Mountain of madness

Loyal readers of Minecraft.net (the one's who send us Block of the Week fan mail and dress up as Marsh for Halloween) may remember an article I wrote earlier this year about this working Ski Resort in Minecraft. The resort was the brainchild of Joshua, a Minecraft builder who consistently tweaks and updates his impressive wintry holiday destination. An inspiring level of commitment, considering Minecraft doesn't even have skis!

The resort itself is well worth a look, full of minigames, hotels and restaurants, and even working lifts to get you up those slopes with ease (it's getting back down without breaking your neck that's the hard part).

“I live in a ski town in Colorado,” explains Joshua to us, when we ask what compelled him to craft this resort. “Skiing is one of my favorite actives. So, the inspiration to build the resort was not difficult.”

Joshua first got into Minecraft after his brother introduced him to the game. “The second I played it, I was hooked. As a fairly creative person, the whole building aspect of the game drew me in. It was all downhill from there.” OH WE SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

But how did he get around the fact that Minecraft doesn't have skis?

“That's the thing...” Joshua admits. “I didn't... really… work around that challenge. I sort of just avoided it. In the ski resort, the only way to ski is to have your player run down the mountain. So, you know, feel free to add skis into the game in a future update.”

We'll, er, think about it!

It's a detailed, polished build, full of staffed shops, hotels to sleep in and beautiful scenery to gaze at while you recover from your latest batch of skiing related-injuries. That level of polish is likely thanks to this being Joshua's third resort.

“Very few things were planned out,” says Joshua, of the benefits of this being his third go at a now-familiar project. “I kind of knew what had to go where. I had a basic idea of how I wanted the terrain to be formed in my head. I created the terrain with World Painter, a free terraforming software, and I really just built off of the terrain. I added lifts and buildings where I thought they were necessary.”

More impressive still, is that this was essentially a solo project. “Basically everything (terrain, technology, buildings, structures, renders, etc.) was done by me. I did have a friend or two come on and test some times, but other than that, it’s all handcrafted (literally) by me.”