New on Java Realms: Hours of Towers

October's over and we've finally driven the walking dead back into their tombs, returned all the ghouls to their cursed swamp, and politely asked the vengeful spirits to chill out for another 12 months. It also means we've had our fill of spooOOooOOOooky Minecraft maps, and can happily return to regularly scheduled Realms content that doesn't leave us a shivering, sweaty mess. Hooray!

Every few weeks we gather what the community has submitted, run them through rigorous testing, and package them up neatly for players who use Realms for Minecraft Java Edition. This week, we’ve got a multiplayer tower defense minigame, a quirky board game filled with combos, some building inspiration, and survival in the sky, for those who need a break from pummeling each other with blunt blocks.

Let’s dig into this week’s creations!

Tower Hour

by Pszemo

The Content Team gets excited when an entry like this finds its way onto our computers. We like playing normal Minecraft just fine, but we do so much of it! TowerHour allows us to escape into the world of real-time strategy games... which are also tower defense games... that are sort-of god games?

It’s not as complex as it sounds. Basically, you walk around the game board, placing buildings, creating new units to attack opponents, and casting spells for various effects. If you overrun a player’s central building and raze it to the ground, it explodes into a shower of coins. If you’re playing with more than two players, take note, because this provides a serious advantage.

Spread

by RedstoneJunkies Team

Board games have been invented and played throughout history, all around the world. Ranging from simple (checkers, with its limited number of pieces and move types) to highly complex (some modern space games whose setup alone takes the same time as other games), these diversions come with a limitation: they’re stuck in the physical world. Digital board games open up new design space, as pieces and game boards can shift quickly, or a computer can keep track of variables that would quickly fill a notebook of paper.

Spread is one of those games that greatly benefits from living in the digital world. As a player fills all of the available slots in each square, that space explodes into action, affecting the nearby spaces. If your piece lands in an enemy space, the slotted pieces become yours; if that movement causes the space to also fill up, it will explode into nearby areas. The key to playing Spread is to recognize which areas are moments away from explosion or takeover, and to carefully manipulate a chain reaction that has you thinking several steps in advance.

The World of Towers

by WebWorm and Wither20

Hey, do you like towers? Today we’ve got a deal for you! Red towers, white towers, medieval and modern, we’ve got ‘em all! Have you ever thought, “I’d like to make a tower today, but I’m totally not inspired”? With this map, you’re gonna be inspired like never before (provided that you’re into towers). Take a walk from island to island and discover what kind of tower is right for you!

Abstraction: MINECON EARTH

by Jigarbov

In preparation for MINECON Earth, mapmaker Jigarbov launched the latest map in his Abstraction series, a miniature Complete-the-Monument-like creation, inspired by the MINECON logo. You may have already seen this offering in the recent Marketplace article, but as a creator of many talents, he’s launching this map on the Java Edition as well.

The map is one part skyblock survival, one part Complete the Monument. This means that you’ll be surviving in the sky with limited resources, but also working towards a side goal of obtaining one of each color of clay block. If you’re more of a freeform builder, you can disregard the goal entirely and simply build whatever it is that you’d like! This will prove challenging though, as you’ve got to move carefully and save on resources. If you don’t know how to build a science-defying cobblestone generator, you might want to look that up!

Winter is coming

Depending on how the rest of the year goes, we’re looking at one or two more 2017 Realms content releases, mostly dependent upon how many submissions we receive during this busy time of year. If you’d like to see your creation featured on Realms, this blog, or earn yourself a fancy mapmaker cape, check out our submission guidelines for more information.

To learn about loading this and other content into Java Realms for your PC, visit our help site. If you haven't yet tried Realms for yourself, you'll have a blue diamond on the Minecraft Realms button, located on the main screen of Minecraft: Java Edition. Click it, then follow the instructions to try Realms free for 30 days.

Happy Minecrafting!