Minerware, arguably the most captivating gamemode on Cubecraft. It currently has a steady sub ~100 concurrent players and is home to some of the most hectic yet enjoyable minigames I have ever played.
I’ve been on and off coming back to Cubecraft every now and then, trying different gamemodes, but nothing quite compares to Minerware. What initially drew me in years back when I first started playing, was the variety of fast-paced minigames that didn’t solely revolve around PVP as its core mechanic. Instead, players are required to complete a series of contests in which precise movement, fast reaction, game knowledge, and a little PVP on the side are the key components necessary to win the game. Giving the players that don’t fixate themselves exclusively on PVP ample opportunity to still win.
To this day, the latter still holds true. Not much has changed, for better or worse; several minigames have either been renewed or removed completely. Along with a few new games added to the game’s rotation.
That being said, nothing is perfect — Minerware is no exception, with its plethora of minigames there’s bound to be some with minor to excruciating issues. Here’s my compiled list with problems that I find troublesome to an extend where it cripples the players’ enjoyment.
Before we start briefly, a few things worth mentioning are:
Knowing this, I have no issue completing the minigame. However, for many this is not the case, resulting in a common theme we’ll be seeing a lot here.
Potential solutions for this problem are increasing the radius in which the player can deliver the water; though I can imagine that this might be easier said than done, or perhaps the limited range was an intentional hitch to further increase the difficulty.
A better and more simple solution would be to mark the areas within range of the furnace with a different block indicating that the player is now able to fill the tank. A drop-off zone if you will.
Essentially, your task is to cook a specific food for Cuthbert the Cook. In order to complete the task, start by checking what food you’re required to cook displayed above your hotbar… Or do what I like to do and just completely gut the first chest you see and take anything you can get your hands on. Then, maneuver your way to the furnaces a little over to the righthand side of Cuthbert, right-click the furnace with the desired food in hand to cook, and finally proceed by right-clicking the newly cooked food on Cuthbert to at last complete the minigame. After knowing how to complete this minigame it turns into a very stale task, mainly due to the fact that there’s no real time urgency.
In essence, it’s the same as the ‘Enchant item’ minigame in which players are tasked to enchant the correct item with relative urgency. What Enchant item excels at is its simplicity, the task at hand can be found in chat and is overall very straightforward. Contrary to the disorganized, spread apart clues in Cook’s request. Cook’s request doesn’t feel like a puzzle, rather, an exhausting reading comprehension test used up too many times, whereas Enchant item does not. ↓↓↓
(Unused space)
Now, into how this can be resolved. Though, I’m not against the idea of removing this minigame completely. I did, against my better judgement, think of some ways to fix the main issues. For starters, relocate all of the clues to just be inside the chatbox.
Then dwindle the amount of time given to complete this task, especially on hard mode. Finally, make use of the space inside the building. All of the necessities are huddled together in one corner of the kitchen area. Instead, I’d suggest moving the coal, the food, the furnaces & the cook to separate corners of the room giving it a more spacious feel, as well as, utilizing the full potential of the room.
Words cannot express the level of hatred I feel for this bossgame… Yup, you read that right, it’s a bossgame, meaning it’s worth 3 points. I leave the match on sight - regardless of my score - when I see this bossmode. Hook the mob goes against everything that I like about Minerware. Players are frozen in position, hence throwing movement out the window. Fast reaction is disputable, however, the fishing rods’ janky mechanics combined with the RNG involved with the animal spawns make it practically impossible for any player to truly be skilled at this mode regardless of their fast reaction. Game knowledge and PVP are not applicable in any shape or form because all one can do is mindlessly spam his or her fishing rod.
Like I stated before, myself and others tend to leave the match whenever this bossmode shows up, for the self-evident reason that no one in their right mind would want to endure this prolonged awful experience. But! In the sparse occasions in which I opted to stay, I found myself wishing I didn’t for the following reasons:
the playing field is not optimized. What I mean by this is that due to the nature of people leaving, the arena will have a handful of empty spots that would normally house a player. These spots will then be deemed inactive and cause some serious problems whenever your animal gets stuck near their collection hole. Making it pretty much impossible to get your point. Check the gif attached for reference.
