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games writing

Can You Play Too Many Video Games?

I’m a gamer and I play a lot of video games. So pardon me for a moment while I get a little philosophical about the question that everyone asks me, “Can you play too many video games?”

Humanity has spent most of its existence in a state of ignorance, believing that the world is flat. As we accumulated more information and became less ignorant, humans realized that the Earth was actually round. This knowledge helped us explore our planet further and discover new ones.
As a species, humans are still rather ignorant. We know that the Earth is round, but we do not know what comprises its core.

The Earth (hint: it’s round) and the structure of its core.

Even in modern day, we are like the primitive man, who believed that the world was flat and thought it was held up by elephants. As we developed our understanding of reality, we realized that this is not true.

However, we will never know for certain whether the world is round or flat. We may come to believe that it is round but there may always be some doubt in our minds.

The same applies to what comprises the core of Earth. We may eventually find out, but we can never know with certainty.

This is the same with video games. One may believe that it is possible to play too many of them, but there will always be some doubt in their mind.

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games

Getting a saddle in Minecraft

Ever since Minecraft added horses to the game, everyone wants saddles. With a saddle, you can ride horses, and a few other animals in the game. But finding saddles is tricky business. It’s not the easiest thing to do!

Can you make saddles in Minecraft?

The short answer? Nope. It’s a little strange that in a game called Minecraft you cannot craft a popular item like saddles. Instead, you need to find one. The good news about saddles is that they’re straightforward to find. Maybe not totally easy, but straightforward.

Finding saddles in chests

The most common place to find saddles is in chests. These chests are scattered around in various places in the Minecraft world. Spots like dungeons, desert temples, and even a Nether Fortress.

Different locations have different likelihoods of having a chest containing a saddle. Your best odds are looking in a Nether Fortress, but that’s more difficult to get to and fight your way through in survival mode.

Fishing for saddles

The easiest way to get a saddle is by fishing. It will take some patience, because each time you fish, you have a slightly less than 1% chance of getting a saddle. But even if you have to fish 100-150 times, you’re very likely to get one. You’ll also get a lot of fish!

Fishing for saddles in Minecraft
Fishing is boring, but it’s an effective way to get a saddle in Minecraft.

This is a boring, but safe and effective way to get a horse saddle. Even if it takes a while, it’s sometimes a lot quicker than mounting an expedition to a desert temple, dungeon, or other remote location in the game.

How you get your saddle is up to you, but once you have it, you can ride tame horses and other animals in Minecraft!

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games

Amazing Minecraft Maps

Have you ever been curious about ways to get more from your game of Minecraft?

You can increase the overall gameplay to limitless levels with Minecraft maps. Minecraft maps are customized made worlds that are preserved within the Minecraft video game.

They may be anything from an incredible role playing experience that draws you within an epic storyline, to a difficult challenge or puzzle training course map that lab tests your dexterity, skills, and issue solving ability.

Minecraft maps are custom-created worlds that players create and save within the Minecraft game. They entail a quest to move from one point to another, following certain restrictions. Consequently, the maps can be anything ranging from a great role playing expedition that immerses a player into a great story to an interesting puzzle map that puts to the test your problem-solving skills. The maps just present endless possibilities, the only limit probably being your imagination. Surprisingly, anyone can create amazingly unique worlds with Minecraft; below is a detailed guide on how to install Minecraft PC Version and create exceptional custom maps.

With Minecraft maps, the options are endless truly. Really the only limit is your very own creativity. Anyone can create their very own world inside the game. Give it a try for yourself and talk about your Minecraft globe with everyone!

Would you like to know how to play these amazing maps? If you are the adventurous kind, then you might want to try Minecraft adventure maps. Let’s learn!

The Minecraft PC edition is built on Java, and you can play on any Mac, Linux or Windows machine provided you’ve installed suitable hardware and software. While Minecraft appears to be simple, beneath the surface, this game is extremely sophisticated. The procedural creation of the game and in- game physics requires decent hardware to truly enjoy. Consequently, the edition has a lengthy demo that its designers highly recommend taking advantage of buying to establish if your computer has everything it takes to enjoy Minecraft experience.

