Stone Marshall's Blog, page 75

Minecraft EDU Now on iPad

Minecraft: Education Edition is now available on the iPad platform.

The iOS version shares many features found in other versions of Minecraft EDU, including the Update Aquatic package for underwater STEM activities and the Chemistry Resource Pack. It includes a touch interface that is “functionally equivalent to the standard control scheme for the game,” according to Microsoft, which owns Minecraft.

Licensing is being handled through the Microsoft Store, third-party resellers and volume licensing agreements. An Office 365 for Education account is required for deployment. A free trial version will also be available for teachers (maximum of 25 logins) and students (maximum of 10 logins).

A deployment guide and other iOS-specific resources are available on the Minecraft site. Teacher resources can be found here.

Minecraft Minefaire Takes Place In Schaumburg This Weekend

CHICAGO (CBS) — Calling all cube creators!

Thousands of families are headed to Schaumburg this weekend for Minefaire. It creates the ultimate Minecraft experience.

The video game allows players of all ages to create and play in their own world.

Popular YouTubers from all over the world are expected to attend. You can fully immerse yourself in the world of Minecraft with a virtual reality experience and Minecraft escape room.

The event takes place Saturday and Sunday at the Schaumburg Convention Center located at 1551 North Thoreau Drive.

Visit the site Minefaire.com for more information on tickets, events and schedules.

YouTube star Stampy Cat sets new Minecraft record for Gamer’s Edition 2019

Joseph Garrett, a.k.a Stampy Cat, is one Minecraft’s most well-known gamers and now he has two Guinness World Records titles to his name.

The 27-year-old has set a new record for the Fastest time to make and display 10 cakes in Minecraft (PC Edition) with a time of 3 minutes 51 seconds to go with his record for Most viewed Terraria video (9,593,008 views as of 24 April).

Stampy set his Minecraft record when he visited Guinness World Records’ London HQ on 3 April ahead of the launch of Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2019, a book that features records from games such as Dragon Ball FighterZ,Fortnite and FIFA, and for which he has also written the introduction.

StampyCat – Fastest Time to Make 10 Cakes – article 2

After receiving his title for Fastest time to make and display 10 cakes in Minecraft, Stampy was delighted.

“It feels fantastic to be a Guinness World Records title holder! I grew up reading all of the books and it was always something I was aware of, and I never thought I would actually be in the book with my very own title.”

In his introduction, Stampy shares some of his favourite records from the book, as well as some of his thoughts about gaming and record-breaking.

But on the day of his record attempt, Guinness World Records talked to Stampy about his story and asked what compelled him to become a YouTube gamer and record-breaker!

StampyCat – Fastest Time to Make 10 Cakes-3

While Stampy now enjoys more than 9 million YouTube subscribers, and has racked up almost 7 billion (6,795,708,273) views, it took him a while to achieve success on the platform.

“I did YouTube for a really long time with almost no-one watching! The time people really started watching was when I started doing Minecraft videos. People must have liked something that I was doing because a lot of people started watching,” he said.

The origins of Stampy’s channel stemmed from his creativity and desire to make and edit videos.

“When I first started doing my YouTube videos they were actually a bunch of videos I’d made; just little animations, short films with my friends at school. I was making YouTube videos before I had a YouTube channel – and then finally I had a place to share them!”

In fact, even the name, Stampy, came from one of his earliest creations.

“I decided to call myself Stampy because a really long time ago when I was at school I made an animation with a character called Stampy,” while the cat element to his name came from a skin he just never changed.

StampyCat – Fastest Time to Make 10 Cakes -article3

Stampy’s channel took off when he started creating Minecraft videos, just as the game was launch on the Xbox 360.

The game has grown rapidly, and holds the record titles for Fastest-selling Xbox Live Arcade videogame, Best-selling videogame on non-console formats, Highest grossing indie videogame, and Most wins of the Children’s BAFTA “Kids’ Vote” award for a videogame.

But what can Minecraft attribute its phenomenal success to?

Stampy believes it’s a combination of accessibility and diversity within its virtual world.

