I don’t know about you, but since witch huts and witches came out last Halloween I have never found a witch actually spawn in a witch hut in-game, in Minecraft until this past weekend. So just for proof that they do exist and to remind me in the future since I may or may not run into one again (they seem extremely rare) I am posting these in-game pictures.
Instant Minecraft: Pi Edition Coding How-to
I am all about “All Things Minecraft” so when I was asked to review Packt Publishing newest Minecraft eBook “Instant Minecraft: PI Edition Coding How To” I was very excited to say the least.
Like the title says “Some assembly required”, in order to take full advantage of this book one must have a Raspberry PI. What is a Raspberry PI? Glad you asked! According to the Raspberry Pi website (http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs) The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming. So in the spirit of full disclosure, while I was tempted to purchase a Raspberry PI (which can be purchased for under $100) while walking through the tutorials in the eBook, I refrained and merely settled for reading the book.
The book is a novel idea and for those wishing to delve it to coding in Minecraft it provides a unique opportunity. The book covers setting up Minecraft on a Raspberry PI device as well as coding in Python. Along the way it shows you how to create a reversi game to play inside Minecraft and for those truly adventurous souls how to use the Raspberry PI and a few other components to create a secret door and burglar alarm for Minecraft.
The concepts seem good and straight forward, but without having a Raspberry PI to test on I can only assume that the book is correct. Although I was able to get the book for review it would have been nice to know ahead of time that a Raspberry PI computer was needed to fully utilize the examples in the book. Of course, had I been more versed in the Raspberry PI prior to this book I would have automatically assumed so just be the title.
My recommendation if you are interested in coding in Minecraft and love tinkering with electronic devices then this book is a must have. If you don’t currently have a Raspberry PI, they are relatively inexpensive so the $$$ to purchase one should not be a hindrance.
I continue to enjoy the books the Packt Publishing is producing for Minecraft enthusiast and look forward to the next edition of Instant Minecraft.
For now, all my best!
iRun365
Minecraft Times 