How to sign up and install Minecraft PC Version

Start by signing up for an account free of charge and either play the demon or go straight to buying a copy of the game. Signing up is quite simple; you only provide a valid email address and a password( which you create ). A verification email from the developer prompts you to confirm your email. On clicking on the confirmation link, it takes you to the next stage of the sign-up process: setting up an username and buying the game.

Now proceed to download and install the game . On the download window, select the right download for your PC; if you’re using Windows, select Minecraft. exe; for Linux, or any other OS capable of running JAVA, use Minecraft. jar file. Operating System X users, on the other hand, should use the Minecraft. dmg.

The Different Kinds of Minecraft Maps

There are many different categories or genres of Minecraft Maps that you can play. Here are some of the most popular types.

Adventure Maps

Adventure maps in Minecraft concentrate on telling a story primarily, and enable you to play out the function of the primary character in the experience. Ensure that you read all the in-game text, because they shall offer guidelines on how to proceed, and permit you to follow the main tale of the map.

CTM (Complete the Monument) Maps

In CTM (Complete the Monument) maps, you are positioned in a difficult area filled with dangerous mobs and must survive and discover particular objects that can be utilized to comprehensive a monument.

Horror Maps

If you’re up for a bit of a thrill and want a more tense Minecraft experience, then try out a horror map! Be warned though, most maps have many jump scares, including sounds from custom source packs. Not for the faint of heart.

How to Build Minecraft Maps

Create the landscape; there are several ways to create a great scene including;

Shaping the world by hand; this approach is, however , suitable for a minuscule project and only when you have plenty of free time. Otherwise, you should consider using any of the following mods or programs:

  • MC Edit, an open source program that enables you to update your present world. It is somewhat clunky but has several essential features like the ability to utilize some MC edit features to execute an array of things.
  • World Edit, a portion of the SPC ( Single Player Commands) mod allows you to alter and shape the terrain from inside the game. It, nonetheless, requires some amount of learning curve.
  • Voxel Sniper is a very powerful tool that you can use when terraforming your world. This program is not only versatile but also serves as a wonderful compliment to World Edit.

Build the structure. The choice of the edifice to create depends on what you need for your adventure map.

Add the details; after building the structure, you need to append the details. Use any of the following ways to achieve your objective:

Sign Dialogue

Here you use a symbol to deliver the dialogue the player is speaking to or by. If speaking to; you typically should trap an NPC, Villager or any other item akin to them.

Found Notes

Among the very many ways to implement Found Notes are Image to map which converts a photo to an in- game map and Command Blocks, the most powerful block in Minecraft. The latter, nonetheless, requires that you first switch to creative mode and enable the cheats.

Add loot and additional features; finally, add the loot (if any) for your players along with any other feature hat you might require, like red stone contraptions. It is advisable to be at least relatively handy with red stone because it can significantly affect the impressiveness of your maps.

Minecraft PC edition is the most versatile and evidently provides the most bang-for-money especially if you consider the various multiplayer servers. This version, additionally , allows you to change the entire game using different mod packs entirely. Use the above comprehensive procedure to install and create Minecraft maps. Take your time while building the maps; avoid rushing or setting deadlines that are too tight, because doing so affects, adversely, the quality of the outcome.

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games

Tips for Trading with Villagers in Minecraft

Clicking on a villager can open up a GUI allowing a new player to trade with the villager. NBT data, nevertheless, is ignored, so the content material of a written book will not matter.

