PixlBit

I couldn't even think of playing more Prey today. Too stressed to take on a single player experience, so Mark and I operated like Lewis and Clark in the attempt to get the Map Room achievement in Minecraft on XBO.   

The large world setting in Minecraft XBO Edtion adds 8 mapable areas to the usual 1. You spawn into the overworld with a map that starts revealing the area you are in, that's Map #0. When you pass the edge of that 864x864 block square, the map stops working. You need to create another map to reveal where you are now, and so on. My quest was to determine the exact arrangement of these 9 square areas so I could make maps for all of them. 

It began with Mark digging a mine near the spawn point and I ventured forth like Lewis or Clark to seek the very end of the "large" world. I traveled immediately after spawning, gathered resources along the way going due north. I figured, if I hit the end of the world after two additional maps worth of territory, that would mean our starting region was at the bottom row of the 9 region grid. If I only traveled one extra region before hitting the invisible wall, we'd be in the middle row. I wanted to find out just where map #0 was placed reletive to the rest. This would make a more orderly search of all 9. 

Before I got to the edge of the first region (map #0), I realized I needed a new map. This required paper made from sugar cane and a compass made of iron ore and redstone. I found sugar cane along the shore of lakes and rivers along the way and iron ore by shallow cave diving. Redstone required a deep cave dive. So when I got to the edge of the first region, I found a cave opening and followed it as far as I could. Before I got really deep, I found a mob spawn room. These are small rooms with a mob spawner in the middle. It also usually has chests with random goodies in them. This one had a chest with a saddle and some redstone. Yahtzee! 

I exited the cave and soon found a horse. I still had to tame it, so I set up a crude house and planted some seeds for hay. You must feed the horse with hay so it will allow you to mount it. It took a few days for the hay to grow to maturity. In the meantime, I had the horse leashed to a post and I gathered more food for the future, ie. killed everything in sight.

Finally I got the horse saddled and the a blank map made and headed off the edge of the current region, then activated the new map. I continued on horseback until I came to a village in a red clay desert. There I appropriated a house, stowed my gear, and the next day set out to the edge of the region (map #1).

Along the way, disaster struck. The horse and I plunged down an overlooked hole in the ground leading to a cave where lay a creeper who blew up and killed the horse instantly. Then I fell down another shaft and found myself deep in the earth. I recovered the saddle but I was pretty lost. I decided to just search the cave system. I needed more redstone anyway. 

I found redstone alright and diamond too. I decided to mine some obsidian since I now had diamond to make a diamond pickaxe that cuts obsidian. That done, I headed back out and eventually made it back to the town. I loaded my chest with all the minerals I'd found, made and donned a full suit of iron armor and headed out again, this time on foot. 

I got to the northernmost part of the region and I didn't hit an invisible barrier. Another region began. I took out my new blank map (map #2) and it started drawing the area. This region turned out to be largely ocean, so I built a boat and rowed it until I hit the invisible wall near a tiny island. Then I made the long trek back to the town on map #1, loaded up all my valuables and rowed the system of rivers back to Mark's mine near the original spawn point on map #0. There I built another bed to set the respawn point for myself at that location and cooked all my resources, which were largely gold and iron. 

Time ran out on the day but, except for the horse tragedy, it was very productive. I'd determined map #0 was on the bottom row of three in the grid, and I had a huge load of iron, gold and all that was needed to enter The Nether and build an Enchantment Table. I'd even gotten an Ender Pearl when I had surprised two Endermen in a cave. 

I realized that by just wandering about in this world and gathering whatever I could see, I had found everything I needed. You can dig a mine, like Mark was doing and excavate a large area underground but it's pretty labor intensive. Natural caves reveal similar, if not better, amounts of resources with less digging. Making a mine is fun, but it's largely unnecessary.

I think from now on I'll be like John Muir and explore the wild frontier, living off the land, rowing rivers and lakes, taming wild wolves and horses, and then writing it all up in glowing terms reminiscent of Biblical text. . . Ok, not so reverant as that.