These days, the theme and direction of our projects are dictated by our clients.

This isn’t a bad thing, we love the work we do.

The projects we take on are always interesting, varied, and incredibly fun.

Every so often, something special comes along.

And we’re asked if we can pull off something completely ridiculous.

Of course, we always do, and in March, such a project came along.

A New York based multimedia artist, Alexandra Posen approach the VoxelBox with a wildly different idea:

To bring the world of opera and Minecraft together for a series of performances put on by the Bare Opera.

Alright, here’s the plan…

I wasn’t present for the entire meeting, but I have it on good authority this is an accurate abridged version of how the meeting went:

Let’s create the visuals for L’Enfant et les Sortilèges in under 40 days. Let’s build and film it entirely in Minecraft. Here, have creative control. Go forth and make something incredible. In 40 days.

What actually happened?

The opera tells a story about a naughty young boy and the lesson he learns from household objects and garden creatures which magically come to life.

We worked incredibly hard to make this production a reality.

Set aside an hour of your day to sit down, watch it, and consider how Minecraft is being used in combination with other art forms.

It really is an exciting time to be alive.

Changes are coming to The VoxelBox.

Well, that’s a bit of a lie.

We’re going to level with you.

We’ve always been crazy busy. Most of our work is under a non-disclosure agreement, a great example is the wonderfully kid-friendly series, WonderQuest.

We finished the resource packs, sets, and general design sometime last year. Yes, you read that right. Last year.

We’ve been notoriously quiet since our public server closed doors.

No longer.

Let’s get into it.

What have we been up to in the last couple of months?

Well, Kupo and The VoxelBox have been building and shooting an entire opera.

In conjunction with the Bare Opera, we have put together a feature length video to be played behind live opera performers.

This opera premièred to a sold-out audiences and was extremely well received!

We will be releasing our feature-length video on our official YouTube channel very soon.

OK, an 50 entire opera is heart-stoppingly amazing, but what about some other crazy Minecraft stuff?

Well, more secrets to be revealed!

We’ve been putting together an incredible mechanics team.

The first we’d like to introduce to you is BetaTheData.

His incredible version of Shades, a zen-like puzzle game made by UOVO, has been making it’s way around the Minecraft community for about a month now.

I’m going to tell you why this is incredible.

Shades plays like no other Minecraft minigame. It uses Minecraft scripting (completely in Vanilla without mods) to bring a wonderfully simple and calming puzzle game to an entirely different audience.

Here’s his trailer video. Take a moment to download the map and play it for yourself.

Alright, you’ve given me my minigame fill. Now, what about dessert?

Wyvill has got you COVERED!

He’s been making waves on reddit this past week with his stylish water builds.

Is that not enough?

We understand. Your hunger for amazing builds is insatiable.

Here’s another thing he’s been previewing over his Twitter!

Simply incredible!

But what does it all mean?

It means great and fortunate things are coming to you from The VoxelBox.

What else do you want to see from TVB?

Leave a comment, or send us a tweet!

We’ve partnered with Bare Opera and artist Alexandra Posen to create another new twist into how Minecraft is used! The Bare Opera company will perform this opera live, while a projection of the visuals we’ve created plays alongside them.

• Where will this take place?
  Robert Miller Gallery (524 W 26th St, Chelsea NYC)
• When will the opera be performed?
  2, 3 & 4th May, 2015
• Where can I reserve my seats?
  http://www.bareopera.org/performance

L’enfant et les Sortilèges will be a full 50 minute production and story created within Minecraft. After the live opera performances have finished, we will be able to show the full video on our channel. If you can’t attend, don’t worry, you won’t miss out!

In the next few weeks, we’ll be providing more info and behind the scenes videos about the opera itself. Make sure not to miss it!

Find more about the artists:

• Bare Opera
• Alexandra Posen
• Kupo

Last year, we teamed up with Stampylongnose to create an educational and entertaining children’s series on YouTube!

On April 25th, 2015, it’s finally going to launch!

From creating entirely new texture packs to entirely new sets pieces and assets, we’ve built a world Stampy and his friends will have a blast exploring!

Why did we take this project?

We believe educational projects and content geared towards a younger demographics is the future of Minecraft.

By having the “best of the best” creating these worlds to explore, we believe this Minecraft-based series will have a positive impact on children who love cartoons and Minecraft.

By setting this series in Minecraft and allowing us to design these wonderful sets, we’re able to show kids what is possible in Minecraft and demonstrate they too can be artists.

We are very excited to see this series launch!

We have a lot of exciting announcements coming up, keep an eye on our website and twitter this next week!

Hey folks, we are here with your very first and probably only server-only expansion for The Muk-Luk Lodge!

Check out the server here:
mc.thevoxelbox.com:25570

Before we get into the new features, here’s a quick update of some of the bugs we fixed:

• Cured Erna of her tendencies to wander off into the mountains for no particular reason
• Told Erna to quit being in a bad mood and give the riddles for people holding the Clue Key
• Players will not longer keep Regeneration & Saturation when relogging while competing in Sumo
• Told the Public Announcement System to only let players use it once every 10 seconds
• Told Nappy Bonapenguin it was OK to keep accepting ONLY books that haven’t been read. Don’t be so nosey.
• …and some other minor cutesy stuff

Now I know you’re probably asking yourself, “Self, what are the cool new things?!”

We want to address a few issues with this update, the first is the major amount of meanie butts on our server who are just running around and killing people. It’s just not right! And it’s mean!

Luckily, our friend Bobbie the Polar Bear is finally back from vacation. If you bring him some Hot Mushroom Soup, he’ll give you a pair of Polize Aviators. You put these babies on, and you will become THE POLIZE!

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Self, what can the Polize do?!”

 

Great question, self.

[click to continue…]

We’ve noticed some of you haven’t been able to get the full enjoyment out of The Muk-Luk Lodge activity map we released this past Sunday.

Instead of boohooing around it, we’ve decided to put up a server so you can make friends! Come join us by connecting to this server address within your Minecraft 1.8.1 client!

mc.thevoxelbox.com:25570

Oh, you haven’t heard of The Muk-Luk Lodge?

It’s our first map of 2015! Take a few of your friends on vacation to a sledding resort. Check out the trailer here:

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this server over the next couple of weeks!

If you have any feedback, leave a comment below and we’ll be sure to respond as quickly as we can!

Enjoy your stay at The Muk-Luk Lodge!

After just over a month of work, we’re are making our 2015 debut with a multiplayer open world map, The Muk-Luk Lodge!

Check it out, and bookmark our site! We’ll be posting a lot of cool stuff in the near future!