Minecraft - Fit for a King

The building of my Link to the Past Castle was moving along very nicely. I had completed most of the first floor and had a roof over everything. Next it was time to move onto the Throne Room and Dungeon levels, each of which posed their own unique challenges from heights to dealing with the natural cave.

NOTE: The continued Photo Tour of the castle is at the bottom of this post.
The first thing I moved onto was the Throne Room. Looking at the level design from the game, the entrance to the throne room is on the second floor and the room itself would technically be the third floor of the castle. But, where is the second floor under the throne room? There isn't one in the game.That is where my creativity had to come into play and I eventually created a second floor that housed the castle Treasury. But before that was done, the throne room simply floated in the air above the ground. For a while, it looked really funny from the outside, but still neat from the inside.

I wanted this room to be to scale in it's floor plan, but over-the-top grand in height and decor as best as I could with blocks. I wanted to create something that was truly fit for a king. I achieved this by making a massive arching ceiling over the throne room. The standard walls were 5 blocks high and the peak of the ceiling was another 15 blocks above that. Very tall indeed, but it gave me the look and size I was leaning towards. Had I though about this when I was constructing it, I would have pulled more reference from the Temple of Time in Ocarina of Time and done the walls taller with a more domed ceiling. This would have allowed for much taller windows and an even bigger feel, but I kept the windows closer to the actual game size.

Building the arch proved to be a challenge due to the height. Luckily, I put some foresight into it and laid out how I wanted the arch to be with dirt on the ground. It worked out with the first few layers being 3 high, the next few being 2 high and the very top layers being only 1 high. From behind the castle, it almost had the appearance of a bullet. Falling off the top of the thing hurt and I actually died a time or two in the building of the ceiling. Luckily, I had placed a bed just outside the castle so I was able to respawn very close and climb back up. I feel silly admitting this, but I hadn't discovered the fact that you could crouch and not fall off the edge yet. It would have made this a whole lot simpler had I known this then. Oh well.

With my dirt template laid out on the ground, the actual laying of the cobblestone in the air didn't take too long. I did one side first, then went around and build the other side. Best part was that they lined up when I was done meaning I didn't screw it up. That's always a good thing. With the roof on, it came time to do the back wall of the room, but I didn't want to just fill it in with cobblestone. I wanted to, once again, get a little creative and create something in the window.

Nothing screams Legend of Zelda more than a huge glowing Triforce. I had a simple three block Triforce on the front of the castle's entrance, so I decided to mirror that and create a glass window with a massive Triforce made out of Glowstone. With my ceiling profile still on the floor, I created the design out of dirt first to figure out how to make it all fit, then took to the window and began creating it for real. I had to harvest more Glowstone from the Nether to do this since my supply of the stuff was running low, but it was very much worth it in the end. At night, that window lights up the whole area and can be seen from very far away. I love it.

There are still a few final decorative items left to complete in the Throne Room. I need to put up the 6 pillars in the center of the room as well as create the platform for the thrones and the thrones themselves. Then this room will be 100% complete.

My floor plan.

Instead of sticking with the final touches, I moved on to the dungeon levels instead. This was a lot of digging to complete; more than I had originally anticipated. Plus, I did not put enough thought into how many blocks to leave between floors. To achieve the red floor in the entry room and hallways, I used Netherrack. That same floor block turned out to be the ceiling block for the dungeon and having the Netherrack ceiling just did not look very good. I wound up covering the entire ceiling of the first big chamber with an extra layer of dirt. To take it one step further, and to reduce the "box" look, I added stalactites made of dirt and to these, I attached torches to give the room it's dark glow. It actually turned out very good and I'm quite proud of it.

While digging out this room, I ran into my natural cave twice. The first time was at the southern end of the room. This was actually the original entrance to my cave and had to be, unfortunately, sealed up. The second place was about half way up on the west side of the room. I broke through into a chamber full of red mushrooms. One more cavern was discovered a few blocks to the east as well. This proved to be a huge challenge to work around while still keeping the caverns as accessible as possible.