Another real pain is players giving up entirely and choosing to ruin the experience for others while they’re at it. This is done by fishing the player instead of the animal, virtually blinding the person on the receiving end. Lastly, another major issue I have with this bossgame is the obscenely long playtime. The game lasts for an entire 180 seconds - 3 minutes. For comparison, the average Minerware minigame lasts for about ~10 to 30 seconds. That’s well over 6 times as long.
(Animals getting stuck & players removing vision)
You’d be forgiven to think that this minigame is still amendable — in all honesty, it might be. That, however, doesn’t stop me from wanting it gone ;).
In all seriousness, the mode needs some rethinking. As frequently as it pops up it’s a real pain to have to sit through the entire 180 seconds to then be outperformed by someone who started with a more favorable position, fundamentally granting them the win from the get-go.
Right, that marks the end of what I find to be the most obstructive minigames in the current Minerware arsenal. I commend anyone to share their take on the matter, I’d love to start a discussion on what needs to be changed to improve the overall game experience!
Now for some of my findings I’d like to share, as well as some bugged minigames that might need fixing.
Starting with ‘Balance beam’, no real complaints here. It’s a fun little minigame but it appears to not be functioning properly. The arrows fall straight down right after being deployed. I’ve been too cowardly to properly playtest if this is the case, though I don’t recall failing this minigame since… ever, so suffice to say something might be wrong.
Moving on to ‘Good door, bad door’ again, the game itself is fine. I’m unsure whether this is intentional but, whenever a player reaches the end of the course and happens to walk down a step. They’ll then be stuck there as jumping is disabled for this minigame. Which to me seems a little too unforgiving.
(FYI, I'm spamming jump in this clip :c )
Thirdly, I wanted to address ‘Find the button’, it lasts a whopping 5 seconds. It really is over in a breeze which on its own isn’t that bad of a thing. But 5 seconds might just be a little too short. Granted, I don’t mind it that much since, unlike the previously mentioned minigames this mode technically still abides by a few of the key components that make Minerware fun to play.
And to conclude we have ‘Stand on diamond’, no complaints here. The mode is pretty self-explanatory, the only point I’d like to devote some attention to is the floor disappearing on the 2-second mark rather than the more prevalent 0-second mark. This may be confusing to some newcomers.
To finish this all off here’s some interesting clips I gathered from playing this mode :)
(You can actually avoid the arrows by just dodging them in a similar fashion as one would do when beating the falling anvil game!)
(Hitting players with the bow instead of shooting can prove to be very effective.)
(A lucky run in 'Drop tower')
Some final words, Minerware is and will continue to be my favorite gamemode on Cubecraft. I don't expect many of the problems I brought up to be solved. Primarily because I don't have any insight on what goes into making these minigames, therefore, some of the suggested changes can very well be next to impossible to implement. I expect cube to have their reasons for the way certain modes play out.
That being said, it would be amazing if some of the issues I brought to light could be addressed! As I stated before, I'm curious to hear what you guys think of the problems, as well as, Minerware as a whole. Lmk if I missed anything by leaving a comment C:
I’ve been on and off coming back to Cubecraft every now and then, trying different gamemodes, but nothing quite compares to Minerware. What initially drew me in years back when I first started playing, was the variety of fast-paced minigames that didn’t solely revolve around PVP as its core mechanic. Instead, players are required to complete a series of contests in which precise movement, fast reaction, game knowledge, and a little PVP on the side are the key components necessary to win the game. Giving the players that don’t fixate themselves exclusively on PVP ample opportunity to still win.
To this day, the latter still holds true. Not much has changed, for better or worse; several minigames have either been renewed or removed completely. Along with a few new games added to the game’s rotation.
