Terraria

I have just begun to check out the game known as Terraria. Though the game has many similarities to Minecraft, the game has its own charm and character. The game is more of an RPG, with a large assortment of monsters, NPCs and loads of craftable items. Though the game is in 2D, as opposed to Minecraft’s 3D, the game is fairly entertaining. I would suggest that anyone who plays the game should go into the game with an open mind, and give the game some time to work it’s magic on you

Minecraft Demo Out

If you haven't tried the awesomeness that is Minecraft yet, you no longer have a valid excuse. PCGamer.com now has a demo of the game available for download. Minecraft is in my opinion one of the greatest games made up to this point in history, as it offers a totally unique, creative experience.

Here is the download link: Minecraft Demo

If you end up buying the game after playing the demo, send me an email and we can play Survival multiplayer sometime. If you happen to join a server and see zartonis ingame, that is of course me.

Minecraft: My World 1 home base tour

This is my home base from my first world in minecraft. Though I constantly add on to it, I decided to post this tour which shows my obsidian fortress atop a mountain. In the video I visit my newly installed hydroponic farm, storage room, living room, and incinerator. To end the video I climb up to the top of my base, which features a lava lighthouse and is built to the absolute maximum build height, and ride my minecart track down to a mob trap and look up at my base.

Minecraft

I have recently discovered a game called Minecraft.  This game, with its striking simplicity, yet addicting characteristics has enthralled me for a week.  I am just now able to conjure the willpower to pull myself away from the game and write a short review.

Minecraft is, at this point ( the most recent version is Beta 1.3_01) a sandbox game, one begins with nothing and harvests resources such as wood to survive against monsters that spawn when night falls.  Wood is a very basic and immediately needed resource in the game, as the player must gather it to form a crafting table, with which the player can construct useful tools such as axes, picks, swords, etc.

Though the player can construct many things with the wood, and cobblestone to be found on the surface, to construct much more interesting items, the player much venture into caves, and create mines to harvest iron, redstone, gold and the like.  Though this may seem uninteresting to many, Minecraft must be experienced in order to be understood.

Along with single player survival, you can play online with others, but as of this posting, I have yet to do so.

Minecraft is a great game, and I highly recommend it, and would advise anyone remotely interested to check out the Minecraft Website: http://www.minecraft.net/.

Fantasia

A beautiful aspect of music is that it has the ability to greatly impact the listener at a deeply emotional level.  Animation, if crafted by the right hands, allows a story to be told, unbound by the rules normally governing the real world.  In Fantasia (1940), music and animation were intertwined to create a masterpiece of sight and sound.

A fantasia is a musical composition with roots in improvisation, and not always adhering to textbook rules.  Fantasia very much lives up to its namesake.  It was a costly film at the time of it's release $2.28 million, and was very long, over two hours in length at a time when cartoon shorts were more the norm.

  

The visual styles presented in the film range from abstract to represent the absolute music of Bach in the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, to Dukas' programmatic The Sorcerer's Apprentice providing a character driven story with a familiar Disney charm.  The animation in this movie is some of the best hand-drawn animation ever to be produced.  Even tiny details such as rivulets of water slowly edging down a spider web, are precisely portrayed.  The artists are just as skilled at crafting the beating wings of a fairy as making Chernabog absolutely terrifying.

I first experienced Fantasia as a young child, and it gave me a deep appreciation of concert music.  I did not know the names of the composers: Bach, Tchaikovsky, Dukas, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Ponchielli, Mussorgsky or Schubert, but I did hear the beauty that was presented in Fantasia.  This movie increased my interest in music and will always be among my favorites.

The marriage of music and visual art as presented in Fantasia should be experienced by all, old or young.  I highly recommend this movie to all.