In Java Edition, your trades prize the participant with 3-6 experience, or 8-11 experience if the villager is in circumstances where it is ready to breed of dog. Trading a different give may activate an offer once again. This is especially true in Bedrock editions, except that one trades don’t reward any knowledge: the first-tier trades of a Farmer, the rotten flesh trade of a Cleric, the pork chop trade of a Butcher, or the string trade of a Fletcher. For instance, if a farmer villager includes a trade that is 8 pumpkins for 1 emerald, and a collection of 64 pumpkins is exchanged, this will count as 8 tries with each attempt having a 20% possibility to reactivate the villager’s trades. all shepherds will spawn with just two choices, buying wool and offering shears). When they do, they’ll receive Regeneration I and be encircled with purple and green contaminants for a couple seconds. After an give has been used 12 situations, it is guaranteed to end up being deactivated. The opportunity of an offer’s deactivation is certainly random, but an offer can be used at least two times before it is qualified to receive deactivation. When an give is disabled, a crimson X can look in the trading user interface, and it gets the same particle impact as an give being created. Each career includes a set sequence of tiers, and can only unlock a finite amount of offers.

Minecraft desert village viewed from above.

Different careers are designated to each villager, and so are viewable in the trading GUI. They are able to unlock new tiers when a preexisting give is traded. Each tier contains a defined group of trade presents, and the tiers will be the same for just about any given career ( start to see the chart below).

Any trade with a villager is guaranteed to reactivate available choices (and unlock a tier, if some haven’t yet been unlocked) the 1st time it is traded. For instance, brown-robed villagers could be fletchers or fishermen; e. On subsequent trades, it’ll only have a 20% potential for doing this, per trade. etc . blacksmiths could be armorers or weapon smiths; All presents involve emerald as a currency, plus some item pertinent to the villager’s profession. Every villager spawns with tier 1 of their given profession, which range from 2-4 preliminary unlocked trades (i. Remember that the trading GUI should be shut before a villager will unlock a fresh tier.

Villagers will deactivate an give if the offer offers been used some amount of situations. It is certainly also the only legitimate approach to obtaining bottles o’ enchanting in Survival setting.

Villagers will distinguish between harm values, so different shades of wool cannot replace light wool, charcoal can’t be traded instead of coal, and damaged equipment cannot be traded instead of fully repaired equipment. Villagers will make offers predicated on their profession and profession, and can only make trades predicated on what offers that they’re making. Different offers could be seen by pressing the still left and correct buttons next to the presently displayed offer. Trading enables the acquisition of odd products.

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games

A Few Minecraft Paintings

This is a very small collection of a few paintings inspired by scenes from Minecraft. All of these were created with Topaz Studio 2 and Photoshop after starting with some carefully-selected Minecraft screenshots.

Minecraft Village Painting - Van Gogh
A village at night, painted in Van Gogh style.
Canyon surrounded by trees.
A canyon surrounded by trees in an Expressionism style.
Jungle Lagoon from Minecraft
A lagoon deep in the jungle in the style of Edward Hopper

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games

Ready for a New Minecraft Adventure

I’m playing Minecraft again and ready for a new adventure. This morning I decided to begin a brand new game of Survival Mode Minecraft. It’s my favorite mode for gameplay. I love messing around in Creative, but Survival is a lot more fun.

I started near a hill and made the decision to build my house on the top of it.

With any new game, you need to first find wood! I gathered plenty and assembled my first set of tools, including a pickaxe, shovel, and axe. Then I started digging down to try and find some coal to make plenty of torches.

Finding coal is one of the first things to do.

I also dug up a lot of dirt, because the house I wanted to build for my first night was just a simple dirt house. It’s not very exciting, but it works for the first night.

I kept digging down and found some iron. Seven blocks in total, which was enough to start smelting into enough iron bars to make an iron sword and iron pickaxe.

Soon I found some iron, too.

After a lot of digging, I had enough dirt to build my house. It’s ugly, yeah, but it’s home.

Home, sweet, dirt home.

Here I am inside my dirt house, armed with my iron sword and ready to see what more fun I can discover underground.

Ready for adventures, with iron sword in hand.

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games

The Minecraft Villager Up Close and Personal

Villagers are passive Non-Player Character types (NPCs) that spawn and move around in Villages. They have different roles, such as priests, butchers, blacksmiths, farmers, nitwit, and librarians and spawn in their respective buildings. They possess large, bald heads, green eyes, mono-brows, and long, huge noses.