“I think the reason why Minecraft has become so popular and stayed so popular for so long is basically because it’s a platform that you can do whatever you want in.

“A lot of people say ‘aren’t you bored with Minecraft?’ and it’s like saying ‘aren’t you bored of drawing – or writing?’ It doesn’t really matter what you’re using, you’re always doing something new.”

Stampy Cat with Gamer’s Edition Editor Mike Plant

Stampy Cat with Gamer’s Edition Editor Mike Plant

After seven years and hundreds of videos on YouTube, Stampy still likes to seek out something new to do with the game to keep his subscribers entertained.

“I keep myself motivated by always trying to do something new, and then, when I do do something new, seeing the reactions and the comments from everyone that watches my videos.”

Though Stampy spends the majority of his time on YouTube creating and managing his own content, he also tries to watch his other favourite gamers when he gets the chance.

“Along with a lot of other people I really like watching Ninja. I’m actually really big into Halo!”

One of Stampy’s main pieces of advice for breaking a record title is doing something you love and enjoy.

“If you want to break a record title, make sure you’re doing it in something that you enjoy. Don’t just look to the games that other people are competing in – look at what you love doing. If you’re enjoying yourself you’re not going to worry about all of the dedication you’re going to need to break your record title.”

If you want to try your hand at record breaking, take a look at our Minecraftreader challenges in Gamer’s, which come with instructions from fellow gamer Callum Knight, a.k.a SeaPeeKay.

Callum Knight, aka SeaPeeKay

Callum Knight, aka SeaPeeKay

It includes something for everyone, and covers all types of gaming from retro to virtual reality. Whether your thing is action RPGs, brawlers, strategy or shooters, you’ll find it in Gamer’s Edition 2019.

In the words of Stampy himself:

“We all share a love of gaming. This is the chance to celebrate the people that make gaming officially awesome!”

Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2019 is out now! Find out where you can buy your copy

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Minecraft records up for grabs as gamer SeaPeeKay introduces brand new challenges

Minecraft fans can put their skills to the test with an exciting series of record attempts in Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2019.

The new book contains four reader challenges inviting people to attempt records for:

Fastest time to build a castle in Minecraft creative mode

Fastest time to build a rocket in Minecraft survival mode

Fastest time to build an igloo in Minecraft survival mode

Fastest time to saddle and stable 10 horses in Minecraft survival mode

Minecraft Reader Challenges 3

YouTuber Callum Knight, better known as SeaPeeKay, introduces the challenges in the book and has even set a benchmark time of 4 minutes 20 seconds for the castle record.

To help would-be record breakers, tutorial videos have been created for all four tasks along with explanations about how to register attempts.

You can find the tutorial for the Fastest time to build a castle in Minecraft creative mode while all others are on our dedicated Minecraft challenge page.

But that’s not all that’s featured in Gamer’s Edition 2019, which is packed with accomplishments games such as FIFA 18, Super Mario 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, Splatoon 2, The Legend of Zelda, Roblox, Dragon Ball FighterZ and many more.

Feel inspired after reading exclusive material featuring the likes of Ray “Stallion83” Cox, record holder for the Highest Xbox Gamerscore, or popular VR-dedicated YouTuber Nathaniel “Nathie” de Jong, and Joseph Garrett, aka Stampy Cat, who has written this year’s introduction.

Minecraft Reader Challenges

Find out which Monster Hunter: World beast is the largest, who the Most subscribed gaming YouTuber is, just how many players have been healed by one Overwatch gamer alone or how the Nintendo Gameboy originated, through colourful and insightful spreads.

“Gamer’s Edition 2019 is bursting with the latest, greatest records from the games you love to play,” said editor Mike Plant.

“From Stampy Cat’s cake-making Minecraft adventures to Ninja’s Twitch-streaming exploits in Fortnite, there’s always something new for gamers to discover. I hope you have as much fun reading Gamer’s Edition 2019 as I had editing it!”

Gaming platform Roblox may be the next Minecraft

For startup Roblox, it pays to play with digital toys.

