The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
Ḍādxièya (ꕩ䪥ﺿ)
Puzzling Mini-Games as Teleportation Transit Tokens between Creative Build Locations
Story
As you enter Ḍādxièya you find yourself next to what resembles a small square park.
Next to it is a high stone wall with a map.
The place you appeared in seems to be in the middle of it.
In chests and on the wall are notes and instructions left by Avión Photon.
Looking around, you realize that what is you thought was a park is ALSO a large map.
As you look closer you discover signs of different places...
"Amusement park"
"Garden monastery"
"Sanctuary lake"
...
Next to each sign are pressure plates. What will happen if you step on one?
You choose to step on one of the pressure plates.
*CLICK*
you have been teleported away!
The new place is great fun to explore and you feel like visiting the other places too!
But how will you get back?
You could walk… but ... in which direction? How far?
What if there is a way to get teleported back again instead?
You start wondering about the mysterious writings you saw on the signs when you explored this new place..
They seem to hint towards something...
Background
At first I just wanted to have a more permanent creative world instead of creating a new world for every small project. But this soon developed into something more.
I needed a convenient way to get to various locations and not having to remember the coordinates. For this purpose I built the 3D-map close to the spawn area. This map has pressure plates on command blocks and signs corresponding to each build location. Then I got the idea of hiding the command blocks to get back to the map, trying different ways of using redstone to activate them. Finally to find the way of activating them I wrote mysterious clues on signs. I thought this was way to fun to keep to myself, and since I also wanted to share the creations I built as a journal, this thread was created!
How to play
Teleport to a location by stepping on a pressure plate on the main map. At each build a puzzle mini game can be played. The objective of each puzzle is to find the way to teleport back again. Hints and clues are given by signs. These games vary in difficulty (the easiest might be finding and stepping on another pressure plate). You are not supposed to use any items from the creative mode, only the ones found in the locations. Neither are any blocks required to be broken, but instead interacted with as in survival.
You can switch between creative and survival modes by typing
/gamemode creative (1.13)
/gamemode 0 (pre 1.13)
and
/gamemode survival (1.13)
/gamemode 1 (pre 1.13)
in the chat. Play in survival if you want a more RPG-feeling. But then you won't be able to fly around the builds, unless you revert to creative.
If you are lost, don't spawn in the correct place and just want to get back to the map again, type
/tp -42 80 -30
Let me know if you have any problems or questions. I have not tested everything in survival mode. If you want to replay the map, it is best to keep the original download and just overwrite the map once played, since some games can only be played once or a few times without a manual reset.
Some builds are not yet in the world download, but I am working on it!
I love build requests. Post a brief description of the build and what location to place it in in this thread. See this post for locations I have scouted, or find some on your own, the world seed is -90271392218877277, but please stay within [-1000,-1000] to [1000,1000], XZ coordinates. You can name the build as you want, and I will of course mention you in the post and on the map.
Most of the builds are pure imagination, but some have external sources:
The Buddhist temple is inspired by the Tiger's Nest or Paro Taktsang monastery in tibet [wikipedia link]
Ideas for the Japanese village and house came partly from a book from 1889 by Edward S. Morse.
It is 418 pages of detailed descriptions along with beautiful illustrations.
It doesn't show up if you just google 'Japanese architecture', so it is a bit of a hidden gem.
HTML, Kindle, EPUB, pdf and text of the book are available at Project Gutenberg, but when I built the houses I used this page which I find more easy to browse and read than for example the pdf.
Quotes and poems on signs come from a variety of sources, and are hopefully all correctly attributed in-game. Text authored by myself is usually unsigned.
Resource Pack
The resource pack I used for building and screenshots is (YouTube video with download).
