I liked the idea of a survivor island in the sky like the popular SkyBlock map, but without creative mode or the ability to download custom maps, it's hard to do something equivalent on the XBox version.
So I just built a dirt stairway up to level 80 or so above an ocean harbor, built the sky island, populated the chest, grew a tree, then waited forever for grass to grow up the stairs. Once it finally did, I destroyed the stairway on my way up to the island, and tossed all my extra tools and inventory off the side.
Seemed to work ok, with the following caveats:
• Falling into water isn't fatal, I have to allow myself to drown if/ when I fall. Ideally, it should be over hard ground or even better, lava.
• pack a bed in the chest, or enough wool or perhaps string to make one. If you don't, you'll respawn off your floating island when you die.
The biggest problem, though, is that mobs still spawn down on the land around you, so are less likely to spawn on your spawner/trap when you build it. I tried to light up any caves I found before starting the challenge, but I'm sure I missed some.
If you're not familiar with the challenge, here are the rules (modified some for the Xbox):
Prepare the challenge by building an island in the sky consisting of no more than 81 blocks of grassy dirt. The island should hold only one medium tree and a chest containing:
• 2 buckets of water
• 1 bucket of lava
• 1 sugarcane
• 1 cactus
• 1 brown mushroom
• 1 red mushroom
• 1 bone
• 3 sand
• 1 bed
The objective is to survive and thrive on this tiny island in the sky. Challenges include:
- build a cobblestone generator
- build an infinite water pool
- farm wheat
- farm 2 types of mushrooms
- farm cactus
- farm sugarcane
- build a mob spawner and trap
- make bread
- make mushroom stew
- make a cake (very hard, but not impossible!)
- cook a fish
- cook a pork chop
- make all possible wool colors (everything except those requiring lapis should be possible, though not easy)
Hints:
- Learn how to sneak!
- learn how to hover in a waterfall and build upside-down
- keep nearly everything in the chest, in case you fall!
- use your initial bonemeal on grass to get seeds
Good luck!
Any other good challenges you can think of?
Any easy way to remove everything down to bedrock for a more authentic SkyBlock experience?
Here is what I have, well its done its based off Skyblock 2.1 but had to be changed a tad due to not everything working or in the Xbox version yet. I only need testers to make sure people spawn where I want them but who's to say, said testers will nick my work & release it,
When making it it took a bloody age to get grass up there :@ (wish i just used the editor as I had to in the end for Ice blocks) & the nether portal island, I had to make so that people would spawn where I want them to in the nether.
M rule set.
Original Concept: Noobcrew
SkyBlock Survival Xbox style.
Rules:
If another player joins use water to help him/her up.
If you fall off, without sleeping in a bed it's GAME OVER!
Don't go to ground level.
Don't play on Peaceful.
Please dont go to the mainland
Challenges:
1) Build a Cobble Stone generator.
2) Build a house.
3) Expand the island.
4) Make a reed/sugarcane farm.
5) Make a wheat farm.
6) Make 64 stone brick's.
7) Make 20 torches.
8) Make an infinite water source.
9) Craft a furnace.
10) Make a small lake.
11) Build a platform 24 blocks away from the island, for mobs to spawn.
12) Make 10 cactus green dye.
13) Make 10 mushroom stew.
14) Craft 10 bookcases.
15) Make 10 bread.
16) Cook 10 fish.
17) Craft 10 Black Wool.
18) Craft 10 Gray Wool.
19) Craft 10 Light Gray Wool.
20) Craft 10 Lime Green Wool.
21) Craft 10 Red Wool.
22) Craft 10 Yellow Wool.
23) Craft 10 Pink Wool.
24) Craft 10 Green Wool.
25) Craft 10 Orange Wool.
26) Craft 20 Paintings.
27) Build and light a nether portal.
28) Craft 16 Glass Panes.
29) Collect 50 birch logs.
30) Collect 64 arrows and craft a bow.
31) Craft 10 stone buttons.
32) Craft 30 stone slabs.
33) Craft 10 signs.
