Progress #1: Gozo and Comino in development
Gozo and Comino are in development with the real seabed around them. Mainland Malta is next. What you can already see, and what went wrong this month.
In short: Gozo and Comino are in development: both islands exist in the world, with the real seabed around them, and are being refined. Mainland Malta exists as a test area in the north-west. The full island is next. Towns come last, once the countryside is right.
Status: Gozo 🟨 in development · Comino 🟨 in development · Malta ⬜ next (test area only) · towns ⬜ not started · world release ⬜ not yet
Where things stand
| Part | State |
|---|---|
| Gozo and Comino: land | in development: the whole of both islands at 1:1, being refined |
| The seabed around them | built from the 2012 survey, out to about 1.85 km from the coast |
| Mainland Malta | a test area in the north-west. The full island is next |
| Fields, walls, trees, salt pans | in Gozo and Comino, being refined |
| Sea caves | designed, not yet carved |
| Towns and villages | not started (countryside first) |
What you can already see
- Dwejra: Fungus Rock at its surveyed 50 m, the Azure Window standing again as it was before 2017, the Inland Sea and its tunnel, and the Blue Hole. → Dwejra on the wiki
- The cliffs: the rock layers of the real geology run along the coast: Upper Coralline on top, the soft Blue Clay slopes beneath, then Globigerina and the Lower Coralline at the sea.
- The seabed: divers will recognise the walls at Crocodile Rock and the drop off Fungus Rock.
- The countryside: terraced fields with rubble walls and farm tracks. Crops in the mix the 2010 census gives for each council. Carob, olive, fig and almond trees, and the għargħar (Malta's national tree) at the places it really grows. Salt pans at Xwejni.
How this was built (technical)
- Size: Gozo and Comino with their sea come to about 671,000 chunks. After each build, the world is read back and any missing region is generated again, so there are no holes.
- Seabed: the University of Malta's 2012 survey (about 776 million points) was gridded at 2 m and levelled to the land survey. Where the survey ends, open-sea bathymetry takes over with a gradual transition.
- Fields: parcel shapes come from the land survey and the 2018 aerial photos. The crop mix per council comes from the 2010 agricultural census. Farm tracks are traced from the aerial photos.
- Rock layers: the contacts between the geological layers are computed once for all three islands from the geology map, so a cliff shows the same layers wherever you look at it.
- Pictures: taken by the game itself on a hidden desktop, so the build machine stays usable, and the website ones use shaders and the Faithful 64x pack.
What went wrong this month
- Square patterns in wheat fields. Crops changed in perfect 16-block squares, Minecraft's chunk grid showing through. My fields had turned into a chessboard nobody wanted to play on. Now each field has one crop stage across the whole field.
- Seams between build strips. The world is built in strips, and where two met, fields and walls didn't line up. Now I build each strip with a margin and keep only the middle.
What's next
- Mainland Malta, the whole island, with the same fields, trees and seabed. It's bigger than Gozo and Comino put together, and my computer has already started dreading it.
- Sea caves: the sea caves of Gozo and Comino, such as the Cathedral Cave, carved from dive data and photos.
- More wiki place pages as each area is checked.
Follow along on the wiki, YouTube and Reddit. Spotted something wrong, or have photos or data of a place? Get in touch.
NOT AN OFFICIAL MINECRAFT PRODUCT. NOT APPROVED BY OR ASSOCIATED WITH MOJANG OR MICROSOFT.