Time to scale up to the heights of Death Mountain in Part 4 of my Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Minecraft Project.
Death Mountain posed quite a few challenges in recreating it in Minecraft. The first issue I ran into was the height. Because of how I created my world, the entire Light World is actually above the cloud level. With that said, the top of the Tower of Herra is 1 block below max-height! Because of this, I had to really study the area, with all its caverns, and work out the levels of the area. I cheated somewhat though. The bottom-most area of Death Mountain is actually
below the ground level for the rest of Hyrule. Sneaky, but it all worked out. A second "cheat" is the tower itself. You're supposed to climb a set of stairs and enter on the first floor. Well, you climb some steps, enter he dungeon, then go down a few steps into the second floor. The first floor is actually more like the first basement level.
Anyways, on with the photo tour!
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| The entrance to Death Mountain. |
The entrance is where the first perspective cheat comes into play. You enter the doorway and drop down a few blocks to the "ground" height of the mountain. Not exactly a climb up, but it fits the situation.
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| Lots of dimly lit paths lead through the mountain. |
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| One of the many "holes" you can fall into. (They're actually black wool) |
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| The final corner before emerging into the mountain. I put lava 1 block above for a cool effect. |
As you progress through the first set of caves, you'll start hearing the lava bubbling everywhere. I decided to go with a volcano setting for Death Mountain. I know the game has it as just a mountain high over the world, but that's something I can't do. So, I went with the Ocarina of Time's Death Mountain and filled it with lava instead. Where possible, I put lava above the ceiling so that it would be dripping down on you as you walked through.
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| Your first view. |
This is the first view you get of Death Mountain. Lots of lava.
We emerge from the second cave on the middle level. From here, we get a fairly good view of some of the lava details.
The long "staircase" was replaced with double ladders. There's no way I could have fit an actual staircase into this space. This is also the exit out of Death Mountain.
We finally made it to the top!
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| The view from the top. |
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| Inside one of the caves leading to the top. |
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| Can't remember it's name, and don't feel like looking it up, but it's where you get one of the medallions. |
One thing that's missing is the transition into the dark world to enable you to access the Tower. Mainly because I don't have a dark world... Eventually, it will probably be a pressure plate and command block, but I don't exactly have a dark world yet.
Finally, we make it up to the tower!
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| The Tower of Hera |
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| Just inside the main entrance.Here is where I had to deviate from the original in order to make the tower fit. You're supposed to enter on the second floor, hence the stairs going up, but you then go down once inside to the floor level. |
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| I added as much detail as possible, including the attacking floors. Also, the blue / brown wool throughout the dungeon represent the pillars that rise up / down. |
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| Since we're on a volcano, I added some more details underneath the dungeon's 1st floor. |
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| As we start to climb the tower, you need to watch your step! |
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| The room with the Big Chest. |
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| Almost to the top. |
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| Who's ready for a boss fight? |
Overall, I'm impressed with how the tower turned out (if I do say so myself). I wish I had put some more thought into the level heights when I created the seed for the world. I would have tried to allow myself more space.
With the tower complete, my sights could turn to the Eastern side of Death Mountain.
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| Just past the tower. |
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| Figuring out how to make all these caves work was a royal pain! But they eventually lined up. |
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| Doing some shopping? |
I'll end the post with some of the lava details. There is lava flowing all over this place!
And finally, an overview of the entire Death Mountain.
So, what do you think? I've been posting quite a few of my progress posts, and I'd love to hear some feedback.
Next time, we'll move onto Zora's Domain.
