Planting the Seeds of Our New SMP
Our new SMP modpack is underway!
After a few months in pre-production the TAG Minecraft Bloc research group is ready to announce our new project for the SunBlock solar server. On May 1st 2026, we will launch a six-week SMP modpack called For The Trees (FTT). This SMP is a sequel to our Gaia’s Riddle pack from Spring 2025 and continues our investigation of Minecraft based ecomodding and ecoplay in the context of our Montreal based, custom solar powered server we affectionately call SunBlock One. Interested folks and eager players will be invited to join our Discord to follow and contribute to the development process.
At launch players will be able to download the FTT modpack (for free) and log on SunBlock to play. In For The Trees, real-time energy data from our solar server appears on a HUD in-game, and players have access to a variety of solar powered tools and items to play in a bleak empty world devastated by ecocatastrophe. Using a variety of popular mods with our own custom progression, structures and quests, players will help regenerate the land with the goal of restoring the world’s biomes and regenerating the vast forests on the seemingly lifeless earth. Our game is a re-imagining of the popular Reclamation modpack (itself a clever adaptation of the famous Regrowth modpack) as an ecocritical SMP adventure. We are especially honored to have ACCBDD (William Nottell) the designer of Reclamation as a co-developer for For The Trees!
FTT is inspired partly by the story of Auroville in Tamil Nadu, India. The players take on the role of forest stewards and must work together to create large forests within six weeks while coping with the in-game pressures of pollution, forest fires, roaming monsters, and scarce resources along with the limits of the solar powered 100Ah battery which turns common place player activities like flying and AFK’ing into costly decisions. Understanding the complex mechanics, embedded procedural systems, and finding new ways of working together will be key. To complicate matters players will eventually discover that they are not alone in efforts to regenerate the world, and they must decide to cooperate or compete with other forces that are also working to restore ecological balance to the world. Perhaps their way is better?
FTT on Sunblock will be a different kind of ecogame experience. The entire game system of server infrastructure, game software (Minecraft), open-source mods, custom game mechanics and social play becomes an opportunity to investigate and reflect on the limits and potentials of digital gaming for cultivating ecocritical reflection and discussion in the context of the current climate crisis and mounting climate anxiety. We are especially interested in localized cultural and material aspects of energy transition and how agency might be expressed in individual and small group choices about energy production and consumption through play.
The resulting game is not meant as a pedantic treatise on either climate hopefulness or doom, so much as ecological platform or framework for collectively thinking, acting and playing, in post-humanistically fun ways. The lesson, if there is one, is that in this time of severe and unmitigated crisis, we should not imagine that we can make a difference or fix things alone.
Over the next months our SunBlock research team will blog about our design process, our engagement with ecogaming and modding, and broader speculations on modded Minecraft as a platform for critical play and we welcome comments, feedback and collaboration from gamers, modders, serious games folks, environmentalists and anyone else with a potential interest in the project.
Check back soon to learn how to join our Discord, help spread the word, and get ready to play!