Big News in Aenoriia! (Where?)

I'm excited!  

That huge - and ever growing - fantasy world in Minecraft that I've been helping build for years now is finally open for download!  

View of the city of Illias with Silverwood in the foreground

Available on AstrophagyMC's Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/astrophagymc

AstrophagyMC in Illias

In Other, Non-Theatrical, News

I've been spending a lot of time over the last few years - since covid began - working with an international group of Minecraft builders, building what started out as a single Elven city and is now more of an... entire continent.  

This is the most recent work, the start of a new city, Saelengard (with it's adjacent port).  The community is built on the edges of a vast natural salt formation, a snowflake-like geological sort of tide-flat whose delicate landscape we're trying to respect and celebrate.

Anyway, an interesting design challenge!

  Saelengard in the world of Illias by AstrophagyMC:  Foreground buildings 

are by Brainpoix, background buildings by Barthelemy_Lafon, 

amazing landscape by AstrophagyMC 

You can see more ambitious Minecraft building at Astro's Instagram or You Tube videos.

Possibly the Most Covid Day Yet, But in a Good Way

 One day last week I started the day with a wild party!

In Minecraft (so a virtual party), but a party!  We wore party hats, had a bounce house, party favors (rainbow color changing sheep), cake!  Well, we couldn't actually eat the cake (because virtual) but we fed the cake to virtual pandas who could virtually eat the virtual cake.  Other refreshments.  We inaugerated the Palace Ballroom with a dance party!  Real music from virtual jukeboxes and real dancing by virtual parrots!  Minecraft avatars can only sorta bob up and down, but we'll call it "dancing."  And we built a piano... all the stuff you do at parties!  

It was surprisingly fun.

And then I put on my mask and left to get my second shot of the miraculous vaccine.

What could be more happy-pandemic than that?

Switching topics slightly: here's the last of those Minecraft avatar portraits, this time for my guy.

I like the way Bart here is completely unaware that if he succeeds in maiming this kraken-squid that he's going to shipwreck and die...  Also, as a fellow player pointed out, Minecraft squids are non-aggressive creatures in the first place.

This portrait series has been huge fun to do!

The world I'm working in, Illias, started as a pandemic project.  It certainly became an important project for me during thiese last months.  Sanity saving probably.

If you're curious, HERE is a link to Astrophagy's You Tube videos.  And a little taster vid, "Running the Canals of Illias":

In... I almost typed "the real world", but this was, in fact, virtual too, kinda, Kitchen Dog Theater recently produced an online video play Last Ship to Proxima Centari.  (I should have promoted this here earlier - but never mind, check them out to see up-coming theater!)  I wasn't involved with this one, but I enjoyed it and thought it worked pretty well in the online format.  So theater IS continuing in some fashion.  

I did take part in their most recent Craft  episode, to talk about the development and design of the then new play End Times.  Two more episodes coming! May 20th and June 17th.  I really enjoyed being part of the conversation between the playwright, the director, and the designers.  The old video clips of me were strange to watch though: I don't think I said anything particularly dumb, but I did look younger and My Studio Was So Clean!  It was uncanny!

It made me feel homesick for theater.  

But theater is coming back.  And meanwhile there's a Minecraft city to build!