I really love it, since it is close to vanilla, but with many well thought out modifications, some addressing things which are not consistent in vanilla, such as the color of iron etc, while others are to expand the palette available to a builder.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
Temple and Japanese village - part II
---
Inspired by this beautiful Zen quote:
"Mist bordered pine woods, A Buddhist temple, At water's edge, willow trees, fisherman's huts; Zen monk with empty bowl after noon, Old fisherman drying nets in the setting sun" - Gidō Shūshin (義堂 周信), 1325–1388)
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
Buddhist Temple
---
Another site which just called for a temple! I am really happy with this build
It is slightly by the famous Tiger's Nest! If you haven't heard of it, you should check it out: Paro Taktsang (Tiger's Nest)
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
Temple and Japanese village - part III
---
Another Japanese fisherman's house, right behind the first one. This also has a thatched roof, but it also has typical triangular wooden top part. Around the house are benches and a wheel-cart. The interior floor is raised by one half-slab to get the feeling of sleeping closer to the floor (on futons) and create a low seating area.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
Japanese house
---
A humble house with a small garden. The garden has a well, a lantern, a barrel for rainwater collection, a tree and stone paved paths. Inside are two beds, some shelves and a cooking area.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
---
A ship! I have never built a ship before, so please be kind!
I started with just the dock, and figured I had to try build a ship too! It was more fun than I thought it would be!
Another site which just called for a temple! I am really happy with this build
It is slightly inspired by the famous Tiger's Nest! If you haven't heard of it, you should check it out: Paro Taktsang (Tiger's Nest)
Nice use of the new glazed terracotta for the flooring here.
I'll definitely need to incorporate a similar style building into my survival world, I like to have an assortment of buildings too
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
The Peninsula - A Creative Short Story Build : Part I
A small peninsula extends out into the ocean.
A wanderer passes by and leaves a trail through the grass.
Others follow to sit and contemplate for a while overlooking the seascape.
Gradually, a path is formed through the grass.
Some of the visitors concern themselves with preserving the path from erosion and bring stone and pebbles to reinforce it.
Another loves the place so much that she builds a small shelter so she can sit there even through the strong cold winter storms.
Many years pass by. The visitors grow accustomed to the ever-present solitary woman. She gradually plants trees, bushes and other crops all over the island and from the harvest she prepares food for anyone who passes by.
One year, the woman is no longer there. A group of people who had met her many times join to build a shrine in her honor. Inside it, they place the shovel and hoe she always used.
The shrine is small and unassuming, yet radiant, just like they remember her.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
Thank you, I am really happy to hear you like the builds! Feel free to give me any suggestion if you would like to see anything in particular, and I will do my best!
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
---
I was in the mood for a tree house, so I teleported to where I thought there was a jungle biome. But it was a roofed forest, so I build this minimalist version instead of the larger I had in mind.
I am not sure one can use the trapdoors as I have in survival, but half slabs works of course.
This build was so short that I am really pumped to built something larger now! I wonder how much I can get done in four hours?
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
---
I wanted to build something on this inviting site. As I said in my previous post, I felt a larger project was due, but my mind and ideas were not clear enough yet to accomplish it. Instead I present to you:
The interdimensional couple! Semi-story mode on!
---
The came through this portal, highly technologically and spiritually advanced beings. So advanced that all they do is travel through time and space in an infinite universe, exploring and expanding on creative ideas. They also just relax and enjoy themselves.
---
Here they built a small house on the river beach. They also turned the water reservoir around it into a pool.
---
The house is for sleep, meditation and relaxation and storing their suits and any other simple indoor activity. They do not need to eat, so there is no need for related facilities. But they seem to love music!
---
They constructed this curious vehicle which they use to explore this world.
Oooh, I love the new story you have going of the interdimensional couple. I have a similar (ish) story running with my friend as we hop from multiplayer world to multiplayer world so it's very cool!
Also, the buildings are creative and I love how you spruced up that portal.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
~~ Try out Cultivate, the farming server. You just might love it!
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
OK finally I got the "big" (at least bigger than anything before in this thread ^_^) project under way
The construction will be more planned this time. Usually I just flow, but this won't work with the scope of what I got in mind here.
