Minecraft Drawing Hard
Eboni Kleifgen
The ant dimension is a unique dimension with one layer of White Concrete which contains a Ant Block with a Sign above it that says "PATIENCE". Waiting around the Ant Block will form a drawing. The ant block cannot be picked, however using /setblock or /fill you can place it. If ants collide with each other, one will eat the other.
A dimension entirely made of the minecraft:busy biome which generates redstone components, mostly hoppers, and mineral blocks in place of ores. As a result, this dimension is very laggy when generating the world.
A house in a dirt flatland that contains a villager named bob, three dogs and a hidden underground chest among other decorations. The house is referred to as house_of_bob in the files The signs say "INGEN REKLAM TACK!" which means "NO ADVERTISEMENT PLEASE!" in Swedish and "GO AWAY!" The hidden chest contains rotten flesh, bones, and an iron sword named "Stabby McStabface" (likely a reference to Boaty McBoatface).The dogs collars are the same colors as the "Blue", "Green", and "Red" dimensions.
A dimension which infinitely generates connected structures consisting of Boxes of Infinite Books. A direct reference to The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges. Attempting to place down a Box of Infinite Books simply drops a book with a name that appears to correlate to where it was placed. The book's author is obfuscated text. Right-clicking the book drops another book if facing a block, otherwise you will begin reading it. Its contents are randomly generated text.
Brings you to a dimension with several peaceful rooms with a llama equipped with a lime carpet and signs that say "RELAX!" and "ENJOY!" in colored text. A painting (sunset_dense) and lit nether portal are also present.
Hidden next to the portal behind the wall there is a secret chest with a book named "A Book" authored by "The Developer" which says "Nothing to solve". Throwing the book into the portal brings the player to the 709,735,702nd dimension, but this dimension seems purely random.
A flat dimension made out of note blocks that play random noteblock instruments and pitches despite receiving no redstone power or player input, and lacking any blocks beneath them. The noteblocks stop playing when the player goes into spectator mode.
A dimension with an X,Y,Z indicator, similar to the one that appears when the Debug Menu is open. This is most likely a reference to the (real world) mapping phrase "the origin", which refers to the point on the map where latitude and longitude start from/are zero (or in minecraft terms, where X and Z are zero).
A dimension with a grid that has black and white patterns in each cell. Each layer of each cell is one number in binary, forming patterns atop the cell. Neighboring cells start at incrementing numbers. Except for a split across the x-axis, each grid square differs from each of its neighbors by one block.
Resembles the the popular survival challenge of the same name created by Sethbling, with every block, including creative- or command-exclusive ones, included.Many blocks generate in ways that normally could not exist in isolation, such as floating plants and gravity blocks.
Referred to in the code as "last page" as a reference to the "last page of the internet".Contains a secret message when entered using the correct passphrase.Contains "Uh uh uh! You didn't say the magic word!" written in grass blocks when entered without the correct passphrase (for example by using /warp abglaiap or /warp myrobod) which is a reference to the hacking scene from Jurassic Park.If the correct phrase is used, the world contains the following text, which is a reference to an alien message from the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact:
This secret message was decoded by visiting a streaming media server created by boq, which at random intervals will emit beeping noises that can be decoded as an SSTV image to produce a photo of a notebook with the passphrase written on it.The passphrase can be verified using a code snippet provided by boq."Time of plague" is a reference to the 2019-21 coronavirus pandemic.The dimension accessed with the book containing the word "Europa" appears to be a randomly generated world full of spruce forests in which barrier blocks make up the majority of the solid areas. This world is not an easter egg dimension.
Researchers at Iowa State University have unlocked the secret to creativity, and that secret is Minecraft. Kind of. The researchers got two groups to play Minecraft, another to play "a NASCAR racing game", and another to watch TV. Then they all drew aliens and had their creativity judged based on how far their drawings strayed from boring human anatomy.
The group that played Minecraft without further instruction were judged to be the most creative - but the group that played Minecraft while being told to "be as creative as possible" were the least. What's going on there, then? 'Not sure', say the researchers.
"Maybe creativity's like a muscle, and they tried really hard in the game and then it was worn out by the time they got to the alien drawing task. Maybe they didn't like being told how to play, and so were kind of subtly rejecting our instruction. We don't really know, and followup studies will have to look at this. But it does look very similar to much of the other game research, that what you practice you can get better at, but in fact how you do it might matter just as much."
So, no firm conclusions - but a promising avenue for further research. His 'exhaustion' theory does remind me of those case studies that suggest willpower functions like a resource, with judges being more likely to reject parole applications the closer they get to lunch. Then again, the idea that being told to be creative winds up restricting your thinking has an appeal of its own.
I'm also interested in exactly how they assessed creativity. That alien drawing task is a smart way of going about measuring a process that seems absurdly hard to assess scientifically, but it has its limits. You could draw a single straight line and presumably score maximum points for creativity, which (delightfully) seems both wrong and very accurate.
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