For Valhalla

Since I work for Mojang, people assume I'm pretty good at building in Minecraft. "Wow!" the people scream in my face. "You must live in a magnificent castle made of diamonds, emeralds and the skulls of the poor. Cool!"

Actually, my creepy friend, I don't have time to build anything that fancy. I'm far too busy writing for the Best Website on the Internet. That's why my 'house' is just a tiny shack with walls made of dirt, windows made of more dirt and a roof made of nothing. Pretty depressing when it rains. Still, saves time on showering!

But one man who wouldn't be seen dead in my pathetic dirt-shack is Michael Newton (also known by his Xbox Live gamertag, HoBo f0r L1Fe). That's because he specialises in building spectacular Minecraft palaces. They're all part of Valhalla, a map Michael started on the Xbox 360 version and now plays on Xbox One. Truly worthy of the Gods! Frankly, we're not sure us mere mortals are worthy of even looking at the screenshots. Take a gander anyway. It's worth the risk!

"Growing up I was never interested in art," admits Michael "until I first encountered Minecraft mega-builds on YouTube in November 2012. Traditional art never had this affect over me, where I sat in silence, mouth wide open, admiring what these builders had created."

It was these ginormo-builds that inspired Michael to aim to create in Minecraft on a similarly large scale. "Over the years my ideas and build size became more ambitious. Mega-building allows me to build what I want without limitation, I can easily add curves, big details and organics to my projects with limited hassle, and this suits my building style which is tailored to work with large-scaled projects."

ln Michael's view, the toughest challenge is maintaining interest on a project that doesn't always have a clear end in sight. "The biggest hurdle you have to overcome is staying motivated long enough to finish the project. I recommend you build in a style that you like the look off and enjoy building, and try to build with friends as much as possible as this will not only get the job done faster but will help keep you entertained months into the project. You should also pace yourself, you need to think of the project as a marathon where you’ll burn yourself out if you try to sprint through the build. I suggest doing a couple hours a day and maybe a bit more during the weekend.

"A mistake some builders make when building their first mega-build is trying to achieve perfection and getting bogged down in details that take months to finish. I suggest you don’t spend more than two months on your first project and then use what you learnt to create a bigger and better build."