I will divide the build in around nine main parts. Each part will have three to four phases:
Layout (I will use colored wool)
Basic structure
Main part
Polishing and additional decoration
This build will be set in a (IMHO) stunning location (see attached image). The result might look like a monastery, but its real purpose will be open to imagination
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Location:
Upplands Väsby
Join Date:
8/21/2017
Posts:
262
Location:
Upplands Väsby, Sweden
Minecraft:
AvionPhoton
Member Details
A Monastery? - Construction
1. Layout using wool
Using different colors for the different parts, a wool layout helps focusing on the basic shapes of the build without getting distracted in details.
2. Stairs and Walls
I also built an underground storage later with staircases to the left and the right from the entrance.
3. Aqueduct
A very short aqueduct! My first. Not sure about the choice of quartz...
4. Garden
Here I imagine the dark oak leaves as tomato plants. It appears I already built the trunk of the large too.
5. Ground floor of buildings
I first built the floor and the main corner pillars, and then filled in the walls. I like to vary the palette by mixing several stone and brick types. I imagined the lower parts being more humid in the shade behind the wall and the upper staying drier exposed to the sun.
6. Second floor of buildings
I really like the new terracotta blocks as accents! Also varying blocks of similar color hue here to give some impression of wear and tear, even though I just built it =)
7. Tree
I don't know about this tree. I think I need more practice!
8. Tower
This tower is quite wonky! I like it. But is that an old TV antenna on top?
9. Path
I extended a path past the waterfall, perhaps leading to future locations. The build is almost complete at this stage. Just detailing the exterior walls is left.
10. Finishing up
Some pictures of the finished build, including the interior of the ground floor of the red building. The other floors have only beds, nothing more. Total slumber party!
I hope you enjoyed following the building process!
Oooh, I love the new story you have going of the interdimensional couple. I have a similar (ish) story running with my friend as we hop from multiplayer world to multiplayer world so it's very cool!
Also, the buildings are creative and I love how you spruced up that portal.
Cool that we are thinking similarly! Do you share your story somewhere?
I really wanted the portal completely white, but hiding the obsidian completely was out of my capacities. So I thought perhaps it could be offset a bit by making the decoration include some dark too, kind of Yin & Yang!
Ḍādxièya (ꕩ䪥ﺿ)
Puzzling Mini-Games as Teleportation Transit Tokens between Creative Build Locations
Story
As you enter Ḍādxièya you find yourself next to what resembles a small square park.
Next to it is a high stone wall with a map.
The place you appeared in seems to be in the middle of it.
In chests and on the wall are notes and instructions left by Avión Photon.
Looking around, you realize that what is you thought was a park is ALSO a large map.
As you look closer you discover signs of different places...
"Amusement park"
"Garden monastery"
"Sanctuary lake"
...
Next to each sign are pressure plates. What will happen if you step on one?
You choose to step on one of the pressure plates.
*CLICK*
you have been teleported away!
The new place is great fun to explore and you feel like visiting the other places too!
But how will you get back?
You could walk… but ... in which direction? How far?
What if there is a way to get teleported back again instead?
You start wondering about the mysterious writings you saw on the signs when you explored this new place..
They seem to hint towards something...
Background
At first I just wanted to have a more permanent creative world instead of creating a new world for every small project. But this soon developed into something more.
I needed a convenient way to get to various locations and not having to remember the coordinates. For this purpose I built the 3D-map close to the spawn area. This map has pressure plates on command blocks and signs corresponding to each build location. Then I got the idea of hiding the command blocks to get back to the map, trying different ways of using redstone to activate them. Finally to find the way of activating them I wrote mysterious clues on signs. I thought this was way to fun to keep to myself, and since I also wanted to share the creations I built as a journal, this thread was created!
How to play
Teleport to a location by stepping on a pressure plate on the main map. At each build a puzzle mini game can be played. The objective of each puzzle is to find the way to teleport back again. Hints and clues are given by signs. These games vary in difficulty (the easiest might be finding and stepping on another pressure plate). You are not supposed to use any items from the creative mode, only the ones found in the locations. Neither are any blocks required to be broken, but instead interacted with as in survival.
You can switch between creative and survival modes by typing
in the chat. Play in survival if you want a more RPG-feeling. But then you won't be able to fly around the builds, unless you revert to creative.
