Earlier in the week, Mojang launched their Realms service for Minecraft. For $13 a month, Realms allows players to host their own Minecraft server which 20 players can visit and play within. Currently, Realms is only for PC gamers, but Mojang has revealed plans for Realms to come to both Mac and Pocket Edition players in the future.Hosts of a Realm (the subscriber) have complete control over who can join the server as well as the ability to add and remove players from the guest list. Frequent server-wide backups ensure that the host can easily revert the realm back to an earlier state if something goes wrong. Mods and texture packs are not yet supported, but Mojang plans to add them in the coming months.Mojang also revealed plans to have Minecraft on the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 by the end of the year."They probably won't be released simultaneously," Mojang's Owen Hill explained to Polygon. "We're going to release on each format as soon as it's ready."
While everyone (with access to a Canadian iTunes account) has been furiously playing Hearthstone on their iPads this week, I've found myself thinking of similarly great strategy games that I wish I could play on my tablet. Chief among them? Scrolls.A cards-meets-combat game that debuted in beta last summer (read our early impressions here), we've been hearing rumblings of a tablet version since 2011. Those rumblings have finally turned into a roar. In an update on Scrolls.com today, Mojang's Owen Hill delivered the good news:"An iPad/tablet version of Scrolls is in the works! We've enlisted the aid of Ludosity to port Scrolls into flatter, more touchy devices. We'll have more news on this soon."This is great new for fans of Scrolls (or, really, strategy games in general). Ludosity has already wowed us once this year with Card City Nights, and their 2013 release Ittle Dew was one of our picks for the top games of the year.That wraps up your fantastic multiplayer strategy news for the day. Now get back to playing Hearthstone, you crazy kids.
Late Thursday evening, Markus "Notch" Persson confirmed on his Twitter account that he has been discussing a potential Minecraft film with Warner Brothers."Someone is trying leak the fact that we're working with Warner Brothers on a potential Minecraft Movie," Persson posted. "I wanted to be the leak!"A movie about Minecraft? That'll never work! Well I'm sure plenty of people said the same about a movie based on LEGO, and now Warner Bros. is currently sitting atop $275,000,000 (and climbing) following the The LEGO Movie's release, earlier in the month.Details are still scarce, but Hollywood news and rumors website Deadline managed to confirm that Warner Bros. is putting The Lego Movie producer onboard for the Minecraft movie, and that it will be a live-action feature film.The news about the Warner Brothers deal comes days after Persson announced that Minecraft has surpassed 100 million registered users.Don't want to wait for a Minecraft movie? 2 Player Productions documentary Minecraft: The Story of Mojang is now available for free on YouTube. You can watch the whole thing in its entirety below:
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have more money than God? Me too. And while only a call to his accountant could verify this, it seems that Minecraft creator Notch should have a pretty good idea of what it's like. He may not be Gabe Newell rich, but after independently creating one of the most successful video games in history, he should be financially primed to retire anytime he wants.
Scrolls, the next big project from Mojang (the studio that lords over all things Minecraft), has a release date and a trailer. Pull on your boots and get ready to hit the battlefield on June 3.
If you haven't been living under a pixelated block these past few years, then chances are good you're familiar with Minecraft. The game has taken the world by storm, and inspired players far and wide to construct massive, elaborate constructions out of humble squares. To that end, the mobile version, Minecraft: Pocket Edition, just surpassed the 10 million sales mark, and Mojang has announced plans to update the game with a flurry of new content.
Minecraft is by no stretch an offensive game, but the potential for children to wind up playing in a world filled with colossal phalluses or other pieces of R-rated architecture is all too real. Mojang's solution to this problem is Realms, a subscription-based service for PC and mobile where parents can maintain a private, controlled server for their kids and family to play in.
With Easter right around the corner, it's no surprise that my sweet tooth has already started craving things like chocolate bunnies and Cadbury eggs. One of my favorite Easter treats has always been those sugary marshmallow Peeps, which I tend to eat every year until I get a stomachache, and then just keep on eating more. But this holiday season, we'll see a special new treat that combines two of the most addictive substances known on Earth: Peeps and Minecraft.