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Tom Stone
Written By
Tom Stone
Published
4/14/18

Stranded in Space

We're finally rid of Tom! Unless he can survive Jigarbov's map?

Now this might surprise you, but I've never been to space. Not even once!

Because sadly, NASA haven't responded to any of my thousands of emails begging for a quick go in a rocket. And whenever I ask renowned space-nerd/rocket-owning-dude/my best friend, Elon Musk, he just says “stop telling people we're friends, Tom.” Hahaha! Classic Elon!

But there was a way for even a hideous dope like me to get to go to space – I could download Stranded in Space - an interstellar adventure by Jigarbov that's now available on the Minecraft Marketplace. Cheaper than buying your own rocket. Cheaper than hiring some shady dudes to steal one of Elon's, too.

Let's go to space!

WE HAVE LIFTOFF

The map starts with you flying your very own spaceship! The Brightmore.

Confession Time: I'm not actually qualified to fly a spaceship. I'm not even qualified to ride a tricycle. But I've seen loads of spaceship movies and know almost all the words to Rocket Man by Elton “Probaly A Scientist” John. So how hard can it be?

Step one of flying a spaceship: figuring out how to get inside the spaceship. I know, I can just smash the window open! : D

Now let's not play the blame game here but somebody (doesn't matter who) screwed up flying the spaceship and now death was about to hop aboard. The shields of the Brightmore were rapidly failing and angry text boxes were yelling at me to abandon ship!

It's always bad news with big block capitals, isn't it? Never a blood-red message saying YOU LOOK NICE TODAY or IS THAT A NEW HAIRCUT?

Being the heroic captain I am, I decided to warn the crew that we needed to evacuate before fleeing to safety. Pretty noble, eh? And nothing to do with the fact that I didn't know where the escape pods were and needed to find somebody who could take me to them shut up.

But my mutinous crew were nowhere to be found – they must have already abandoned ship! UNBELIEVABLE. I was a wonderful captain, with only a few minor flaws:

  • Spent 22 hours a day in bed playing Minecraft on my Switch instead of flying the ship.
  • Did not know how to fly said ship.
  • Constantly opened windows in middle of deep space to "try and get some fresh air in".
Oh and I suppose there was also that whole “broke the shields and allowed aliens to invade the ship” thing. Speaking of which, they'd made it aboard – the dastardly Ponytians.

The Ponytians! Half-pony, half-alien, all bad news.

I screamed and burst into tears – a clever defensive tactic to make them think I was too weak and pathetic to be worth attacking. I'm a genius! I mean, ow, they're attacking me anyway!

I sprinted away and leapt face first into the escape pod, smacking my pretty head against the launch button. Safe at last?

I thought ponies were meant to be my pals? 'Friendship is Magic' lied to me.

The pod flew through space. I felt the CRASH ripple through my bones. My vision went black.

I woke up, rubbed my poor, bruised little head (good thing I have a tiny brain - so there wasn't much in their to damage) and stumbled out of the escape pod. Seemed I'd gone done crash landed on a mysterious planet, far away from Earth (oh well) my family and friends (who cares/what friends?) and my beloved bed (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!)

Alone, unarmed and slightly sulky, I took in my curious new surroundings...

Fire? Awww, I already start far too many accidental fires at home...

Strange and scary objects surrounded me. I even found mysterious technology, far more advanced than anything I'd ever seen before. Perhaps I could make use of this?

In the distance, I also could see what looked like another spaceship. Perhaps I could use it to escape?

From all around me, I could see brief flashes of movement in the distance. Potential friends? Or yet more foes? Knowing my 'luck', almost definitely foes.

[1/3] - Met this... thing. It appears to be half pig/half floating brain/all kinds of wrong.
[2/3] - Made another friend! This is an alien villager riding a giant robot spider. Tried to give it a hug. It tried to eat me. I decided to explore elsewhere.
[3/3] - Found a UFO! Found a less-crashed one flying through the skies too! I waved at it and it responded by firing at me. Trust me to land on the planet of the jerks.