If you are lost, don't spawn in the correct place and just want to get back to the map again, type
Let me know if you have any problems or questions. I have not tested everything in survival mode. If you want to replay the map, it is best to keep the original download and just overwrite the map once played, since some games can only be played once or a few times without a manual reset.
World Download
on my web page
on Planet Minecraft
Builds and links to journal posts
listed with: puzzle rating / name / link. "-" as rating means no puzzle has been added yet
Some builds are not yet in the world download, but I am working on it!
I love build requests. Post a brief description of the build and what location to place it in in this thread. See this post for locations I have scouted, or find some on your own, the world seed is -90271392218877277, but please stay within [-1000,-1000] to [1000,1000], XZ coordinates. You can name the build as you want, and I will of course mention you in the post and on the map.
PDF with puzzle solutions
https://bjornkennethholmstrom.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/puzzle-solutions.pdf
If you still have questions, I will do my best to answer any of them!
Sources of inspiration
Most of the builds are pure imagination, but some have external sources:
It doesn't show up if you just google 'Japanese architecture', so it is a bit of a hidden gem.
HTML, Kindle, EPUB, pdf and text of the book are available at Project Gutenberg, but when I built the houses I used this page which I find more easy to browse and read than for example the pdf.
Resource Pack
The resource pack I used for building and screenshots is (YouTube video with download).
I really love it, since it is close to vanilla, but with many well thought out modifications, some addressing things which are not consistent in vanilla, such as the color of iron etc, while others are to expand the palette available to a builder.
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Temple and Japanese village - part I
---
At the brink of the spruce forest, a small unassuming wooden hut for a fisherman.
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Temple and Japanese village - part II
---
Inspired by this beautiful Zen quote:
"Mist bordered pine woods, A Buddhist temple, At water's edge, willow trees, fisherman's huts; Zen monk with empty bowl after noon, Old fisherman drying nets in the setting sun" - Gidō Shūshin (義堂 周信), 1325–1388)
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Buddhist Temple
---
Another site which just called for a temple! I am really happy with this build
It is slightly by the famous Tiger's Nest! If you haven't heard of it, you should check it out: Paro Taktsang (Tiger's Nest)
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Mountainside apartment
---
I saw a flat cliff face and thought: What would it look like if someone build a multi-floor apartment there?
So I built one!
What do you think?
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Exploded tower
---
In a steep valley with several waterfalls, something went terribly wrong!!!
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Temple and Japanese village - part III
---
Another Japanese fisherman's house, right behind the first one. This also has a thatched roof, but it also has typical triangular wooden top part. Around the house are benches and a wheel-cart. The interior floor is raised by one half-slab to get the feeling of sleeping closer to the floor (on futons) and create a low seating area.
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Japanese house
---
A humble house with a small garden. The garden has a well, a lantern, a barrel for rainwater collection, a tree and stone paved paths. Inside are two beds, some shelves and a cooking area.
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
---
A ship! I have never built a ship before, so please be kind!
I started with just the dock, and figured I had to try build a ship too! It was more fun than I thought it would be!
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Nice use of the new glazed terracotta for the flooring here.
I'll definitely need to incorporate a similar style building into my survival world, I like to have an assortment of buildings too
The Peninsula - A Creative Short Story Build : Part I
A small peninsula extends out into the ocean.
A wanderer passes by and leaves a trail through the grass.
Others follow to sit and contemplate for a while overlooking the seascape.
Gradually, a path is formed through the grass.
Some of the visitors concern themselves with preserving the path from erosion and bring stone and pebbles to reinforce it.
Another loves the place so much that she builds a small shelter so she can sit there even through the strong cold winter storms.
Many years pass by. The visitors grow accustomed to the ever-present solitary woman. She gradually plants trees, bushes and other crops all over the island and from the harvest she prepares food for anyone who passes by.
One year, the woman is no longer there.
A group of people who had met her many times join to build a shrine in her honor. Inside it, they place the shovel and hoe she always used.
The shrine is small and unassuming, yet radiant, just like they remember her.