34) Craft 20 ladders.
35) Craft 20 fences.
36) Craft 10 levers.
37) Craft 10 trapdoors.
38) Craft 10 stone pressure plates.
39) Craft 10 wooden pressure plates.
40) Collect 64 bonemeal.
41) Craft 20 cobblestone stairs.
Being new to Minecraft I came by this recently and thought it seemed intriguing. I think those that went through the trouble of setting it up before creative is released are brave since it obviously takes some work granted some may do the dupe but there are risks involved there.
I think I'd like to try this sometime. Seems like a great way to break up the norm.
Wanted to post this video by TheLMNOSteve, which shows how to build yourself a SkyBlock challenge on XBox:
Nice tutorial!
A few comments:
I like the sand tower to the sky, that's a very fast and easy way to get up there, LostDose mentioned a similar technique with gravel. I definitely would drop down a waterfall and knock down the tower, though, instead of leaving it connected to the ground.
Painful as it is, I definitely think its worth taking the time to make a dirt stair so that grass can grow. Not just for seeds, but also for flowers (for red and yellow dye) and for future spawning of animals. Otherwise, you'd have to eliminate all those goals from the challenge. I think I'm going to run some tests and see the fastest way to get grass up there.
Obsidian block is a clever replacement for the bedrock in the original, but I'm not convinced its necessary. The reason the bedrock was there in the original is so that you could never eliminate the ground under the player's spawn point. On XBox, the spawn point is going to be your bed, or if it can't find that, the original spawn point down on land. I suppose you could leave it there as a deliberate annoyance, if you want, but it doesn't accomplish the same purpose as it did originally.
Because of the spawning difference in XBox, you might as well go ahead and lay a bed on the island when you create it, and sleep it in to reset the spawn point before you officially "start the challenge". In that case, you wouldn't need to include any wool or string in the chest.
I have 3 buckets in mine, too. A single bucket is possible, but more difficult (you'd have to pour two of the waters underneath the soil as part of the platform design, then toss the buckets). I really like the eventual possibility of making a cake, though, if you can ever spawn chicken and cows.
I had one bone in mine as well, although its probably not officially required (if you can get some skeletons to spawn)
I kind of like the idea of being above the cloud level, to make it harder to see the ground. I don't like working in the clouds, though. I wish we had more than 128 blocks of vertical space to work with, or that it was easy to clear out most/all of the land beneath you (or generate a SUPERFLAT world)
I like being over land, makes the penalty of falling off a bit more real than working over water.
My next one, I think I'll do over a snow biome. Might be a bit of a pain to deal with water freezing, but most of the PC videos have had to deal with this, and it opens the possibilities for some snow-related objects (well, just snow balls and snow blocks, I suppose)
TheLMNOSteve has some related videos showing the first few days of work on the island. Check them out!
Nice video find. I think it would be nice to have an official rule list for the XBOX version since there are some things you may not be able to do compared to the PC. I think it would benefit the new Minecraft players who are unfamiliar with this gametype. I only found out about it recently myself since the Xbox version is my gateway to the Minecraft world.
I experimented with grass growth yesterday quite a bit: a 2-wide or 3-wide staircase is far, far better than a single-wide staircase (grass gets to a 10-high platform 2-3x as fast as a single-wide staircase. 3-wide was only slightly better than 2-wide, so probably isn't worth the extra effort to build.
Lighting up the dirt stairs so grass grows at night is also highly recommended.
This link seems to say that grass grows faster toward the North and East than toward the South and West, but I haven't confirmed that (or does that link mean it grows faster from the North and East?).
My recommendation would be to build the dirt staircase right away when you first spawn your new world, then travel around gathering the rest of your resources (sugarcane, mushrooms, cactus, lava, buckets, etc.). By the time you have everything you need to build the skyblock platform, the grass should be at or near the top.
Once we have pistons with 1.7.3, it should be much, much easier and faster to get that grass block up to the sky: (meta-question: how do I embed a youtube video, instead of just the link? Edit: Thanks, Rocky5!)
