sites hinting at future builds Lucy is planning. In total, there are currently five notable sections of Lucy's world, all impressive in their own right. Spread between them are many smaller builds and construction sites as well, lending credit to Lucy's meticulous attention to detail.
The biological laboratory and chemical plant are approximately a kilometer away from the main part of the city, and are amongst the most finished parts at this point in time. The chemical plant is particularly beautiful, with some stunning angles preserving the natural beauty of the landscape surrounding the building, as well as Lucy's light and open design language, with a narrow walkway spanning the adjacent lake.
If you take the train, you'll find yourself at the other three sections of the world, being the hydroelectric dam, a skyscraper, and the humungous construction site that will be the location of an expansive city in the future. The dam provides power to the base as a whole, with functional generators stashed below the surface. The design of the dam, and in particular the large cranes perched on top, are heavily influenced by the Three Gorges Dam in China, according to Lucy.
Nearby, you might spot the prototype tower that Lucy used as a staging ground for potential designs for the larger city she's planning, which has been inspired by the colorful and minimalistic Tron universe. The tower is a mixture of different design ideas that will be expanded upon and improved as Lucy moves across the lake to the city's construction site, which looks to dwarf the rest of the map in sheer size by a considerable margin.
The plan is for each building to serve a distinct purpose and for a consistent Tron-inspired design language to remain prevalent throughout the entire city, marking an apparent divide between the futuristic city and the more efficient buildings outside of it.
Insofar, all of my showcases have been fully completed builds, some of which took thousands of hours to bring to fruition. Instead, Lucy's world may never be finished, being in a constant state of improvement and progression as she and her girlfriend devote more of their time to it. Already there's a lot to see here, and I'm genuinely impressed by how much they have accomplished. I may not be a master Minecraft builder, by any means, but Lucy has already far surpassed even my most intricate build with attention to detail and a commitment to an even larger goal.
Anyone can go and build something beautiful or meaningful in Minecraft.
There are a ton of resources to learn from, share with, and work alongside the diverse Minecraft community that plays the games in the millions every month.
Beyond that, the Minecraft community is full of so many talented people, as I mentioned above in a quote from my BlockWorks showcase in March. My fiancé and I have plenty of fun in our modest worlds (complete with pet cemetery). Still, for every person who finds joy in the base game, there's another who takes it to the next level. Sometimes, beyond what you can do in vanilla Minecraft.
Which brings us to our next section: how did Lucy and her girlfriend accomplish this? Let's find out.
Using community tools to transform the game
The city is built upon the impressive GT New Horizons modpack, which ties together several mods that have been built upon over the years to add full technological progression to Minecraft. This means through effort, and research players can rise from handmade stone tools to hydroelectric energy and futuristic abodes, and eventually even achieve space travel and more. The mod is larger than life and completely changes Minecraft.
Lucy added trains and more powerful custom signs to Minecraft with further mods, rounding out the foundation her and her girlfriend would need to build an interconnected city on their world. However, Lucy still wasn't satisfied with this and took matters into her own hands to add another degree of realism to her world.
Experimenting with OpenComputers 3D Designer, Lucy threw together over 200 different 3D models to complete the look. For the sake of modesty, Lucy claims that most of the models are pretty simple, but even the simplest model is more than I've ever done for a Minecraft build, so well done.
This dedication led to the inclusion of Tesla-branded PowerPacks (secretly functional power substations from the GT New Horizons Mod), the cranes on top of her dam, and many of the walkways and other textures. Any other machines are similarly covered to create the illusion of a modern city, built upon a foundation of utter practicality. Through these tools, Lucy has everything she needs to build out her city.
A work-in-progress
I enjoyed speaking to Lucy about her world and how she's gotten to the point she's at right now. It never ceases to amaze me how mind-boggling gigantic Minecraft is, and how flexible it can be as well. Every day I see people do things in Minecraft I never thought was possible, either through hard work and creativity, the help of powerful community-built mods and tools, or usually some combination of both.
Whether you're a multi-national specialized design firm or an everyday Minecraft player and your significant other, Minecraft lets you do whatever and be whoever you desire. And that's, to put it succinctly, pretty gosh darn cool.
Have you built something in Minecraft you wouldn't mind showing off? Have you seen something awesome you'd like to share? Find me on Twitter @BoddyZachary or shout out in the comments below!
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Minecraft is a veritable, inarguable, and complete success. It has sold copies in the hundreds of millions, has a huge following of dedicated players, and lets you unlock your every creative desire. It's also available on every platform imaginable, including Xbox One, Windows 10, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS. Play with anyone, and play anywhere.
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