HB's Weekly Mod Digest Series Week 5

1. What am I working on? My Next Mods: Structures Over Time, Villager Economy

2. Minecraft Game Mechanics: Puzzles in Games – which games do you find the most fun?

3. Shout-out a lesser known mod: Road Architect

More of My work, here

Before we begin, I am always looking to collaborate with members of the community:

• Pixel artists
• 3D Modelers and animators
• Story Writers
• Modpack makers

I am willing to pay for art; but I also have plenty of projects to work on so I believe we could find a project we both want to bring to life. Thanks!

1. Next Mod(s) – Beginning some R&D on some new mods, here is a bit about them

Structures over Time – Structures grow and change over time

• Feature #1 – Structures build themselves into other structures over time.
• Feature #2 – Construction of certain structures is delayed until later in the game. For example, maybe we don't want players looting villages so early in the game, so we delay until the player travels to the nether
• Technical Implementation: Challenging. I have built a system to track the creation and location of structures already, but it will take some hacking to stop the game from building them immediately. Moreover, I need to save the state of the world (the terrain) before any structure is constructed so the new structure blends in with the terrain just as well.

Villager Economy – Giving Vanilla villages a sense of progression

• Feature #1 – The village has a mayor and he trades on behalf of the needs for the entire village – very macro trades like stacks of wood, stacks of food, and iron.
• Feature #2 – Higher level villages can train higher level specialists. This presents a steadier and more game stage reliant way for players to get their high level trades from AI.
• Feature #3 – Villages physically grow, become better at defending themselves, trade with other villages.

Technical: I am not trying to create Minecolonies here. The villages will be much smaller in scale, not as pretty and would improve themselves. But this is a GREAT way for players to convert a large VOLUME of items into an end goal. The implementation is significant again, but really just relies on being able to save the village level and give each villager a concept of "ownership" to the town he's in to dictate his trades. Since a player should only have at most 16 or so concurrent villages? I can keep all villages levels and resource counts in RAM at all times and write it out to the chunk.

Builder's Paradise – Vanilla themed building mod

• Feature #1 – A Theodolite is a land surveyor's tool used to mark different boundaries. I would add a vanilla style one with the eyeglass. This would allow the player to place pre-templated simple shapes from a Creative Mode style Menu.
• Feature #2 – this is distinct from axiom or world edit by being survival mode focused. Also the shapes are pre-templated such as:
  • Circles of various sizes
  • Cubes
  • Platforms, archways, pillars
  • Simple rooms or houses

Technical Implementation: Hopefully I would be able to build off of something like Axiom to make my life easier. But otherwise here the main challenge is UI design. I think mods like Axiom or Litematica focus on being so feature-filled that they lose their simplicity. These are great and useful mods, but require players to learn a new system and often takes players out of the vanilla game in a very explicit fashion.

2. In Game Puzzles – Minecraft and Beyond

Most games could be described as one big multi-part puzzle. Some games do a great job disguising it with a theme – like Nintendo games with Mario or our favorite RPG games like Skyrim, Zelda, Fallout etc. but it's really just one brain teaser after another. Even Boss Fights are puzzles in a way – you have to figure out the boss's patterns before you can beat him effectively.

Which games have the best puzzles? Mario or DK "level style" puzzles have been popular for decades even though the mechanics have stayed largely the same – run, jump, and "ability". Zelda is best known for its shrines or temples which are very explicit "puzzles" for the player to solve. And of course most popular games have "fighting puzzles" ranging from RPG games, to Pokemon to wildly complex Fighting style games. Modern games have blended the "macro puzzle" – a player's overall stats or "build" into their smaller puzzles which is a spectacularly fun concept BUT also introduces plenty of ways to "cheat" many of the smaller levels. This is not a problem in single player settings as long as you are having fun, but can be a problem in multiplayer settings like Minecraft.

Puzzles in Minecraft's Open World

Minecraft is simultaneously one of the best puzzle games in the world, and one of the worst.

Pros:

• Truly open world means infinite creativity for puzzle solving
• Each Playthrough is always unique
• Player can choose to engage or disengage any puzzle at any time

Cons:

• Players can reap the rewards of a puzzle without taking the challenge
• Players can reach challenges they are not aptly leveled for
• Playing the game in a "boring" way is often safer, but doesn't encourage engagement

My Favorite Puzzle Style and Designing the Best Puzzles

Zelda's Breath of the Wild Shrines

• Clearly understood objectives – The puzzle should exist in a space where it's clear what the player should do. BoTW even added signs if it was ever unclear. Nice!
• Multiple Solutions – (BoTW did not always do a great job at this, many puzzles were still very contrived)
• Reward for the puzzle is appropriate to the challenge taken – BoTW had a great solution here: adding EXTRA chests to the challenge shrines for players who attempted the special challenge letting players choose
• Multiple Attempts – This is difficult. Challenges are most fun when there is risk – but you also want players to be able to learn from their mistakes and not to deter them to the point of frustration. When players are new to a challenge or game, they should have infinite attempts. If they decide to replay the game on a harder difficulty, more risk should be ascribed by reducing the reward based on the number of attempts.

What can Minecraft learn from other games about Puzzles?

• I think vanilla Minecraft has a fine approach to puzzles. It is not highly structured, but the open world creativity allows players to encounter their own puzzles anywhere in the world – whether that's finding diamonds, looting a dangerous structure, or recovering their lost items in a swarm of mobs
• I think Modded Minecraft can find a way to incorporate local respawn points to encourage risk taking and multiple attempts – like respawn anchors in the Nether
• There have been some attempts to restrict a player breaking or placing blocks around certain structures like by giving them Mining Fatigue – this is not a bad idea but it's important that the debuff is thematically integrated and ideally that it can be disabled later

3. Weekly Mod Showcase: Road Architect

• Road Architect is such a cool mod. Road Architect occasionally creates paths between unrelated structures – these paths are not very refined, they are often short and patchy, they seem ancient.
• These Roads are thematically appropriate for vanilla Minecraft, but also add some flair and distinction to the world.
• These roads also add some utility by pointing explorers in the directions of nearby structures.