The Golden Retreat

Shiver me timbers! Wait… Does anyone know what 'shiver me timbers' actually means? What are my timbers? Do I really want them 'shivered'? Is there some Pirate-to-English dictionary we can use to figure out what exactly Blackbeard and his peg-legged friends are saying?

While we wait for Google Translate to add the pirate language to their database, you can visit the pirate haven of Swiftbeatz’s Golden Retreat and maybe learn a bit of the lingo for yourself! Before crafting this safe space for swashbucklers, Swift started Minecraft-ing on the Playstation 3, where he discovered imitation is the highest form of flattery and the easiest way to learn.

“My first building projects were copying tutorials off YouTube and making my own versions,” he tells me.

Minecraft’s capacity for boundless creativity appealed to Swift the most. Like the pirates of old, Swift loved the freedom of the open seas - the blank canvas Minecraft provides to the let the mind explore.

“I really enjoyed the freedom of it, being able to make whatever I wanted,” he explains. “A lot of what I did was inspired by those YouTube videos I watched, like setting up my own Hunger Games maps and making them work with redstone. In the early years, I was really obsessed with redstone contraptions.”

From there, Swift decided to pursue plunder in brighter waters and the Golden Retreat was born.

“I wanted to make something really colorful and unique. As the name suggests, this place is a retreat for pirates returning from their long voyages at sea. I crafted the islands to work as a kind of shield, with tall ridges and rocks, making it difficult to attack. There’s also an old castle lookout tower to keep watch for the Royal Navy or maybe rival pirates that looking to take over.”

Safe from the King’s Justice and other pirates looking for booty, the Golden Retreat is the perfect place for the weary pirate to catch a breath... and maybe a bath. After long months at sea cooped up below deck with all your pirate buddies? Yeah, you’d probably be pretty ripe, and I don’t mean for eating. Well... unless all the food on your ship ran out, of course...

Yo ho ho! I'm only joking! There are no cannibals at the Golden Retreat! That we know of. Just a lot of color and Swift’s personal style philosophy!

“I've always been about building for uniqueness and color, regardless of realism. I try to do something that brings a new perspective into building, something that hasn't been seen before. I realize now that a lot in this build is kinda out of proportion but I was never trying to have it be proportional. I’m way more focused on making sure, no matter what, to do what I think looks good.”

Avast! Arrr! Actually, I don't know what those piratey terms mean either! I really should've asked for a pirate-to-normalspeak dictionary for Christmas.

Anyway, you can see for yourself how good this retreat looks, Jack Sparrow would feel right at home. In fact, this probably is Jack Sparrow’s home.

“The only reference I had for this was the building style from a friend and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.”

Drink up me hearties, yo ho ho! Should we maybe end this article now, before I spend 80,000 more words indulging in sterotypical pirate wordplay?

Yarrrr!

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