Does anyone have a seed they would recommend for "U-Build SkyBlock" that has easy access to sugarcane, cactus, mushrooms and lava near the spawn point?
Went through the "MCXBLA Best Seeds List" and while there were several that mentioned mushrooms, there was one in particular that gave turn-by-turn instructions of how to find both types of mushrooms, sugarcane, and cactus from the spawn point: Seed is "Greywind", originally posted at http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1246857-mcxbla-best-seeds-list/page__view__findpost__p__15554270 Let's see if I can quote it here (it is long, so I'll put it in SPOILER tags):
Like any self-respecting geek would, I've been using the names of characters, cities, and countries from my old AD&D campaign as world seeds... and the capital city of my main country, Greywind, has turned out to be a pretty awesome seed when starting out. You start out facing toward this pretty epic wall. (Climb straight ahead and up to the high ground so you can see it.) There are also sheep and cows and pigs all over the place.
Turn to your left, and you'll see a couple of red mushrooms by a tree in the distance.
Head down there and to your left to find some dandelions and grass, if you're into that sort of thing.
Continue through this area, and you'll find a sandy beach area.
There's a huge lake on the right, but bear left.
You'll see a bunch more grass and some roses as you continue. Climb this slope.
Beyond the roses you'll see a cave. (Screenshots taken in peaceful mode, but there are usually five or six mobs in here, generally including one or two creepers.)
Just inside this cave you'll see a small vein of iron and another of coal.
Continue through the cave to find a cluster of brown mushrooms.
Head to your left out of this cave mouth to find a stand of birch trees.
It's easy to overlook, but there's a bit of sugar cane here. There's more on the opposite shore of the lake.
If you need cactus, head back to the huge lake you passed on the way here, and continue past it.
You'll reach another sandy area leading to a small wooded area.
Cross through the wooded area to find true desert and cactus.
The directions are pretty easy to follow: bear to your left. That's more or less it, unless you need to detour for cactus. It covers pretty much all the stuff there is to be had above ground in a reasonably compact area that can be covered before the first nightfall, leaving you free to concentrate on other stuff thereafter. Since I'm rather keenly aware that this doesn't look like other threads in this section, and also that I'm kind of new here, feel free to read me the riot act if this isn't the sort of thing you were looking for.
Seems like a decent choice for a skyblock seed. I'll try it out and see if it is easy enough to find the remaining items.
A Junara like map on 360 would be awesome. For those that don't know about Junara go to this link on Youtube
Seriously check it out. Love these videos and the guys that do them. Awesome Minecraft videos and for this to be in Xbox would be a dream come true
A Junara like map on 360 would be awesome. For those that don't know about Junara go to this link on Youtube
Seriously check it out. Love these videos and the guys that do them. Awesome Minecraft videos and for this to be in Xbox would be a dream come true
That would be cool, but no one is going to take the time to make something like that & have no way of sharing it since is forbidden on these forums.
That would be cool, but no one is going to take the time to make something like that & have no way of sharing it since is forbidden on these forums.
I know and the MC worlds in XBL aren't big enough to support that anyways but maybe someday we'll have something like that for xbox. (a guy can dream right?)
I confirmed that the "Greywind" seed provides all the required materials for a do-it-yourself skyblock construction, although finding lava either requires traveling to the extreme NW corner or digging down towards bedrock. (The seed also contains some epic mountain ranges and even a "natural" floating island with a single tree!)
I think I found a better seed for an easy SkyBlock start, however: the popular seed "Quesadila" has a surface skeleton dungeon near the spawn that contains one bucket and 6 more iron ingots (that gives you your 3 required buckets and your bonemeal). I have the coordinates for both mushroom types, sugarcane, and cactus, and there is a big lava lake nearby (that starts a forest fire):
I'll post the coordinates for the mushrooms when I get home tonight.
So I just built a dirt stairway up to level 80 or so above an ocean harbor, built the sky island, populated the chest, grew a tree, then waited forever for grass to grow up the stairs. Once it finally did, I destroyed the stairway on my way up to the island, and tossed all my extra tools and inventory off the side.