After closing a $150 million round of series F funding, Roblox is now valued at $2.5 billion, the company said Wednesday.

This isn’t the first big valuation for an open world game platform geared for kids. In 2015, Microsoft bought Mojang, maker of popular kids’ game Minecraft, for $2.5 billion.

“We think of this in terms less of a big number and more in terms of an emerging category for human interaction and co-experience,” said David Baszucki, Roblox’s founder and CEO.

Roblox, which was founded in 2004, is a platform where you can create your own games or join ones others have made. Roblox’s avatars look a little like Lego minifigs. There are more than 70 million monthly users, and users log about 900 million hours of engagement each month, according to Roblox’s website.

The funding round was led by Greylock Partners and Tiger Global with Altos, Meritech and Index Ventures also participating. Baszucki said plans for the future are, as you might imagine, growth.

“Ultimately we have the vision of expanding to a world wide platform that allows kids from the US to go on field trips to China and adults around the world to make friends from different walks of life and people who have different life experiences,” he said, and “to really help create a future digital civil society.”

Combining ‘Fortnite’ and ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Is Easier Than You Think

Players looking to bring an innovative encounter to their next session of Dungeons & Dragons should look no further than one of the most popular video games out today.

At first glance, Dungeons & Dragons and Fortnite couldn’t be any further apart. One is a venerable tabletop RPG enjoying a renaissance due to the appeal of shared storytelling and streamlined rules. The other is a manic video game that combines crazy free-for-all action and combat with an addicting comic irreverence. However, I recently crafted an encounter in our home game that benefited from adding some Fortnite-esque rules into the mix.

A popular staple in Dungeons & Dragons is gladiatorial combat – either against rival teams of adventurers or against monsters. Gladiator matches are a good way for bruisers to test their might and also win some gold or fame along the way.

So – how does one turn a gladiator match into a Fortnite-esque battle royale? Well, the chances are that your D&D group already has the irreverent “destroy everything and laugh along the way” mindset needed to succeed in Fortnite, so you just need to bring in the shrinking battlefield into the encounter.

For my D&D/Fortnite mashup, I used a pretty typical coliseum type setup with only a handful of rules. There was only one winner (thus forcing all alliances to be temporary) and players couldn’t use divine magic, thus keeping clerics and druids from preventing bloody violence up with their healing spells or ability to transform into fire elementals.

The combat area itself was split into three rings, each of which had a handful of terrain options to provide cover and add a little bit of strategy to the mix. Participants could use the entire stadium at the start of the fight, but once about half of the participants were eliminated, the remaining warriors had a few seconds to enter the inner two rings or get hit with some nasty lightning damage – courtesy of some arcane runes around the edge of the coliseum. Eventually, players are forced into a small area of combat, forcing them to duke it out (or to try to push their opponents into the deadly lightning circling the ring.)

You can also spice up the encounter by introducing rivals or setting up future encounters. My home game’s battle royale had been teased via town criers and idle gossip for months, and the players recognized many of the other participants, including some old friends and the monk’s friendly rival…who was created just to incentivize the players into entering.

I kept my Fortnite encounter rather simple and wrapped it up in a single night, but adventurous DMs can turn it into an extended storyline. Maybe players are stripped of their magic items and dropped onto a remote island, where they have to rely on their scavenging and tracking skills to survive. Or maybe players can form small teams, thus preventing a PvP battle (and hurt feelings) at the end of the battle royale. There’s plenty of ways to port Fortnite into Dungeons & Dragons, and chances are you’ll get a few laughs when players realize what’s happening.

How have you used video games to enhance your D&D game? Let us know in the comment section or shoot me a tweet at @CHofferCBus on Twitter!

‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ Trailer Reveals Black Cat

A new Marvel’s Spider-Man trailer just dropped, giving us our first look at Black Cat (Felicia Hardy). Black Cat will serve as the main focus of part one of The City That Never Sleeps DLC. This chapter is called “The Heist,” and for those of you who know Black Cat, you know exactly why. Check out the teaser above!

