Minecraft for PSP 2: The Great Galleon

The Great Galleon

After the last post, I decided that I had served my words wrong. I had used the phrase galleon to describe ships which are maybe brigantines or sloops at best. To avenge the honor of the mighty galleon, I set out to make a ship truly worthy of the title galleon.

Without further ado, I present, the Great Galleon.

This ship, for all intents and purposes, is MASSIVE. Compare its stern to the entire mass of the SS Chibi.

It possesses exactly 62 guns, 31 pointing to either side of the ship. This ship, were it real, would have been able to challenge even the ships-of-the-line which were so popular during the Age of Piracy. Compare to the SS Matey-9's 16 guns.

It carries them on three levels, two of which are gun decks which double as holds.

The ship even has a recreation room near the stern. Feel free to play poker during your off-duty hours, scallywags.

Construction of The Great Galleon

I spent about four and a half hours building this ship. As usual, I used a layer method, constructing the ship's hull in layers in an attempt to achieve a realistic result. I think the hull ended up a bit too wide, but that's probably just alright as it allows for more flavor to be added to the ship. The placement of the masts is one thing I could have done better I suppose, and the sails proved challenging to design once again. The decision to make this ship more or less a warship came partially from the idea that I needed to follow the theme I had set beforehand, and partially because I didn't have any ideas that seemed interesting/made sense for an Age of Sail boat. Yes, I intentionally put it at a broadside position from the SS Matey-9. I think it looks bad-ass, like the Galleon is about to blow it to pieces, while the smaller Chibi is trying to run away.

What should I build next?

Having achieved this grand feat of wooden ship architecture, I've come to wonder; what should I build next in this game? I'm not really in the mood for wooden ships, seeing as I kind of reached the maximum potential there. Do you guys have any ideas? Post them and there's a good chance they'll be the next thing I build, when I decide to make a Minecraft for PSP post.

On a similar note, I'll post the save files for the ship trio here if anyone specifically asks for it. Fellow Lamecrafters UNITE~! :P

Minecraft for PSP: Building Great Galleons!

So one of the things I have been doing in my spare time when not blogging has been Lamecraft, aka Minecraft for PSP (available here). Sadly it's only available to those PSP users who have, erm, enabled their PSPs for homebrew. However, it is a blast. It's very much like Minecraft Classic, great since I have not a computer capable of running Minecraft itself.

I started out by building nothing really- literally mud huts, which I have long since deleted. Then I built a few spacecraft, but now the major construction projects have been... Galleons!

What is a galleon? To save time, it is a ship from the Age of Sail (think pirates, Britain owning every foreign country, cannons and so on). In reality galleons were very large, and owing to their name being descended from galley, sometimes even capable of being rowed. However, I use the term to describe my ships, which are significantly smaller, but far cubier.

The first ship I built is the SS Chibi!

Normally I wouldn't post a test subject for an idea of construction, but I couldn't help but find the ship so goddamn adorable!

This is most of the main deck looking into the forecastle. That log in the middle? It's a mast. That block with a torch on it to the left? That's a cannon.

I figured that the sideways blocks kind of looked like a barrel, and the larger block looked like the main part where you load it in. As for the torch? What better fuse could there be?

The view up the relatively short mast, and the ladder to the crow's nest.

Nothing too special in the hold. Everything's so cutesy and small, though!

But that's not all. What kind of post would this be if I only included the small test subject? A stupid one, THAT'S what kind. So now, presenting... the SS Matey-9! *horrible pun*

Pretty damn big, eh? The first ship took about 15 minutes of concerted effort. The Matey-9 is the result of about two hours of on and off gameplay, applying many lessons learned from the construction of the Chibi. Let's take a tour, shall we?

Pretty expansive deck, and a sizable forecastle too. The masts are each 3x3, as opposed to the 1x1 Chibi masts, and like the Chibi they go through each hull as well. I could seriously picture a swashbuckler brawl taking place on the deck of this ship.

The hardest part of the ship's design was the decision of the configurations of the sails. I tried to achieve something that not only appealed to the blocky nature of Minecraft, but also looked fairly realistic for a slowly moving ship.

The interior of the forecastle. Sweet, sweet barred windows. I was sad that I couldn't fit a captain's cabin in there, but there's always next ship...

When I figured out that the cannons could be placed so perfectly to allow 8 cannons on each side, I was honestly surprised. I was not expecting such symmetry. The ship has 16 cannons peeking out of the cannonports, ready to fire at enemies far and near.

Thus are my first two true "epic" minecraft building projects, the SS Chibi and SS Matey-9. I'd like to hear your thoughts, fellow Minecraft/Lamecraft architects! How do you manage to squeeze personality and beauty out of increasingly smaller space? How'd I do?