Bloc/Blog

Going to Metal in Game Design

May 10, 2026

The point of all this then is not to build the most energy efficient server for playing Minecraft or even to reduce the overall carbon footprint of Minecraft play. Though these are laudable goals our aim is rather to engage the player directly in the conditions of the production of their own play no matter how energy intensive that may be. The energy transition is not about learning to play with less power so much as it is about learning to play with power differently.

Spinal Landscapes

April 18, 2026

This sort of playtesting is emotionally fraught. On one level, you have helped make a Thing that you enjoy using with others. On another, you are supposed to break the Thing, coldly and systematically, and to be able to describe what you did and what happened in a manner that’s useful to your teammates writing the code, to prevent others from experiencing what you have just experienced. But if you begin to suspect that the problem with the Thing you have been talking about for the last hour is not systemic but local to you and your ancient, crumbly potato of a computer, the situation becomes more complex, because you begin to worry, with more than a little shame, that you may have been crying wolf (lizard) all along, and that your friends and teammates have better things to do than sort out your incompetent ravings.

The Larch

April 3, 2026

At least as far as our current playtest goes, I think we have succeeded in offering an opportunity for players to think about trees in way they usually don’t in Minecraft. We are mindful that we are not attempting to produce any kind of ecological simulation however. This is not a game about ecology or dendrology (the study of trees) but an allegorical prompt about players’ relationship to climate in general and trees in particular all in reference to our experience and understanding of how Minecraft is normally played.

Look At The Computer

March 20, 2026

There are so many different connections. Is the server connected to the battery? To the controller? To the panels? To the power supply? To the internet? Am I connected to the internet? Can I connect to the server? Are the Minecraft authentication servers down? Do I have the right password, the right IP address, the right port, the right account, the right profile, the right amperage, the right solder, the right room?

Designing Minecraft Spaces

March 10, 2026

Sometimes, when I build, it’s because I want to share the space with someone else. A base becomes a space for friendship, and collaboration. A house serves as proof of my participation on the server, and where I locate myself according to the other players changes how they will interact with me online. Design becomes a negotiation when you decide to settle down with another player, especially when that means sharing a storage system. Your building becomes a space for shared memory, where someone other than yourself can move through it, notice it, and respond to it.

Legacies of Regrowth

March 6, 2026

This idea of regrowth or reclamation had a singularly humanist pretension in that the game’s progression, especially in the solipsistic single player world of Minecraft, was all for my own benefit. I wasn’t greening the world; I was greening MY world and indeed I only needed to change the land as much as my eye could see (if that). So, this grand ecological gesture which seemed at first so poignant suddenly struck me as just an enthusiastic form of gardening.

To bonemeal or not to bonemeal

February 25, 2026

What kind of play is it when it’s not your move, your desire, your goals that are front and centre?  Its interesting I think that we have less of an issue deferring to other humans… like in chess. We must wait for the opposing player to make a move and chess etiquette demands patience, but I don’t think we feel the same about an AI chess player for instance. If its slow, we wonder if its broken.

Carrying Water

February 13, 2026

In industrialized societies with ubiquitous indoor plumbing, standing at the sink in your kitchen is very much like having an infinite water source in Minecraft and the closest you might get to the outside is looking through the window.  Running for buckets could be a poor analogy for thinking about water scarcity (because Minecraft water is not actually scarce at all) but it is also very effective for thinking about the material ideologies of insides and outsides, culture and nature, and a mindfulness about infrastructure.

Son of SunBlock: Building a Variable Power PC Client for Playing Minecraft

January 28, 2026

What we want is a client system that can facilitate players’ reflexive practice with respect to the energy infrastructures and carbon footprint of their own gaming habits, and of digital culture in general. We firmly believe that game culture remains an important pivot point for rethinking, reimagining and remaking our relationship to the planet but our focus is on maximizing the agency of players by extending the boundaries of gameplay to include the energy infrastructures that make their games possible.

Manufactured Landscapes Part 1 – Firewatch

January 9, 2026

Where we as individuals and we as members of communities fit into environments and ecologies is crucial to what we’re exploring with this project. In fact, we’ve gone through quite a few different titles for our modpack, many of them touching on the relationship between the player and the trees or the forests that we hope will return to the landscape- “Forest Keepers”, “Forest Wardens”, etc. What kind of relationship to the forest does the tower represent? Is the tower occupant a sentry or a witness? Is it a position of authority or a position of supplication? How does that relationship change once the forest is gone? If the tower were a monument, what would it be for?

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