Minecraft has always been a great game, being a great sandbox of fun. But more than that, it allowed for a lot of stuff to be done with it. Roleplaying, creating, and using a ton of modpacks to give more functionality to the gameplay. The Yogscast were instrumental in showing off a lot of those modpacks, which is where the inspiration for Elsewhere comes from. Studio Four White Cats has done well in transporting me back to that era.
From the off, it’s clear to see that Yogscast influence. The character creator has many familiar outfits and faces to be using. Such as the labcoat of a certain Duncan. The characters in Elsewhere are a bit more human, though still blocky in nature. That’s because not all the visuals are represented with giant pixels. Faces look like faces, and textures have a lot of detail. It makes the world look nicer on the eyes, even if it is still built with giant blocks.
Loading into a world, I found everything very familiar. The bar of items on the bottom of the screen. Hitting trees for wood, dry branches for sticks, and rocks for… well, rocks. From there I could craft my first tools to help me survive the first night. And it is in the inventory screen that things look very familiar to the modpacks of Minecraft. The inventory and crafting screens centred, with the compendium of all blocks that can be searched to the right. Character and equippable slots on the left.
There is no need for a crafting bench here, as all the basics can be crafted from the inventory screen. There’s also no need to place blocks in a specific way to craft something. Just placing the blocks into the crafting screen will show everything that can be made from them. It’s a much better system, especially combined with the compendium, which will show how to make a chosen item.
For surviving the first night, I found a hill that I thought would be perfect for building a base. Digging into the peat blocks, I soon find stone. From there, I have double doors placed, a furnace, and a chest. This has given me a few items crossed off the getting started quests. Quests teach various aspects of the game, giving rewards for completion. These include tokens, reward bags, random blocks, and regular items. Tokens can be saved, then used in the shop to buy more reward bags or various other items.
The only issue I found with my starting place, at first, was no animals were nearby. I had no food. And no wool to make a bed. So I did truly have to survive the first night. So to pass the time, I dug around a bit in my base, finding copper. Which allowed me to get copper tools once I’d smelted the ore to ingots. And so I felt confident I could face off against whatever monsters I might meet.
The first of which was spiders. Then ghouls and zombies and every other monster this game seems to have. I’d built my base on top of a spawning area, it seemed. So, as I tried to expand my operations and find some food across the next few days, I died so many times. The monsters could swim up the waterfalls from their spawning area, attacking me. While most enemies hate sunlight, a few don’t mind it. And so I found myself facing off against an onslaught.
In doing some exploring, I found a structure that had some iron ingots in it, allowing me to easily get some shears. I came across many animals and many biomes, including the sheep I needed for some wool. While I had a bit of food to survive, I knew it wouldn’t last. I knew I’d need to continue making trips to where the pigs were, or finally start getting a farm underway.
As I continued building up my base despite it being on a monster spawning area, I also tried to find where the monsters were coming from. Digging around more in the place I’d found the copper, I easily came upon it. And immediately blocked it up. There was no way I was making that entire area monster free. But with how many deaths I’d had there, I felt I couldn’t stay. Pulling up the map (which had a ton of waypoints around my base from all those deaths), I looked around the revealed areas for somewhere that might be more chill.
In the grassland biome, I set on rebuilding my base. This is where I had found sheep, and was also near to where the pigs called home. And the ducks. With a waypoint marked on the map for where this home is, I felt certain I could now begin building and exploring in earnest. Getting the crafting stations ready to build furniture, potions, and futuristic tools. Finding more treasure, some towns, and NPCs to interact with.
Elsewhere is in early access at present, though it is still a very fully featured game. My only wish is that controller support can come soon, as I’m always so awkward having to use keyboard and mouse controls. Indeed, some of my deaths could have been delayed or even avoided had I a more comfortable to me control method to use. Aside from that, I’m very much enjoying my time with Elsewhere.
If you don’t want to deal with monsters, there’s the ability to have no natural spawns in the difficulty settings. World generation can be made flat, can be sky islands, be nothing but a desert, or be an evil wasteland. Which looks very desolate. It was with that evil wasteland world I also tried about sandbox, where I could simply spawn in tokens to check out all the fun things in the shop. Including The Bomb. Though this one doesn’t have world-ending powers. Unfortunately.
Elsewhere is a great time for those who loved the early days of Minecraft and its many modpacks. Whether playing themselves or watching others do so. And thought Elsewhere is packed with Yogscast references, you don’t need to be a fan of them to enjoy this one. With plenty to discover, and the freedom of doing whatever you want, Elsewhere gets an easy recommendation from me.
It shouldn’t be long before Elsewhere is out of early access. Having been in development a long time before even arriving on Steam, it truly is a fully featured game. To the point where all that’s in progress is expanding the cosmetic options, optimisations to multiplayer and adding Linux support. Along with expanding on the NPCs and end game content. When it does come out of early access, I’m sure there will still be updates coming.
Images Taken From:
Elsewhere | PC
