If you are looking to host some custom Minecraft servers but don't know how to install mods and set them up on your own? There is a simpler solution. Recently, Aternos, a free Minecraft hoster, launched Blueprints, which allows you to create a custom Minecraft world with just one click.
I wanted to try these since they added this new feature. I was already using Aternos to host a small multiplayer Vanilla Minecraft server, so I was familiar with the world creation too. When you create a new server after logging in, you will see a new dropdown option with Blueprints. There will be a lot of different pre-built Minecraft servers to choose from, including Parkour race, Sky Islands, Infinite Parkour, etc.
I selected the Sky Islands, where you spawn on a small island surrounded by a void. With other small islands floating around you, each with its own biome and challenges. I never played this before, but it looks similar to SkyBlock or OneBlock. I have played those before, and everything is fun in multiplayer, so Beril and I joined the server to see how it works.
As we expected, we spawned in the middle of nowhere, on a floating island with a few layers of dirt and stones. Our island had one source of water, a block of lava inside the little cave, an oak tree and a few friendly mobs.
We had three sheep on our little island and two chickens. But soon, the birds tried to jump down and fell into the endless void. I didn't know they would be this dumb to jump into the void. Thankfully, the sheep had bigger brains, and they never tried their luck in the void.
We were scared that monsters would spawn on the first night, but they didn't. Maybe all the spawnable locations were too close to us, the players? I don't exactly know which factors promote the spawn of monsters other than darkness and an area for them to stand on.
The challenge of this game mode comes from the fact that we have limited blocks and resources to start with. With just one tree, if we don't get at least one sapling from this, it will be the end of our run. But we got enough to replant the trees, and slowly we crafted our first wooden tools. We dig all the dirt because we didn't know if we could get more dirt from this game.
We converted a beautiful island into an ugly flat plain. We crafted a lot of wooden slabs to expand our base and used the dirt blocks efficiently to plant more trees. The only resource we have in abundance here is wood. So most of the things will be wooden in this world. Unless we find a big island made out of iron or diamond blocks, lol.
As we were expanding our spawn island. Beril saw something in the distance. It was another island. I didn't expect it to be this close to us. So, we started building towards it to see what kind of biome we have. It looked like a part of an underground cave; there were cobwebs, a lot of deepslate blocks that we could see.
But the most important resource was Iron. There were a few iron ores we could see, and once we went there, we saw more. That's how we make our first iron pickaxe. A few pieces of redstone were there as well, but we have no clue what we can use them for right now.
Back in the spawn island, one of the sheep had had enough and decided to jump off the island. We thought they were safe, that's why we didn't make a fenced area for them, but now that we have just two, that is the first thing we did.
Also, we had enough iron to make a shear and get the wool from the sheep, so we can sleep for the first time in this challenge. Our small wheat farm produced a couple of pieces of wheat, so we bred the sheep. From these two sheep, we will have hundreds of them and have a good source of food for the rest of the game. I wish the chicken were alive; they multiply much faster.
The first few days were rough; we struggled with food and wood. The only food we ate was apples that occasionally dropped from the oak trees.
We started looking for the next island. We found it a bit away from the Deepslate Island. This time, it was a ruined portal.
If we get lucky from this island, this means we can complete this portal and step into the Nether to see if the Nether is like these floating islands as well?
We safely bridged to this island and opened the chest next to it. This was the perfect chest. It had exactly 3 diamonds, enough to make a diamond pickaxe and mine the extra obsidian from the corner and convert some of the lava around the portal into the obsidian to mine it. The chest also had two pieces of enchanted gold armour, great for the Nether trip.
We won't be going into the Nether right now. There might be a big ghast waiting for us, and as soon as we go through, we get shot and blown to pieces with all our goodies. So, it was wise for us to go back, safely store the loot and come back, maybe when we have food other than apples.
I like this challenge so far. It is a bit slow at the start, and the resource management is not easy, but once your farm starts growing big and we have a few more animals, it will be so fun to explore other islands and see what challenges await us.
Thanks for reading.
- All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
- Screenshots are from the game Minecraft using Complementary Reimagined Shader Pack.
You made me remember the time I was playing on some servers, there was one that I really liked and had a lot of friends but it's depressing to see what they shut down a server out of nowhere because the owners got bored and closed everything, losing all the amazing stuff you did on that server, but skyblock maps are great even though you can see it on small islands, it has been big things
Losing a world like that is sad. It must hurt to see it go forever. All those builds, memories, deaths and laughs.
We are having a lot of fun in this server so far. Sometimes, less is more, and Skyblock-like servers prove it.
Vaya se ve muy interesante el estilo de skyblock ahora con islas por descubrir