Spider-Man and Black Cat have a long and complicated history, and presently we’re not sure exactly where they stand in this new canon that Insomniac has created. She is apparently still the anti-hero that we all know and love, but what does Spider-Man think of her? Do they still have any kind of romantic tension between them? Could that serve as a point of conflict between Peter and Mary Jane?

And just what is Black Cat after? The title of this DLC chapter is “The Heist,” so we know that Black Cat will be stealing something, we just don’t know what. There are plenty of major powers at play in this game world. Fisk is a hyper-powerful jailbird with a chip on his shoulder, and plenty of power at his disposal. Osborn is a power-hungry politician willing to do whatever it takes to secure a third term. Martin Li is a dangerous man leading an impossible double-life. They all have their motives, and they all have things that are precious to them. What, or who, is Black Cat after?

These are all questions that will be answered before long. Marvel’s Spider-Man swings onto PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro on September 7, which will give you guys a little over a month to power through the main story and prepare for all of this delicious extra content. The Heist is set to drop on October 23, and two more DLC chapters will be launching in November and December to complete The City That Never Sleeps.

In the meantime, you guys have our review to look forward to. We’ve played and beaten Marvel’s Spider-Man, and we’ll be telling you everything you need to know about it tomorrow as part of our review. Make sure you bookmark ComicBook.com/gaming, and check back tomorrow to read our full review. We have so much to say about this game, and you’re going to want to read it all before you jump in at the end of the week. Stay tuned!

‘Minecraft’ add-on gives gamers taste of climate change side effects

A “Minecraft” add-on, or game mod, added climate-change weather effects to show gamers negative impacts similar to the real world.

The aptly named “GlobalWarming” game mod, made by developer Nick Porillo, attempts to simulate the real-world effects of climate change into “Minecraft” as a way to educate gamers about caring for the environment, reports Motherboard.

The game mod added several concepts into “Minecraft” such as the idea of rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the game’s atmosphere. Things like smoke from burning, cooking or smelting ores would increase CO2 levels and trigger various weather phenomena. Some of these weather changes can also be observed in the real world.

Porillo got inspiration from a course on climate-change science, technology and policy last spring at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

“[The course] really educated me on the topics at hand. Last week I was just playing the new Minecraft 1.13 update after a multi-year hiatus from Minecraft. I was shocked at how much things have changed, and the ocean biomes updates really introduced the ability to make this idea happen,” said Porillo.

He added, “The (Minecraft) community believes there is potential educational benefit, so I’ve been working on developing cool ideas to make the gameplay fun and informational.”

Not all is doom and gloom for the game add-on. Players who install the “GlobalWarming” may also practice saving the environment by planting trees and other activities to offset in-game emissions. This in turn will help stop environmental damage on a large scale.

Apple is going to war with Google for dominance in US classrooms

Google dominates US classrooms with its affordable laptops and free apps like Google Docs. Now Apple appears to be getting serious about recovering some share of the education market.

Apple executives announced their latest education products at a Chicago high-school auditorium today (March 27) to an audience of journalists, analysts, educators, and students. The hour-long event had little new hardware on show. “We believe iPad is best at engaging students,” a company representative said onstage. But it’s not clear that its latest offerings would put a serious damper on Google and its partners’ education sales.

Here’s a quick rundown of everything Apple announced.

A new iPad

Apple revamped its 9.7-inch iPad that supports Apple’s stylus, the Pencil. It features just about everything you’d expect on a tablet of its ilk, including a Retina HD display, an 8-megapixel camera, Apple’s A10 processor, which was first seen in the iPhone 7, a TouchID fingerprint scanner (no FaceID sensors like on the new iPhone X), and a front-facing camera for selfie-taking and Skyping.

QUARTZ/MIKE MURPHY

Everything the new iPad has on board.

Unlike the more expensive iPad Pro (which starts at $649), this iPad does not support Apple’s Smart Keyboard case. Apple also did not reduce the price of its Pencil stylus (which is still $99), but did announce that Logitech is making a stylus called the Crayon which will work with iPads, and starts at $49.

