What Is Survival Craft?
To say that Survival Craft is a Minecraft clone is close, but not entirely accurate. Klauus, the creator, felt that Minecraft wasn’t simply deadly enough. Survival Craft, then, is a game that looks, and in some way feels, like Minecraft (but with better graphics), and allows you to do some of the same things. The difference is that Survival Craft, at it’s heart, is much more deadly. Bulls, cows, packs of wolves, and even the occasional werewolf prowl around at night, meaning that a shelter of some kind isn’t just nice, it’s essential.
The game was also designed to run on mobile devices, such as tablets, and other hand-helds, including the new Kindle Fire. This means that, unlike Minecraft, it is very far advanced along the development path for handhelds, and is designed specifically for them. This makes it a better game for these devices than the current Minecraft offering, which is a little behind the desktop version of Minecraft in features.
Survival Craft is also cheaper than Minecraft. If it matters.
The game is still in heavy development, and with (almost) every release something new is added to the list of dangers and joys. It is a game that may have started as a simple minecraft clone, but has gone way beyond it.
The Map, And Exploration.
Survival Craft’s map is infinite. It goes on forever. This means that it is incredibly easy to get lost – an incredible annoyance when you have spent time creating a large structure for your home, and now need to wander further afield for the scarce resources.
In order to find your way home, a system of markers will be necessary. As the game will send you back to the last place you slept when you died, this could mean loosing all your stuff if you can’t get back to where you were.
The simplest form of markers are 3 block tall towers, with the top block being sand. The reason for choosing sand, of course, is that it is much easier to see at a distance against other backgrounds (like dirt, or snow). Sand is also a fairly abundant resource, which means that you’re not wasting valuable resources (such as torches) in marking your path.
These should be placed within easy sight of each other.
Your Home
This can be pretty much anywhere, but it seems that the best place to build one is outside on some fertile land. This is land where the grass is a deep green, not a washed-out green. The reason for this is that you can then surround your house with plains of lush grass, and then use these to plant trees.
Wood, while in near-abundance, doesn’t really grow back on it’s own. You will need to make sapling out out of the leaves of trees already growing in the area, (by crafting the leaves), and planting trees. You will need to destroy all the blocks (including the leaves) for another tree to grow. Don’t just plant one sapling, but many, some of them will simply wither and die.
Lions, and Wolfs And Bears, Oh My!
Pretty much everything in the game wants to kill you. Pretty much every animal in the game can be eaten by you. Food is one of the quickest ways to regenerate health. Animals, however, tend to attack in groups (with the exception of bears, which are often solitary creatures, but they can cause other animals to attack you).
Animals, when they begin to attack at night, attract other animals of a likeรย sort to attack you. You can then quickly find yourself being chased across the plain by bears, wolfs and bulls, with more joining in. This is not a fun place to be. It is the reason not to head out at night.
You can carry various tools to help kill an animal. All tools will do some damage, but there are some which are designed for the job, like the machete, the spear, or the axe. Try to always carry one, and have it in your quick equip slot.
Water
You will quickly learn that water is the bane of your life when you find it underground. It can turn a nice cavern into a death-trap with an accidental mining of a block. Putting things back the way they were is even more problematic. It can be done by the addition of many blocks, but the best thing is to avoid disturbing the water if at all possible.
Let There Be Light
Exploring caves gets dark. You will need some form of light. You can make torches relatively simply from a stick and some coal. The problem is that coal can be difficult to find, as it’s inside caves. In order to give yourself some light to start your exploration, you can burn some wood in a furnace, which will produce coal. This will allow you to go hunting for more coal.
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