Seemed to work ok, with the following caveats:
• Falling into water isn't fatal, I have to allow myself to drown if/ when I fall. Ideally, it should be over hard ground or even better, lava.
• pack a bed in the chest, or enough wool or perhaps string to make one. If you don't, you'll respawn off your floating island when you die.
The biggest problem, though, is that mobs still spawn down on the land around you, so are less likely to spawn on your spawner/trap when you build it. I tried to light up any caves I found before starting the challenge, but I'm sure I missed some.
If you're not familiar with the challenge, here are the rules (modified some for the Xbox):
Prepare the challenge by building an island in the sky consisting of no more than 81 blocks of grassy dirt. The island should hold only one medium tree and a chest containing:
• 2 buckets of water
• 1 bucket of lava
• 1 sugarcane
• 1 cactus
• 1 brown mushroom
• 1 red mushroom
• 1 bone
• 3 sand
• 1 bed
The objective is to survive and thrive on this tiny island in the sky. Challenges include:
- build a cobblestone generator
- build an infinite water pool
- farm wheat
- farm 2 types of mushrooms
- farm cactus
- farm sugarcane
- build a mob spawner and trap
- make bread
- make mushroom stew
- make a cake (very hard, but not impossible!)
- cook a fish
- cook a pork chop
- make all possible wool colors (everything except those requiring lapis should be possible, though not easy)
Hints:
- Learn how to sneak!
- learn how to hover in a waterfall and build upside-down
- keep nearly everything in the chest, in case you fall!
- use your initial bonemeal on grass to get seeds
Good luck!
Any other good challenges you can think of?
Any easy way to remove everything down to bedrock for a more authentic SkyBlock experience?
(Edited subject line from SkyCraft to SkyBlock)
Full credit for the idea/inspiration goes to Noobcrew.
Here's his original 400+ page thread in the MAPS forum: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/600254-surv-skyblock/
Here's what your world should look like, three 3x3 cubes of dirt connected in an L shape:
Plenty of videos tutorials out there, obviously on PC, not XBox:
Anyone else made their own SkyBlock challenge level on XBox?
When making it it took a bloody age to get grass up there :@ (wish i just used the editor as I had to in the end for Ice blocks) & the nether portal island, I had to make so that people would spawn where I want them to in the nether.
M rule set.
Original Concept: Noobcrew
SkyBlock Survival Xbox style.
Rules:
If another player joins use water to help him/her up.
If you fall off, without sleeping in a bed it's GAME OVER!
Don't go to ground level.
Don't play on Peaceful.
Please dont go to the mainland
Challenges:
1) Build a Cobble Stone generator.
2) Build a house.
3) Expand the island.
4) Make a reed/sugarcane farm.
5) Make a wheat farm.
6) Make 64 stone brick's.
7) Make 20 torches.
8) Make an infinite water source.
9) Craft a furnace.
10) Make a small lake.
11) Build a platform 24 blocks away from the island, for mobs to spawn.
12) Make 10 cactus green dye.
13) Make 10 mushroom stew.
14) Craft 10 bookcases.
15) Make 10 bread.
16) Cook 10 fish.
17) Craft 10 Black Wool.
18) Craft 10 Gray Wool.
19) Craft 10 Light Gray Wool.
20) Craft 10 Lime Green Wool.
21) Craft 10 Red Wool.
22) Craft 10 Yellow Wool.
23) Craft 10 Pink Wool.
24) Craft 10 Green Wool.
25) Craft 10 Orange Wool.
26) Craft 20 Paintings.
27) Build and light a nether portal.
28) Craft 16 Glass Panes.
29) Collect 50 birch logs.
30) Collect 64 arrows and craft a bow.
31) Craft 10 stone buttons.
32) Craft 30 stone slabs.
33) Craft 10 signs.
34) Craft 20 ladders.
35) Craft 20 fences.
36) Craft 10 levers.
37) Craft 10 trapdoors.