The new iPads start at $329 for a 32GB model. Apple said that teachers and schools will be able to get them for a discounted rate of $299. It comes in gold, silver, and grey. Sadly, no rose gold.

New software

iWork updates. Apple announced a new suit of iWork apps with tons of updates for schools. It focused mostly on the new version of Pages, where teachers can make textbooks for their students directly on an iPad, as well as mark up documents using an Apple Pencil. Students can collaborate on editing projects together in class over wifi, much like they’ve been able to on Google Docs for years.

QUARTZ/MIKE MURPHY

The new iPad, running Pages.

Minor apps get minor updates. GarageBand, Apple’s music-making app, got minor refreshes, including a royalty-free sound library for class presentations. Clips, Apple’s Snapchat-like video app, got new Apple-designed posters and animations that make it easier for students to make mini-presentations on the fly.

Schoolwork. Apple released a new app for teachers to keep track of their students, and basically make digital handouts for homework as easily as they can write an email. The app also lets teachers assign specific tasks to students within educational apps and see how well they’re progressing. Obliquely referencing issues in the news right now, Apple harped on the fact that the data in this app is private, seen only by the student and teachers involved. The app will launch in June.

More storage. Apple announced that all iCloud accounts associated with a school will now get 200GB free cloud storage, a massive boost over the 5GB it previously offered. It didn’t extend this offer to those who have graduated, and it’s worth noting that Microsoft Office 365 subscribers get 1TB of free data.

Everyone Can Create. Apple said that it will soon launch a new curriculum, focused on how the iPad is a powerful creative tool for the classroom. It builds on the Everyone Can Code curriculum it previously launched to encourage students to learn to code.

Nothing else

Apple did not announce any updates to its low-cost laptops, including the MacBook Air, which many had been hoping for. It didn’t announce availability for AirPower, the wireless-charging mat it previewed back in September. It didn’t even introduce a new version of its Pencil.

There were no surprise reveals at this event, and it was true to its invitation, which said we would “hear creative new ideas for teachers and students.”

Is it enough?

The pricing structure effectively rules out the new iPad from being a true competitor to most Chromebooks. Despite what Apple would like us to believe, it is not that easy to type out a term paper on a touchscreen. The new iPad software (more on that below) will definitely make doing project work and taking notes at school far easier. But doing essays, browsing the web, and chatting with friends is a lot easier to do when you have a proper keyboard to type on, and you can easily type on the device on your lap or a table. What’s more, if you’re buying Apple’s new iPad and a Pencil, even with the school discount, the starting price is $398. Many Chromebooks are the same price or cheaper, and have touchscreens as well as full keyboards.

Then there’s the issue of whether schools that have already invested in Google’s suite of offerings would be willing to switch back for the sake of Apple’s new software and stylus capabilities. Then again, at least iPads have all of Google’s apps on them.

Perhaps there’s hope. While sitting in the school’s cafeteria after the event, one teacher spoke with her colleagues about the new iPad. ”It’s not like, revolutionary, but it’s way more helpful,” she said. “The stuff we’re asking for, they’re listening.”

Microsoft is bringing Minecraft: Education Edition to the iPad

Just before students head back to school, Microsoft is releasing its Minecraft: Education Edition for the iPad. The educational version of the popular block-builder game launched in 2016, and will be available for the iPad starting next month.

In March, Apple announced a cheaper iPad geared specifically toward teachers and students, in an effort to catch up to Google’s dominance of the education market. (Google’s Chromebooks have nearly 60% market share for education hardware in the US.)

The iPad version of Minecraft: Education Edition will also help Microsoft ride on Apple’s coattails into the classroom. Though Microsoft offers other educational software products like Microsoft 365—its productivity suite that includes apps like Powerpoint and Microsoft Word—this new release will help make education software more accessible, especially to younger students for whom Minecraft is already incredibly popular. Microsoft bought Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014.

Microsoft says Minecraft: Education Edition already has 35 million users in 115 countries, and given the new iPad version, those numbers will likely grow.