What’s better than a wizard school? A wizard school made of precious gems, of course! That’s what YouTuber GeminiTay created while on her roleplaying adventures as a member of the Empires Survival Multiplayer game, broadcasted online for everyone to enjoy. Now that she’s done with season one of the show, where she created her magic academy, we decided to catch up with her now that the season’s over to hear about how the new Caves & Cliffs blocks, especially the shiny new amethyst, became such a big part of her beautiful builds.
Minecraft Builds
- Written By
- Jay Castello
- Published
- 5/2/22
Cruising through Crystal Cliffs
GeminiTay tells us about her amethyst adventures while building a magical school!
“I was really excited to try out the new blocks, as I always am! It's fun to experiment with new color and texture options,” she says. “There end up being so many new builds you can create.”
GeminiTay says that she was drawn to amethyst first because it appears in big geodes in the new caves, so it’s not too difficult to get enough to build with. And then there’s moss, which can be grown with bonemeal and turn your whole garden into a beautiful soft green carpet, with cute little bushes too! “They are also blocks that layer well with a lot of other blocks that are already previously in the game, which allows for more interesting build palettes,” GeminiTay adds.
“With the amethyst and copper being added I found that purpur, a block I previously hadn't used much, was now extremely useful!” The soft purple of the purpur block definitely looks good next to the bright new amethyst colors!
Before she could turn her building space into the sprawling village of Crystal Cliffs, she needed a small home as a base to get started from. “I created a starter house that used calcite and amethyst for the geode look, and I put it on the edge of a cliff. I wanted to inspire my audience to think of using the update to create cool little houses, and I think this starter house achieved that.”
But the amethyst started inspiring her more and more, especially as she developed her character within the Empires SMP. “Eventually I grabbed inspiration from some of my favorite books I've read and movies I've seen, and used that inspiration to influence my building layout.”
GeminiTay made use of all the different purple shades in the game to compliment her amazing amethyst!
The final build went very far from just a humble home – there’s a cute little village, a castle with imposing towers, a glittering fountain, and even three dragons wheeling overhead! All using a magical purple, of course, to fit the theme.
“We wanted to tell a story with what we were building, so for me, some of my builds were influenced by this,” she says. So, to really give her area of the world that magic academy feel, she looked to real-life architecture like the University of Edinburgh for inspiration. Someone should reach out to those real-life builders and suggest they get into using amethyst…
“The crystal cliffs ended up having such a magical aura to it,” says GeminiTay. “I loved the wizard tower with the three dragons.”
Building the dragons was one of the biggest tasks in the build, needing a big scaffold to create as well as lots and lots of quartz! “It was worth it though,” GeminiTay says. “Every time I got to elytra fly around my tower, I really felt like a main character of the empire I had created.”
With all that hard work, the Crystal Cliffs really feels like somewhere you could go to learn all about potions and divination, or maybe more everyday magic like color coordination and architecture!
As well as hoping her audience will be inspired to build their own amethyst creations, GeminiTay hopes you’ll stay tuned for her future adventures! “Each of us in the SMP are thinking up new stories to tell in our next Minecraft world. There’s lots of fun to be had in Minecraft in 2022, and I'm looking forward to it!”
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