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Sofia Dankis
Written By
Sofia Dankis
Published
12/14/20

Community Celebration: Simburbia and Striding Hero

City life and six new outfits!

It’s getting very cold in my neck of the woods. I’ve almost run out of clean woolly socks and was starting to seriously worry about what I would do when that fateful day finally arrives. Luckily, I have taken some inspiration from this week’s Java gift so there will be no need to resort to doing laundry. 

Canadian creator Mithey put together the Striding Hero skinpack, which includes six different skins that match the upcoming map about a lost strider trying to find its way home to the Nether. I can very much relate to this tale because the strider and I have a lot in common. Mainly looks.

“It's cool taking an existing Minecraft mob, adding some sort of character and story behind it, and then translating what that might look like to a Minecraft skin. The result being something still Minecraft looking, with a cool unique flair to it.”

-Mithey

This is perfect! Now I’ll be able to look stylish while staying warm in the Nether. The other mobs will stop trying to make me walk across lava and I may never have to do laundry again. I didn’t think I was getting a gift this year, but I guess I was wrong.

You can get your hands on your Java gift by downloading it here. Check in regularly for more gifts during the upcoming weeks!

I can’t spend all of my time in the Nether, despite the petition that all of the devs signed. Since I am still allowed in most cities, I can also enjoy this week’s Bedrock gift! As soon as I started playing Simburbia, I couldn’t help but think about all of the things I miss about running around in the real city. It’s the small things, like people-watching or stopping to get a coffee on your way to work. Being accused of arriving late. Explaining that if you were late, and you are not saying that you were, it would only be because you wanted to get a coffee for your esteemed editor Per. Yelling that it is too true, you are not a liar, what does it matter if the cup is mostly empty and is time even real anyway? 

Thanks to Jigarbov Productions, I was able to live my coolest city self once again without risking my job. In fact, it was better than any metropolis I have ever visited because I wasn’t asked to leave any public spaces. How could they? Nobody tells the mayor of Simburbia what to do. 

Head over to the Minecraft Marketplace to download this map and the matching character creator items! Once you start building your own urban utopia with this advanced city simulator for Minecraft, you might ask yourself what kind of a mayor you’ll be. Are you the type that wants to check in on all of your citizens individually? Maybe you want to build towering skyscrapers and fast travel systems. Perhaps you want to spend your days shopping. If you do, remember to check out the store signs for a secret surprise. You can trust me on this. Even you, Per! 

Fine, don’t take my word for it. I’ll put Jigarbov in the hot seat, who is coincidentally the CEO of Jigarbov Productions. Maybe he can explain why the map we’re giving away today has the same name as one that came out in 2014. 

“The new version of Simburbia is better than the original in every conceivable way. The original buildings just sort of exploded into existence, whereas now they build up over time. The original had citizens, but they didn't do anything. Now you can actually talk to them and they tell you statuses about the city with little cool emojis. Everything is a lot more dynamic. You could be in one end of the city and a disaster appears at the opposite end, so you've got to frantically get over there to fix the situation. Or you could be in one residential area and see commercial sky rise being built somewhere on the other side of the city.”

-Jigarbov

Ha! Gotcha journalism at its finest. Wait. This is a remake? That makes sense. Fiiiiine, I’ll stop trying to bring the community creators down to my level. I guess that means that these words of wisdom are genuine and not a plot to become the only creator on Minecraft Marketplace. 

“My advice to new creators is to just make something and get people to play it. Getting people to play is like the hard part, but most people have a small group of friends that they play Minecraft with and just making something for them to play is a great first step.”

-Jigarbov

That does sound like good advice. Inspiring, even. Maybe I’ll try my hand at this creator business. Or better yet, why don’t you do it instead! I should probably stick to what I do best – not causing trouble for anyone at Mojang Studios. 

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