Minecraft - page 2

When it was first released on iOS devices in 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was just a shadow of what it was on the PC. Where as the PC version contained infinite worlds, Pocket Edition’s worlds were tiny and self-contained. There were no monsters, nor underground chasms. And so on.

For Minecraft fans hoping to play the game on the go, these omissions were disappointing. But over the years, slowly but surely, Pocket Edition has caught up with the features of its progenitor, and the 0.9.0 updated, released yesterday, makes Minecraft: Pocket Edition almost indistinguishable from having the PC version in your pocket.

Hundreds of new games come out every week in the App Store. A select few are the next must-play title that everyone will be talking about (and ripping off) for the foreseeable future. Most of them are perfectly decent but may not receive the attention they deserve. And then you have the third group: games so odd, bizarre, and head-scratching that you’re not sure what to make of or do with them.

They aren’t necessarily bad; they’re just confusing and weird. And worst of all, people may never know that they exist. But that’s why we’re here.

Here are some of the strangest games to drop into the App Store this week. What you do with this information is between you and your iPhone.

I have a really random PlayStation 2 game on my shelf called Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color. It came out in North America in 2002, and it was basically a game in which you drew your own Pokémon and then made them fight.

Animal-abuse undertones aside, it was at least an interesting concept, and MonsterCrafter Pro follows in that same proud, if morally gray, tradition. But instead of drawing your murder-pets, you build them out of Minecraft blocks.

It’s a weird game for sure, but it has its charms.

By now you’ve heard all about the catastrophic Heartbleed bug and how it has siphoned passwords, credit card numbers, emails and other data to the vampires who would drain all of us dry. From your love life (OKCupid) to your tax returns, there’s a lot at stake.

Since 66% of web servers are vulnerable to the bug, that means you’re faced with only task more fun than decluttering the garage: changing your passwords.

To help you on your password resetting chores, we’ve compiled the best tools to make the process as quick and painless as possible. Also, they’ll sync your new passwords to your iPhone — all in under 10 minutes. Leaving you time to watch Silicon Valley again.  You’re welcome.

Here’s how:

Do you love playing Minecraft on your iPhone or iPad? So do we, but you’ve got to admit, there’s some compromises in playing Minecraft: Pocket Edition compared to the Mac, not least of which the size of the worlds. On the Mac, Minecraft worlds are infinite, but on iOS, they are extremely limited. But according to a new blog post, that’s about to change soon.

Don’t Starve’s intuitive nature from beginning to end makes it a highly addictive and enjoyable game to play, and almost perfectly teeters the edge of becoming a major time drain…without going quite that far. The combination of that well balanced gameplay and it’s super cool overall design makes it one of the best of the year.

And you can get Don’t Starve for 33% off – only $9.99 – courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple fanboys dream of getting inside the locked gates of heaven Apple HQ in Cupertino but if you’d rather not brave blitzing past the security guards to see all the toys inside Jony’s design studio, you can now get a complete Minecraft tour of Apple’s cubed campus from your computer.

Over the last two years Michael Steeber has meticulously recreated every detail of Apple’s headquarters this mind blowing Minecraft map. Not only did The Steeb nail the entryway and the major buildings, but you also get a look at the avenues, cafes, basketball & volleyball courts, atrium, parking lots, even the BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse across the street.

Take a full tour of the campus in the video below:

Mojang’s Minecraft is one of the best games on the Mac, but the iPhone and iPad version has always been slightly behind when it comes to features. But with its latest update, the biggest yet, Minecraft – Pocket Edition is catching up, adding some of Minecraft’s best features, including the ability to make roller coasters with minecars and rails!

Populous. The Sims. Minecraft. There’s something about simulation games that I’ve always enjoyed. There are other ones that I’m too fond of (honestly, I find World of Warcraft almost too time-consuming for it to be enjoyable), and others that I will spend hours playing knowing there is a definite end point. Examples of ones I really enjoy would be the Fable series and Star Wars simulation-style games mainly because depending on the choices I make – being good or evil – can really affect the outcome.

Sim City was another I played for hours growing up, and there were several others which caught my attention from time to time that followed a similar theme. The “Tycoon” series of games were personal favorites, and this Cult of Mac Deals offer features one of those games – Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Platinum – for only $4.99!

As we continue to look at some tips for the new OS X beta this week, remember that OS X Mavericks isn’t a final version—it’s meant to be used by developers to ensure that their software will work with Apple’s latest and greatest.

With that disclaimer in mind, let’s continue.

If you need to use Java for any reason on your Mac, and you install OS X Mavericks beta on it, you’ll be sad when you try and run that Java-reliant bit of software.

For me, it was setting up the Minecraft server for my kid after I installed the beta last night to take a look at things. When I went to run it in Terminal, I got an error, saying there was no Java installed. So, even though I’d had Java installed in Mac OS X Mountain Lion, the Mavericks install seems to have taken Java off my Mac. No worries; it was kind of an easy fix.

Here at Cult of Mac, we’re huge fans of Philips Hue LED lightbulbs and Minecraft. Any hack, then, that mashes together the two and we’re in… especially if there’s a father delighting his ten year old, Minecraft-obsessed son at the end!