Villagers are considered as one of the most intelligent of all peaceful mobs. However, there are some factors that they are unaware of or pay no attention to. Villagers realize the day-night cycle as well. Villagers are not fond of water, and unlike the other peaceful mobs, will immediately attempt to find an escape route. Villagers will attempt to avoid zombies. However, they do not attempt to escape any attackers except zombies. Unlike other mobs, villagers do not notice when they are set on fire, making any source of fire extremely harmful to a village’s population. Villagers won’t run if they are burning aswell, displaying no try to place the fire out.

Villagers only spawn in villages which may be located only in the flattest (or near to smooth ) biomes, such as for example desert biomes, savannas, and plains. Whenever a villager notices a zombie, they immediately start to hightail it from their website. Villagers are fast plenty of to flee a zombie. Nevertheless, this won’t constantly protect them. When it turns into nighttime, all villagers move in-doors to protection. However , there exists a flaw in this behavior. Whenever it really is raining outside, villagers still understand it as day time. Zombies, however , won’t die since it is raining, and sunlight is not out. This may trigger some villagers to die. Villagers may also run aside when they visit a Vindicator or an Evoker.

A prevalent view in a village will be villagers facing one another, assuming the human-like feature of “talking”. Whenever a player episodes a villager, they possess steam via their heads, most- most likely indicating anger or frustration. By 1 . 6, villagers will make noises (sounding similar to a “hmmm”, a grunt, or a humming audio ). They make sounds on several events: when breeding can be activated, when hit by a new player, or whenever a player trades with one.

Trading with Villagers

Villagers could be bartered with in the overall game for various products based on their ” career ” or kind of villager. The currency that they deal with are emeralds. Some villagers will trade for emeralds, while some will need emeralds and present products. Farmer type villagers, known for his or her brown clothes, are recognized to trade products linked to farming, such as for example wheat, carrots, potatoes, and melon seeds for emeralds, or vice versa. The butcher type, known for the brownish clothes and white apron, will trade for meats such as for example porkchops, beef, mutton, and poultry. It is a lot more common for the trade to need the raw edition of the meats. Priests, which may be identified by their complete purple clothes, trade for Ender Pearls and Eye of Ender. In addition they permit the player to get enchanted products by trading an unenchanted edition of that, and a few emeralds as the price of enchanting that. The blacksmith kind of villager trades for armor and equipment and weapons. The librarian villager is well known for his all white clothes and ” intelligent ” appear, buys paper and offers publication and navigational related products, such as for example bookshelves and compasses. Finally there is an added villager known as the Nitwit, it wears a green robe and will not trade when one correct clicks him.

Villagers all focus on one trade contract. Once the participant will this trade and closes the trading user interface, the villager could have a ” considering ” type animation and develop another trade. This will two things. Initial, it allows even more trading choices, up to maximum of 5 per villager, and second, it resets the trade. Each trade can be utilized 3-5 instances until it should be reset once again. The villager is only going to reset if the ultimate or “newest” trade is completed one or more times. Once all five are unlocked, continuing the last trade will continue steadily to reset the trades, and in addition has a little potential for replacing a preexisting trade with a fresh one.

Trading is among the fastest methods for getting emeralds legitimately in survival setting without the utilization of cheats, while farming pets and crops are much faster than digging for emeralds. This enables players to continuously trade and renew trades that yield emeralds to the participant. That is also known occasionally as “farming emeralds”, or “emerald bartering. “

By Minecraft 1 . 8, the villagers’ trading got a major upgrade. Villagers could will have many trades if they are spawned providing the participant more versatility when trading. Another element that helps can be that whenever trading, fresh trade possibilities may appear depending on just how many fresh trades players possess made already.

The Exploration Upgrade added new “cartographer” villagers, who’ll trade their Exploration Map for a Compass and varied levels of Emeralds gathered by the player.