That being said, nothing is perfect — Minerware is no exception, with its plethora of minigames there’s bound to be some with minor to excruciating issues. Here’s my compiled list with problems that I find troublesome to an extend where it cripples the players’ enjoyment.
Before we start briefly, a few things worth mentioning are:
- Most of the playtesting was done on hard mode. I personally prefer hard as it proves to be more challenging.
- By no means do I think of myself as ‘the cream of the crop’, so to speak. The points I’m making are my takes on the minigames but can be perceived differently from person to person. I would like to make it abundantly clear that nothing I say is meant to be or catered towards any form of harassment.
- Lastly, I’ll be dividing this post into different sections, starting off with the most problematic problems (imo), moving into some of the more questionable modes and ending with some amusing tricks I found along the way.
Fill the tank
Starting with ‘Fill the tank’. The premise of this minigame is simple; run to the body of water > fill your bucket with water > run to the tank > fill the tank and... rinse and repeat however many times required to fill the tank (this varies depending on what difficulty you’re playing). In retrospect, this minigame isn’t as easy as it seems. All because of the hidden feature/bug(?) which necessitates the player to be within a 1 or 2 blocks radius of the furnace to effectively fill the tank.Knowing this, I have no issue completing the minigame. However, for many this is not the case, resulting in a common theme we’ll be seeing a lot here.
↓↓↓
(Only the more experienced players or in many cases no one at all completing the minigame.)
(Only the more experienced players or in many cases no one at all completing the minigame.)
Potential solutions for this problem are increasing the radius in which the player can deliver the water; though I can imagine that this might be easier said than done, or perhaps the limited range was an intentional hitch to further increase the difficulty.
A better and more simple solution would be to mark the areas within range of the furnace with a different block indicating that the player is now able to fill the tank. A drop-off zone if you will.
Cook's request
Moving on to our next culprit, ‘Cook’s request’ this minigame is a real headscratcher for several reasons. My first time playing this consisted of lots of confused looks, questions marks and pondering what I had done wrong. I subsequently learned the proper way to complete this minigame, however, not without struggle.Essentially, your task is to cook a specific food for Cuthbert the Cook. In order to complete the task, start by checking what food you’re required to cook displayed above your hotbar… Or do what I like to do and just completely gut the first chest you see and take anything you can get your hands on. Then, maneuver your way to the furnaces a little over to the righthand side of Cuthbert, right-click the furnace with the desired food in hand to cook, and finally proceed by right-clicking the newly cooked food on Cuthbert to at last complete the minigame. After knowing how to complete this minigame it turns into a very stale task, mainly due to the fact that there’s no real time urgency.
In essence, it’s the same as the ‘Enchant item’ minigame in which players are tasked to enchant the correct item with relative urgency. What Enchant item excels at is its simplicity, the task at hand can be found in chat and is overall very straightforward. Contrary to the disorganized, spread apart clues in Cook’s request. Cook’s request doesn’t feel like a puzzle, rather, an exhausting reading comprehension test used up too many times, whereas Enchant item does not. ↓↓↓
(Clues are all over the place making it hard to navigate.)
On top of that, Cook’s request continuously throws curveballs at the player in an attempt to throw them off. Starting with the large building used for the minigame, 70% of that building is about as useless as having 12 different maps for Minerware :p. That, with the addition of random items with 0 functionality being thrown into the mix makes for a confusing and possibly frustrating experience.
(Unused space)
Then dwindle the amount of time given to complete this task, especially on hard mode. Finally, make use of the space inside the building. All of the necessities are huddled together in one corner of the kitchen area. Instead, I’d suggest moving the coal, the food, the furnaces & the cook to separate corners of the room giving it a more spacious feel, as well as, utilizing the full potential of the room.
