What is SunBlock One?

Sunblock One is a prototype solar powered Minecraft server.  There is nothing exceptional about this technologically; we can manage this with inexpensive consumer grade DIY components. We have a 100watt solar panel, a MPPT solar controller, a 12V50ah Lithium battery connected to a miniPC with a 10th gen i7, integrated graphics and 32GB of RAM running Linux that accepts a 12volt DC input.  The setup is not at all dissimilar from DIY off-grid solar powered systems for appliances, mobile devices and other electronics.

It took some effort trying to build this in the context of our Concordia University infrastructure (another blog post I will save for later) but it works… and better than we hoped.  The miniPC draws a perfectly respectable 8-10watts of power running Minecraft on idle in Linux power saver mode.  In performance mode, with players online the consumption of the server climbs to almost 40watts.  This is still significantly less power draw than the average commercial server with almost no performance sacrifice.

This is interesting but also not the point of our project. If we were to calculate the total carbon footprint of a multiplayer Minecraft session then we would find quickly that the server load is a very small proportion of the total client computer load. The client PCs are managing almost all the graphics processing and since gaming PCs (needed to play modded Minecraft) routinely draw 200watts or more its clear that Sunblock One is a drop in the bucket.

So why build a solar powered Minecraft server? 

We built the system to explore a) how cheaply and easily we could build it, b) how we could maximize the miniPC and server uptime with our relatively small battery and less than ideal sunlight conditions in Montreal, and c) to begin our core project of integrating the solar infrastructure of the server with the gameplay of modded Minecraft.

Our goal is not simply to make games ABOUT solar power but to make games WITH solar power; where solar power becomes a part of the game itself.  In a riff on the old Nintendo slogan we argue that with SunBlock One, you are actually playing with power!

This is why we are working with smaller 50ah battery rather than 100 or more amp-hours (the price difference is negligible).  The smaller battery imposes a non-diegetic constraint on play. If the server is run on performance mode there are simply less hours of server up time between charging cycles than on power saver mode.  If the weather is not kind in Montreal then players may find themselves unable to log on. In the context of a Minecraft SMP server players must find ways to manage the life of the server to play the game.

They can do this by restricting play to power saver mode which lowers the clock speed of the CPU an introduces elements of lag to the game. More interestingly, if players use Elytra or other tools for flying server power consumption will increase (due to the faster chunk loading required while traversing the world). If players want to save battery power they should walk more and fly less!  Go figure.

All this introduces new game mechanics and social dynamics to the multiplayer game offering a plethora of opportunities for serious and unserious game design.  The gameworld becomes intimately tied to the real-world infrastructure upon which it depends and now things get interesting.

We use modded Minecraft here for two reasons. First because lower carbon intensive energy does not have to imply frugality. The poster child for low power Minecraft at least is playing the game on a Raspberry Pi.  I’ve never understood this – the game on the Pi is basically unplayable and is more frustrating than fun. But we can play the latest versions of Minecraft, with hundreds of mods and fantastic shaders using far less power than we normally do and our aim is to open the door to that practice by inviting hardware and software modders to innovate ways of gaming with a lower carbon footprint.

Second, we are making mods for Minecraft ourselves. The first mod which we call “Solar HUD’ provides real time data from our solar controller and server as part of the player HUD for the game with two modes for more and less detail.  Solar HUD is meant to give SMP players a direct sense of how their actions affect the battery and server allowing for coordinated gameplay choices. For instance, when the solar PV is high and the battery is overcharging it’s a great time to kick the server into performance mode (which the players can do… more on this later) and take on some boss fights or go on long explorations.  When the battery is low it makes more sense to tinker around your base and stress the CPU as little as possible.

As we move along with the project I will provide more blog posts talking about the nuances of designing with Sunblock.  We have been astounded at how such a relatively simple configuration can open up so many new possibilities.  I want to be clear though, this project is not primarily driven by any desire to teach people about solar power, low carbon computing or energy transition. While this can be a useful byproduct of our work, what drives us instead is using games to cultivate what I want to call infrastructural intimacy rather than literacy.  How we might cultivate a desire to root the pleasures of gaming in the very infrastructures that make those pleasures possible rather than simple taking them for granted.