Castle Canyon

Sometimes I wonder if I've seen more castle builds in Minecraft than I've seen actual blocks. I've seen medieval castles, redstone castles, futuristic castles, epic fantasy castles, watermelon castles, chocolate-coated castles, mashed potato castles complete with gravy moats... actually, I might've made those last two up. Need to stop writing these articles before lunchtime.

Anyway, today's build proves that there's plenty of life in the castle build yet, so long as you keep finding fresh twists on it. Korean builder, Crabcod has done exactly that, with his 'City of the Canyon' taking inspiration from two very different parts of the planet.

“I was always interested in artistic things and liked to play games,” explains Crabcod to me, “so I went to find things that could make artistic expressions in games and started to work on Minecraft.”

Crabcod started the project with a desire to create simple urban architecture, surrounding a larger main element. After “looking for a good background image and an illustration,” he chanced upon the scenery of the Texan city of Canyon. “It was so beautiful and I liked it that I made [my build] with reference to the image of the city.”

But Crabcod's architectural designs aren't consistent with the actual Texan city of Canyon. Instead, he opted for spired towers, slanted roofs, and a castle more Middle Eastern in feel.

This architecture, he explains to me, “was inspired by Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.” It's a smart mesh of influences – distant landscapes and architecture mixed together - resulting in a build that's truly the best of both worlds! (OK, true, both of those places are on Earth, so technically it's the best of one world. But in my defense – shut up).

Crabcod's city was no small undertaking, and he has advice for players taking on longer projects like this. “You can be tired or have no fun when you are building,” he explains, breaking new ground for this usually pro-Minecraft website. “When that happens, try it with your friends. Then it will be more fun and [you'll become] closer to your friends.” Good idea! Those friends are fellow members of Korean build team, GBF – and you can expect to see more builds from that talented team on Minecraft.net soon.

So what's next? “I want to make a building of Korean traditional style,” Crabcod says. “I want to spread the beauty of Korea through this.”

It's not like he doesn't have globetrotting form in replicating the beauty of the real world in Minecraft, as his builds based on Japanese architecture and a Baroque Palace attest. Why not follow Crabcod on Twitter to see where he takes us next?

Renders by Monkey D Haru and GBFAya.