Hook the mob
Now we arrive at the true *bleep* sandwich of Minerware: ‘Hook the mob’Words cannot express the level of hatred I feel for this bossgame… Yup, you read that right, it’s a bossgame, meaning it’s worth 3 points. I leave the match on sight - regardless of my score - when I see this bossmode. Hook the mob goes against everything that I like about Minerware. Players are frozen in position, hence throwing movement out the window. Fast reaction is disputable, however, the fishing rods’ janky mechanics combined with the RNG involved with the animal spawns make it practically impossible for any player to truly be skilled at this mode regardless of their fast reaction. Game knowledge and PVP are not applicable in any shape or form because all one can do is mindlessly spam his or her fishing rod.
Like I stated before, myself and others tend to leave the match whenever this bossmode shows up, for the self-evident reason that no one in their right mind would want to endure this prolonged awful experience. But! In the sparse occasions in which I opted to stay, I found myself wishing I didn’t for the following reasons:
the playing field is not optimized. What I mean by this is that due to the nature of people leaving, the arena will have a handful of empty spots that would normally house a player. These spots will then be deemed inactive and cause some serious problems whenever your animal gets stuck near their collection hole. Making it pretty much impossible to get your point. Check the gif attached for reference.
Another real pain is players giving up entirely and choosing to ruin the experience for others while they’re at it. This is done by fishing the player instead of the animal, virtually blinding the person on the receiving end. Lastly, another major issue I have with this bossgame is the obscenely long playtime. The game lasts for an entire 180 seconds - 3 minutes. For comparison, the average Minerware minigame lasts for about ~10 to 30 seconds. That’s well over 6 times as long.
(Animals getting stuck & players removing vision)
In all seriousness, the mode needs some rethinking. As frequently as it pops up it’s a real pain to have to sit through the entire 180 seconds to then be outperformed by someone who started with a more favorable position, fundamentally granting them the win from the get-go.
Right, that marks the end of what I find to be the most obstructive minigames in the current Minerware arsenal. I commend anyone to share their take on the matter, I’d love to start a discussion on what needs to be changed to improve the overall game experience!
Now for some of my findings I’d like to share, as well as some bugged minigames that might need fixing.
Starting with ‘Balance beam’, no real complaints here. It’s a fun little minigame but it appears to not be functioning properly. The arrows fall straight down right after being deployed. I’ve been too cowardly to properly playtest if this is the case, though I don’t recall failing this minigame since… ever, so suffice to say something might be wrong.
Moving on to ‘Good door, bad door’ again, the game itself is fine. I’m unsure whether this is intentional but, whenever a player reaches the end of the course and happens to walk down a step. They’ll then be stuck there as jumping is disabled for this minigame. Which to me seems a little too unforgiving.
(FYI, I'm spamming jump in this clip :c )
Thirdly, I wanted to address ‘Find the button’, it lasts a whopping 5 seconds. It really is over in a breeze which on its own isn’t that bad of a thing. But 5 seconds might just be a little too short. Granted, I don’t mind it that much since, unlike the previously mentioned minigames this mode technically still abides by a few of the key components that make Minerware fun to play.
And to conclude we have ‘Stand on diamond’, no complaints here. The mode is pretty self-explanatory, the only point I’d like to devote some attention to is the floor disappearing on the 2-second mark rather than the more prevalent 0-second mark. This may be confusing to some newcomers.
To finish this all off here’s some interesting clips I gathered from playing this mode :)
(You can actually avoid the arrows by just dodging them in a similar fashion as one would do when beating the falling anvil game!)
(Hitting players with the bow instead of shooting can prove to be very effective.)
(A lucky run in 'Drop tower')
Some final words, Minerware is and will continue to be my favorite gamemode on Cubecraft. I don't expect many of the problems I brought up to be solved. Primarily because I don't have any insight on what goes into making these minigames, therefore, some of the suggested changes can very well be next to impossible to implement. I expect cube to have their reasons for the way certain modes play out.
That being said, it would be amazing if some of the issues I brought to light could be addressed! As I stated before, I'm curious to hear what you guys think of the problems, as well as, Minerware as a whole. Lmk if I missed anything by leaving a comment C:
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