So by now I was realising this planet was full of life, and just like all the life on Earth, it all hated me. Why? I'm a charming mid-twenties space explorer with all his original teeth and cool breath that reeks of delicious onions (and who doesn't like onions???)

Trying to keep my spirits up, I kept exploring, and discovered what looked to be a secret laboratory!

It was guarded by two security cameras:

They're a bit like the cameras Mojang keeps threatening to install when they catch me breaking into the office.

I blew a kiss and gave a cheery wink to the security cameras, to prove I was officially a Good Boy and that they should let me in. But turns out they weren't security cameras at all. Turns out they were actually defence turrets. Turns out being shot by defence turrets really hurts.

A coward would've ran away and hid under a rock somewhere. But although I'm definitely a coward, I also had to get into that labratory - what if it was my only way home? If I never got back to Earth, who would run the greatest Minecraft website in the world (that isn't PlanetMinecraft)?

Luckily, I found a hole in the wall in the lab, and was able to sneak in that way! Several robot spider copied my idea and crawled in after me. I celebrated by giving the nearest one a big hug! It celebrated by trying to eat me. :(

What sort of sinister experiments were they conducting in this space lab? They seemed to involve a large collection of Earth animals...

[1/3] - Parrots! These cute lil' cheepers shouldn't be trapped behind glass! I personally believe no animal should be kept it a cage unless it's A) scary, or B) delicious. It was time to set them free!
[2/3] - SMASH!!! A quick swing of my axe later and the parrots were free! This is the most heroic thing I've done with an axe since that time I agreed to put one down because I was scaring those old people.
[3/3] - On something of a heroic roll, I smashed open the polar bear enclosure too. Er, it doesn't look too happy. Maybe because I might've accidentally hit it with my axe during the glass-smashing process. Gulp.

If that Polar Bear wanted to kill me, it'd have to get in line. The robot spiders had hunted me down. Deadly black orbs floated lazily up to me and then exploded in my pretty face. Every corner I turned seemed to have another defence turret, ready and waiting to fill my beautiful body with ugly lasers.

Luckily, whenever you die in this map, you wake up in a teleportation cubicle. I tried to see if it would take me to my home by typing in CREEPY CAVE NEXT TO MOJANG OFFICE but no such luck.

Funny story: I once threw Marsh into a teleportation cubicle with the complete works of William Shakespeare, in the hopes that their DNA would splice together and make him into the greatest writer of all time! He was never seen again.

I crept back into the laboratory and found an even cooler gizmo – a cloning machine! With this, I could clone myself – and just think of the possibilities then:

  • Clone Me could go to work while Real Me got to stay in bed!
  • Clone Me could do all my boring household chores while Real Me could just play videogames all day!
  • Clone Me could meet their one true love, settle down, start a family, live a rich and fulfilling life, while Real Me could spend his evenings writing dumb jokes for a game about virtual blocks! Until 3am! Every single night!
Actually, the clone machine seemed to only be for blocks, but another nearby machine did gift me with a cool item – an Orchid CPU Chain. This lets you take over and ride the robot spiders!

I'm riding a giant spider. This is somehow both the best and worst thing that's ever happened to me.

Exploring the planet was far speedier now my new robot chum was doing all the legwork. Still, I wasn't a huge fan of the weird sound they make when they move – it's a bit like being chased by an out-of-tune keyboard, or a bee that's got really into Daft Punk.

Luckily, there are other less-spidery travel options available. You can even obtain your very own space buggy!

Even Elon Musk doesn't have one of these! I would have happily got him one for his birthday party so I guess you should've invited me, Elon.

Did I ever manage to escape the planet? Nope! But I'm the kinda guy who can't even get doors open without help. On the bright side, I get to live in space now! Once you get used to being attacked by aliens 24/7, it's really not that bad.

Plus there's plenty more to do up here - fight alien villagers! Discover new weapons! Read journals of previous inhabitants! Run away weeping from wierd bugs! All my favourite hobbies, basically.

Still kinda wish I'd managed to escape though. Maybe you'll fare better?

You can find this content by searching 'Stranded in Space' in the Minecraft Marketplace store.

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