Which is why Jim Rutherford’s Hue/Minecraft hack is so awesome. It uses the Hue, Minecraft and an iPad to make the lights around you correspond to the game’s pixellated day cycles.

The Blockheads is a fantastic iOS game that captures so much of the Minecraft experience, it’s a must play for any but the most jaded of iOS gamers.

It updated today, with all sorts of great stuff. You can now warp in up to four players, twice the two previously available. My kids and I are gonna have a ton of fun with this one. You can find fish in the sea, craft a fishing rod to catch them, and hopefully not get eaten by sharks there, either. Also, there’s a way to make tin foil, which lets you roast those fish on a campfire, canceling out the most hunger possible in game. Or, you know, make a tin foil hat.

When Minecraft Pocket Edition first launched, it wasn’t anything like the desktop (and now Xbox 360) versions; it was a neutered stub of a game. But with each update, the PE version gets more and more awesome as it adds the cool features of its big brothers. This update brings wearable armor, craftable signs, new renewable resources in the form of baby livestock and makes gravel and sand follow the rules of gravity.

Unfortunately, there might also be a bug that destroys your entire world.

This is fantastic. The block-based building game Minecraft has been used to recreate pretty much everything under the sun, from the U.S.S. Enterprise to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, but for the Apple fan, this is the best one yet: a complete recreation of Apple’s Infinite Loop campus put together by Reddit user Sam Schwab for his Discrete Mathematics class.

Move over, Mojang! The Blockheads, inspired by such open-world exploration games as Mojang’s certified hit, Minecraft, is the best implementation of the genre yet, out Minecrafting even the official Minecraft game released for iOS some time ago.

You start the game as either a single or 2 player experience. The two player game promises online multiplayer with voice chat via Game Center, while the single player is what I’ve spent my afternoon messing with on both my iPhone and iPad mini. It’s seriously sticky, with all the kinds of things that made me sink hundreds of hours into the Mac version of Minecraft a couple of years ago. There’s crafting and mining, day and night cycles, sleep, a huge open world to explore, and more.

Minecraft fans might be interested in Minecraft Reality, a two-dollar app that popped up in the Store last week. It lets you insert Minecraft-created 3D models into the real world, which sounds pretty cool. But it has some limitations.

So you want to know what apps will best take advantage of your new iPhone 5 when you get it in your hot little hands this coming Friday? One way is to start searching AppShopper using a search string that includes “iPhone 5.” This will net you a real-time list of all the apps currently in the app store that have the text string in their “What’s New” update description in the App Store.

The App Store has had its fair share of apps and games that attempt to replicate a hit title that isn’t available on iOS — like the numerous Super Mario clones we’ve seen over the years. But MineKart 64 is a little different. It takes not just one, but two hit titles — Minecraft and Mario Kart — and fuses them together.

It’s literally Minecraft kart racing — what could be more enjoyable than that?

Only it’s not that at all. It’s actually a complete scam that you should avoid at all costs.

Minecraft fans, rejoice. Minecraft Pocket Edition just got updated to 0.3.0, and the new release finally adds the feature you’ve all been waiting for: crafting. Oh, and cows and chickens too.

We eagerly waited for Mojang to release the much anticipated port of Minecraft for almost a year, and while we ended up loving Minecraft: Pocket Edition on its own merits, it was missing a lot of stuff from the desktop game, including crafting, monsters and more.

If you were disappointed by Minecraft: Pocket Edition, though, turn that frown upside down. A post on the official Mojang blog says that their future plans include bringing many of the desktop’s best features to the mobile edition.

It’s here. It’s Minecraft. And now you can play it on your iOS device. Clap your blocky hands together and praise Notch.

If you’ve played Minecraft before, this isn’t quite the game you’re used to. As it stands, Minecraft: Pocket Edition is a stripped-down version that removes what many existing fans of the game will say are the best bits. Don’t pay too much attention to the complaints, though, because there’s still a lot of fun to be had with what remains.

We’re unabashed fans of Mojang’s Minecraft, and we’ve been waiting forever for the popular block-based exploration game to hit the iPad. Now it’s just twelve or so hours away from being here, but for those of us hoping for the full Minecraft experience, think again.

The Jobs tributes show no sign of slowing down. Some Minecraft players have been getting busy building their own Jobs tributes out of blocky Minecraft stuff. The one above, by KickAssTechnology, is particularly nicely done and ends on a poignant tone.

There’s more where that came from.

Indie sensation Minecraft is coming to smartphones this year… but it won’t be coming to iOS first. Instead, it’ll debut on Android as an exclusive to the so-called PlayStation Phone, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. It’s a betrayal that especially hurts given the fact that Minecraft was briefly available on the App Store last year.

The incredible indie sensation Minecraft has sold over 1.3 million copies since it was first released halfway through last year, and it’s still only in beta. Expect the amount of copies sold to quickly grow as high as one of Minecraft‘s physics-defying, voxel-based fantasy structures in 2011, though, because dev Mojang has just announced that Minecraft will be coming to iOS in 2011.