Popularity with Villagers

A player’s reputation within a specific village could be increased or decreased in lots of ways, with one notable consequence: if the participant has a reputation below -15, naturally spawned Iron Golems can be permanently hostile towards the participant. Popularity could be obtained by trading, breeding, etc ., but will lower by attacking villagers and/or iron golems. A player’s popularity could be saturated in one village, however lower in another.

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games

A Few New Games I’m Looking Forward To Playing

I am usually late to the party with games, especially Fortnite, which has been around for two years and I just got started playing it.

Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, are promoting and selling a lot of new games. Here are some upcoming games that I’m looking forward to playing. I might even play them before everyone else!

Control

After a secretive agency in New York is invaded by an otherworldly threat, you become the new Director struggling to regain Control.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey

Embark on the incredible odyssey of human evolution and begin your journey 10 million years ago in this new adventure from the creator of Assassin’s Creed. This one looks a lot like it’s from a Planet of the Apes movie.

John Wick Hex

John Wick Hex is a fast-paced, action-oriented strategy game that makes you think and strike like John Wick, the professional hitman of the critically acclaimed film franchise. Created in close cooperation with the creative teams behind the films, John Wick Hex is fight-choreographed chess brought to life as a video game, capturing the series’ signature gun fu style while expanding its story universe. Players must make quick decisions and choose every action and attack they make, all the while considering their immediate cost and consequences.

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games

Playing Fortnite

I might be the last person on planet Earth to play Fortnite, but I finally gave it a try. It was good. Not great. Just good.

You probably already know what Fortnite is, but just in case you have avoided it like me, Fortnite is a massive multiplayer online video game released in 2017. It was developed by Epic Games. The game includes three different game modes released as early access: Save the World, Battle Royale, and Creative.

Landing in Fortnite

Fortnite Battle Royale is the free 100-player PvP mode in Fortnite. It brings players together on one giant map, with building and destructible environments combined with intense PvP combat. The rules are simple and the win condition easy to grasp: the last player standing wins.

Save the World a cooperative shooter-survival game with up to 4-man squad to fight off husks and defend mission objectives with fortifications and defenses. Along with the arrival of Season 7, Creative mode was introduced. For the first time, players could create their own islands with provided prefabs, devices, and standard Battle Royale weapons and items.

Fortnite Tips

  • Use crouch to reduce your profile, or to hide behind smaller objects.
  • Shotguns, SMGs, and Pistols are effective at close range.
  • To play it safe, land with teammates and stay away from enemy players.
  • You can shoot at trees, rocks, and structures to destroy them.
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games

Fallout Shelter is Fun

Finally Some Alone Time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well my weekend was dedicated to playing Fallout Shelter, the new game from Bethesda Softworks. These are the guys that make the Fallout series of games and Fallout Shelter is intended to be a simple and humorous departure from the genre. It’s only available on iOS, so I had to “borrow” my mom’s iPad this weekend since I’ve recently switched over to an Android tablet.

The game is fun to play. It’s a lot like Tiny Tower from Nimblebit, but set in a post-apocalyptic version of the 1950’s. It’s also pretty funny. I was laughing at a lot of the pickup lines that the characters use when talking to each other in the living areas. One thing we can see about living in a vault underground: everyone is horny. Here are some classic examples of cheesy pick-up lines on display:

Do you have a map? I’m getting lost in your eyes.
If I seem drunk it’s only because I find you intoxicating.
If I could sing, I’d totally write a song about you.

The game itself is very simple. There are three resources that you need to provide: power, food and clean water. You assign your residents (known as dwellers in the game) to different rooms based on their skills. If you place them in the “right” jobs, then they are happy, and your vault’s overall happiness is the key to productivity.

You can also send dwellers out of the vault into the Wasteland on exploration missions. They’ll earn XP and collect money (known as CAPS in the game) and will also find gear, such as weapons and outfits.

There are some great tips and tricks here and a full guide to Fallout Shelter strategy and cheats here.