38) Craft 10 stone pressure plates.
39) Craft 10 wooden pressure plates.
40) Collect 64 bonemeal.
41) Craft 20 cobblestone stairs.
I think I'd like to try this sometime. Seems like a great way to break up the norm.
Wish there was a supported method for downloading/sharing maps on XBLA!
Nice tutorial!
A few comments:
- I like the sand tower to the sky, that's a very fast and easy way to get up there, LostDose mentioned a similar technique with gravel. I definitely would drop down a waterfall and knock down the tower, though, instead of leaving it connected to the ground.
- Painful as it is, I definitely think its worth taking the time to make a dirt stair so that grass can grow. Not just for seeds, but also for flowers (for red and yellow dye) and for future spawning of animals. Otherwise, you'd have to eliminate all those goals from the challenge. I think I'm going to run some tests and see the fastest way to get grass up there.
- Obsidian block is a clever replacement for the bedrock in the original, but I'm not convinced its necessary. The reason the bedrock was there in the original is so that you could never eliminate the ground under the player's spawn point. On XBox, the spawn point is going to be your bed, or if it can't find that, the original spawn point down on land. I suppose you could leave it there as a deliberate annoyance, if you want, but it doesn't accomplish the same purpose as it did originally.
- Because of the spawning difference in XBox, you might as well go ahead and lay a bed on the island when you create it, and sleep it in to reset the spawn point before you officially "start the challenge". In that case, you wouldn't need to include any wool or string in the chest.
- I have 3 buckets in mine, too. A single bucket is possible, but more difficult (you'd have to pour two of the waters underneath the soil as part of the platform design, then toss the buckets). I really like the eventual possibility of making a cake, though, if you can ever spawn chicken and cows.
- I had one bone in mine as well, although its probably not officially required (if you can get some skeletons to spawn)
- I kind of like the idea of being above the cloud level, to make it harder to see the ground. I don't like working in the clouds, though. I wish we had more than 128 blocks of vertical space to work with, or that it was easy to clear out most/all of the land beneath you (or generate a SUPERFLAT world)
- I like being over land, makes the penalty of falling off a bit more real than working over water.
- My next one, I think I'll do over a snow biome. Might be a bit of a pain to deal with water freezing, but most of the PC videos have had to deal with this, and it opens the possibilities for some snow-related objects (well, just snow balls and snow blocks, I suppose)
TheLMNOSteve has some related videos showing the first few days of work on the island. Check them out!Lighting up the dirt stairs so grass grows at night is also highly recommended.
This link seems to say that grass grows faster toward the North and East than toward the South and West, but I haven't confirmed that (or does that link mean it grows faster from the North and East?).
My recommendation would be to build the dirt staircase right away when you first spawn your new world, then travel around gathering the rest of your resources (sugarcane, mushrooms, cactus, lava, buckets, etc.). By the time you have everything you need to build the skyblock platform, the grass should be at or near the top.
Once we have pistons with 1.7.3, it should be much, much easier and faster to get that grass block up to the sky: (meta-question: how do I embed a youtube video, instead of just the link? Edit: Thanks, Rocky5!)
Does anyone have a seed they would recommend for "U-Build SkyBlock" that has easy access to sugarcane, cactus, mushrooms and lava near the spawn point?
Seriously check it out. Love these videos and the guys that do them. Awesome Minecraft videos and for this to be in Xbox would be a dream come true
That would be cool, but no one is going to take the time to make something like that & have no way of sharing it
I know and the MC worlds in XBL aren't big enough to support that anyways but maybe someday we'll have something like that for xbox. (a guy can dream right?)
I think I found a better seed for an easy SkyBlock start, however: the popular seed "Quesadila" has a surface skeleton dungeon near the spawn that contains one bucket and 6 more iron ingots (that gives you your 3 required buckets and your bonemeal). I have the coordinates for both mushroom types, sugarcane, and cactus, and there is a big lava lake nearby (that starts a forest fire):
I'll post the coordinates for the mushrooms when I get home tonight.
LOL! i know right?