The next few places I ran into the cave proved the most dangerous and the most helpful. First, I learned that you should never mine when falling asleep. I was digging out the southwest room while half asleep and broke through into a deep cave. If the fall wasn't bad enough, I landed 2 squares away from a lava pit. Needless to say, I saved and quit and went to bed. This lava would come in handy a little later on to smelt cobblestone in the furnace and make smooth stone to build the stone walls and floors of my dungeon.

The next time I ran into it was when digging out the room where you usually get the boomerang. The cave actually became helpful here because I was able to wire up a switch to an iron door where the locked door usually was. The redstone wire ran under the room, through the cave and to the door keeping it nice and hidden.

Finally, I dug out the actual jail cells and hit the cave again. This was actually a useful time because I was able to save a bunch of digging and simply build the room into the cave. As for the actual jail cells themselves, I know that future updates will give us actual bars, but since I don't have access to that yet, I used fence posts to create the bars. It's crude, but effective at getting the desired look.

As of now, the dungeon was completely dug out and only missing some decorative details. One of the biggest details, and the most amount of time, came as a suggestion from my wife again. The floors in the big chamber are supposed to be bottomless so that when you fall in them, you're taken back to the start of the room. Since that's not possible in Minecraft, I wanted to do something to replicate the look as best I could. The answer: Obsidion. She suggested I use the block to line the bottom, so I began to harvest it which, as you probably know, takes a long time to actually harvest. She then came up with the idea of taking lava in buckets, pouring it down on the floor, and running water over the top of it. Genius! I ate up a huge supply of my Iron and made as many buckets as I could hold, then began tracking back and forth from the lava pool in the bottom of my cave to the room in the dungeon. This is actually where busting a hole in the wall back into my cave came in handy. I lost track of how many trips I made, but it was well worth it. Standing in that room and looking down, you can't really see the Obsidion down there and it really does give the effect of a bottomless pit, especially with the only light source being the faint glow from the torches up on the stalactites near the ceiling. I should also note that there is a ladder near the door into the chamber so that if you do fall in you can easily get back out.

By this point in time, I needed a break from building the castle. I went back into the hole under my house and revamped the second floor to create a near-fully automated train station with multiple destinations. Initially, there were only two locations but as of today, there are 4 with a 5th and 6th planned soon. I'll talk about creating that next time. Until then, happy mining.

Photo Tour

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The last tour ended with us getting ready to head down into the dungeon. Next, it's time to step into it. This is the first room you enter where you obtain the Map in the chest. And yes, there is a map in that chest.

The Map Room.

This brings us into the chamber I'm the most proud of. It has my dirt stalactites on the ceiling and obsidion "bottomless pit".

This is the view you get when you enter the first chamber.

At the opposite end looking back.

An elevated view from the southern most end.

Next comes the hallway, which is just a hallway, then you come to the next room. I kept the stalactite theme going here too.

From the right.

From the left.

The next two rooms work together. The first one contains an iron door leading down to the prison cells. The second room contains the lever that opens / closes this door in lieu of a key.

The room with the iron door.

The switch room. The actual switch is in the hole behind the block
with the redstone wire running through the cave below.

Unlock the door, through one more small room...

A quick jog to the right.

...down a few flights of stairs...

Watch your step.

...and you arrive in the dungeon. I had contemplated putting in iron doors and switches for each cell, but decided against that, especially since I'm not that good with redstone wiring yet. Maybe later on.

The dungeon.

Zelda's cell.

Next comes the trek back through the dungeon to the Throne Room.

This is the view you get when you first enter the Throne Room.

Here's the Thrones with the huge Glowstone Triforce in the window
behind it.

I wasn't sure how to recreate the blue curtains, but wool turned
out to be okay. Not the best, but it works.

More of an overhead view of the entire throne room.

Yes, you can see the entrance to the Sewers in the background of the last photo, but that doesn't come quite yet in my story. From here, I moved on to the tower, so that comes next. Then we'll come back to here and go through the Sewers to the Sanctuary.