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
The Peninsula - A Creative Short Story Build : Part II
Since the woman is no longer there to care for the shelter, the trees and the plants, some decide to take over her tasks.
They bring stone to strengthen and protect the peninsula from the oceans waves and tides with a wall.
The shelter is replaced with a sturdy stone house with room for more people.
Even a dock is constructed to welcome sea-bound travelers.
To guide the visiting ships, they build a small lighthouse.
When standing on its top and gazing towards the horizon, one can still sense the presence of the woman who suddenly disappeared without a trace.
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Oh man, I hope this isn't where this ends. I love how you built up your story, and your builds are lovely, too x3
~~ Try out Cultivate, the farming server. You just might love it!
Thank you, I am really happy to hear you like the builds! Feel free to give me any suggestion if you would like to see anything in particular, and I will do my best!
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
---
I was in the mood for a tree house, so I teleported to where I thought there was a jungle biome. But it was a roofed forest, so I build this minimalist version instead of the larger I had in mind.
I am not sure one can use the trapdoors as I have in survival, but half slabs works of course.
This build was so short that I am really pumped to built something larger now! I wonder how much I can get done in four hours?
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
---
I wanted to build something on this inviting site. As I said in my previous post, I felt a larger project was due, but my mind and ideas were not clear enough yet to accomplish it. Instead I present to you:
The interdimensional couple! Semi-story mode on!
---
The came through this portal, highly technologically and spiritually advanced beings. So advanced that all they do is travel through time and space in an infinite universe, exploring and expanding on creative ideas. They also just relax and enjoy themselves.
---
Here they built a small house on the river beach. They also turned the water reservoir around it into a pool.
---
The house is for sleep, meditation and relaxation and storing their suits and any other simple indoor activity. They do not need to eat, so there is no need for related facilities. But they seem to love music!
---
They constructed this curious vehicle which they use to explore this world.
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Oooh, I love the new story you have going of the interdimensional couple. I have a similar (ish) story running with my friend as we hop from multiplayer world to multiplayer world so it's very cool!
Also, the buildings are creative and I love how you spruced up that portal.
~~ Try out Cultivate, the farming server. You just might love it!
OK finally I got the "big" (at least bigger than anything before in this thread ^_^) project under way
The construction will be more planned this time. Usually I just flow, but this won't work with the scope of what I got in mind here.
I will divide the build in around nine main parts. Each part will have three to four phases:
This build will be set in a (IMHO) stunning location (see attached image). The result might look like a monastery, but its real purpose will be open to imagination
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
A Monastery? - Construction
1. Layout using wool
Using different colors for the different parts, a wool layout helps focusing on the basic shapes of the build without getting distracted in details.
2. Stairs and Walls
I also built an underground storage later with staircases to the left and the right from the entrance.
3. Aqueduct
A very short aqueduct! My first. Not sure about the choice of quartz...
4. Garden
Here I imagine the dark oak leaves as tomato plants. It appears I already built the trunk of the large too.
5. Ground floor of buildings
I first built the floor and the main corner pillars, and then filled in the walls. I like to vary the palette by mixing several stone and brick types. I imagined the lower parts being more humid in the shade behind the wall and the upper staying drier exposed to the sun.
6. Second floor of buildings
I really like the new terracotta blocks as accents! Also varying blocks of similar color hue here to give some impression of wear and tear, even though I just built it =)
7. Tree
I don't know about this tree. I think I need more practice!
8. Tower
This tower is quite wonky! I like it. But is that an old TV antenna on top?
9. Path
I extended a path past the waterfall, perhaps leading to future locations. The build is almost complete at this stage. Just detailing the exterior walls is left.
10. Finishing up
Some pictures of the finished build, including the interior of the ground floor of the red building. The other floors have only beds, nothing more. Total slumber party!
I hope you enjoyed following the building process!
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry
Cool that we are thinking similarly! Do you share your story somewhere?
I really wanted the portal completely white, but hiding the obsidian completely was out of my capacities. So I thought perhaps it could be offset a bit by making the decoration include some dark too, kind of Yin & Yang!
PMC's Pumpkin Carving Solo Contest Entry