Beyond Good and Evil

One of the things I love most about Minecraft is that it can be a canvas for projects of any size - from the precisely planted foliage of a country garden, to skyscraping metaphysical metaphors. Super-talented build-team MAKB certainly haven't shied away from big themes with their latest effort, called Tertium, in which the forces of Order and Chaos vie for control over an enchanted land of forestry and richly detailed architecture.

“Our team is a French team specialised in real Minecraft maps,” explains MAKB Community Manager, Elgasse. “By 'real', we mean that all our maps are fully built, interior and exterior. We like to expose our map to the community and let them explore every corner.”

Tertium would be a hell of a feat with a team of dozens, which makes it all the more jaw-dropping when you realise actual construction was all the work of one man. “There was only one builder on the map, Blixow,” confirms Elgasse. “He is one of the two administrators of the team, with Dopeulien, and also one of our best builders.”

No kidding!

“The concept behind the map is that Blixow wanted to separate two opposite worlds. On the one hand, we can see a sort of Heaven, with many statues, a beautiful fountain and a lot of vegetation. On the other hand, on the other side of the barrier, we see a chaotic world, a sort of Hell, with large man-eating plants, a kind of troll and a great snake.”

A sinister juxtaposition indeed!

It's a colourful and varied creation which still boasts an impressive visual consistency. “Blixow's really proud of the general harmony of the map. He designed one structure after another. That was really challenging.”

So if one of us wanted to take on the building of a project like this single-handed, how much time should we set aside?

“It took a lot of days to build it alone,” warns Elgasse. “Maybe 200 or 300 hours.”

Bah! We knew there had to be a catch. Still, when you look at what Blixow achieved, and the other creations on MAKB's Youtube channel and Planet Minecraft page, it's hard to disagree that the end results were worth it.