Notes

Minecraft: Dungeons Preview

David Nisshagen laughs in joy as he guides his character's blocky form down the narrow elevated platform surrounded by violet flames. He's just discovered a hidden room in Minecraft Dungeons, and even though he's the title's executive producer, he doesn't know what's about to take place. Through our Discord chat, you can hear his smile.



He said, "This is very rare." "This is extremely rare. Okay?" My games I laugh and tell my friend that he sounds exuberant.



"Yes," he replies, "I haven't seen it in this level. It's amazing. Actually you can see that we do have several very scary and mysterious things here. I've just discovered something that will prove very useful to me later in the game, or if I decide to return to the game.



Minecraft Dungeons is an adventure title that was inspired by classic dungeon crawlers such as Diablo or The Binding of Isaac, but with the franchise's patented kid-friendly style. It has online and local multiplayer, randomly generated levels, and a myriad of familiar and new enemies, including skeletons spiders and creepers. The whole thing is very similar to Minecraft however, it is an entirely new method of developing games for Mojang.



Microsoft purchased Mojang the Swedish studio behind Minecraft, for $2.5 billion in 2014, and today it operates under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella. However, this doesn't mean Minecraft Dungeons will be exclusive to Microsoft platforms. The full game is scheduled to hit PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One and Windows on May 26th.



For more than a decade, Mojang has been focusing on Minecraft the worldwide phenomenon that has introduced generations of kids and adults to sandbox-style video games. Minecraft Dungeons is the studio's first attempt at a new genre, and has been in development for at around four years.



The story is simple but fittingly epic. An outcast villager who is referred to as an illager, stumbles upon an orb of power, which can be used to conquer the overworld. He has a group of villagers under his command. Players travel through distinct areas, fighting the arch-illager's minions until they finally meet with the orb-holder.



Mojang introduced illagers into the base Minecraft game in the year 2016, though Nisshagen said these creatures actually started out in the Dungeons development room.



He explained that we required an opponent that was humanoid with the ability to attack from a distance and a fast-following hunting mechanism. In the end, he said that it was possible to just escape from zombies in Minecraft instead of fighting them in combat, and Dungeons developers needed something that would encourage combat. "They do chase you with axes, and then hunt you down, and this was so loved by the Minecraft team that they implemented it in that game before we launched Dungeons."



In actual fact, Dungeons began as an internal idea for the Nintendo 3DS.



"You can't fit Minecraft an extremely complex game, onto that," Nisshagen said. This is why the developers chose a top-down perspective instead of the original game's first-person viewpoint and they concentrated on creating an environment that offers opportunities for surprise and exploration.



"You cannot take the entire Minecraft game," he said. "You should not make it easy, but focus on its essential elements. We increased exploration and the sense of adventure. The players should really feel like they're in the middle of an adventure. We then take the imagination that Minecraft players use to create all the amazing stuff they can in the game. We try to let them utilize it in our progression system, I think.



Minecraft Dungeons doesn't use a traditional progression system based on RPGs and doesn't force players to take on specific roles. Instead of having rigid classes such as "healer" or "tank" in the game, players can switch their equipment on the fly and mix items to enhance their weapons with the capabilities are needed in the current situation.



Nisshagen stated, "You can think about changing the thought process of progression into a sandbox." There are no boundaries. You can do almost whatever you want. There are some very bad choices you can make. However there are plenty of excellent choices and powerful choices you can make.



There isn't a wrong method to play Minecraft Dungeons. This is crucial for developers, particularly considering the target players that Minecraft is aimed at: children and their parents. As an industry, Minecraft is geared toward younger players, whereas dungeon crawler games are usually designed for adults, and feature extensive inventories and progression trees, and a challenging combat arena. Minecraft Dungeons is an attempt to appeal to both of these markets.



"We believe we'll see parents playing with their children, or older and younger siblings playing together," Nisshagen said. "There's plenty of depth in the game. Anyone that has a bit of gaming experience will probably find cool combinations of things to explore, from a game mechanics perspective. Then there are those who just want to play and click and have a blast.



Drop-in multiplayer is available online and locally. Each stage is adapted to the number of players. TNT boxes are the sole exception to friendly fire and could harm both allies and familiars.



Cross-platform play will not be available until the launch, but it is "absolutely" possible down the road, Nisshagen stated.



"We're not a huge development team," he said (Mojang's About page lists 71 employees). "Just being able to launch the same game to PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox and Windows, that is quite the thing actually. We want cross-play to be available as soon as possible. However, we would like to ensure that we have the best multiplayer experience on our own platforms first.



In many ways, Minecraft Dungeons is the natural evolution of the Minecraft franchise. For many 2000s-era kids, Minecraft was the first game they played due to its being accessible, creative social, and easy to learn. Ten years later, these gamers are looking for something more complex and Minecraft Dungeons is an obvious answer. It's an old-fashioned, well-known game.


Read More: https://gameaff.com/