We recently hosted a Dev Q&A on the official Minecraft Discord server to celebrate the release of the Batman DLC pack (available now in Minecraft Marketplace)! Joining us were a few key members from Noxcrew, the developers of the DLC pack, who answered questions straight from our community. If you missed this chat, then that’s not a problem! We’ve compiled the highlights for you:
Q: Could you give us tips on how to create an amazing, high quality adventure map like this?
Avondale, Business Development Manager: I think tips for making great Minecraft content vary depending on your current level of making maps!
- If you’ve never made a map before: My best advice is to pick something small and get it to a state where other people can play it! The biggest mistake people make, especially when they’re newer, is thinking too big and never finishing the project. Get it playable, let someone else play it, get their feedback, and use it to make your work better.
- If you’ve made a few things before: Spend more time thinking about how you’re making the player feel. What the “reality” of your world is, and what you need to do to support that. You want the player to forget they’re playing Minecraft because they’re so immersed in your world.
Q: What tools were used to create the DLC?
MarkusNC, Lead Level Designer: We actually build the maps in Minecraft: Java Edition first before transferring over to Bedrock Edition, so we can utilize all of the classic plugins like Worldedit and Voxelsniper.
Q: How many hours were spent creating the map?
Arsenic, Project and Art Lead: We had 20 people (give or take) working full time along with some part-timers. We started full production back at the start of April so we’re looking at over 20,000 hours of work combined!
Q: Who is your favorite villain in the Batman universe?
Avondale: I’ve decided that I love Harley Quinn. I recently watched the animated series and really enjoyed her character. Clayface is also quite fantastic!
MarkusNC: I would say Mr. Freeze since he is the coolest. Sigh.
Shronky: Condiment Man - someone who uses ketchup and mustard as weapons deserves a greater appreciation. But on a serious note, probably Mr. Freeze. I think his motivations and path to villainy are the most sympathetic and heartbreaking within that universe.
Arsenic: I always enjoy the antics of The Joker. A villain that doesn’t take themselves too seriously is great!
Q: What was the funniest thing that happened when creating the DLC?
Shronky: One playtest I was going through one of the rooms in the Iceberg lounge and found a bug with a chandelier. As I looked up to a take a picture I discovered a number of Electric eels had left their tank and were floating up on the ceiling.
MarkusNC: When we first started playtesting the map in multiplayer, we started trying to troll by sending explosive BNT at each other. It became a constant game of bat and mouse, trying to evade carts zooming around every corner. Then we found out that it’s actually a pretty good speedrun strat to blow somebody up mid-flight and get a big boost in the air!
Avondale: In the map, sometimes Lucius Fox sends you pop-up NPC windows. Because of the way Minecraft works, you actually need the NPC near the player. To accomplish this when the player has the ability to move around, we made Lucius ride on the player so he’d always stay close by. When we made this system, Lucius didn’t have any voiceover yet, so everything was working fine. However- he eventually got a voice, and I didn’t know. I’d be testing the map and would randomly hear someone say something that sounded like “Cool lemonade!” Eventually, we realized it was Lucius riding my character, and we had to solve the problem, but I still laugh every time I’m in the Batcave and he says “Cool lemonade!”
Here’s a picture of what Lucius looks like riding a player. We eventually made him quite small and invisible so you can’t see him in-game.
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