Novelist Andrea Buchanan has commissioned a Minecraft map to accompany her new novel, Gift. In the video embedded above, you can explore the Minecraft world for the novel.
Minecraft is a popular video game where players must build shelters in a 3D game universe while defending themselves against strange creatures. The digital edition of Gift includes “music, video, art, and spooky text events,” so creating a video game component was a natural step. Check it out:
In this specially commissioned custom map, based on the world of the book and designed by the shadowy Minecraft map mastermind known only as Vechs (creator of the Super Hostile series of maps), the player must locate and retrieve special blocks while tackling treacherous terrain and battling bad guys in order to win. Players navigate through both the geography of where the book takes place and the imagined world of the ghost story within. Just like the novel, the map features three main areas: a Southern California town where the characters live, the dream world and the ghostly underworld. While anyone can enjoy playing through the map, if a player has read the book, he or she will recognize the settings and might even be able to use some of this knowledge to get ahead.