In Blockdown, players take on the role of an overseer of a town of villagers. A single villager being infected by a zombie virus is all that it takes for the virus to spread, after which it’s up to the player to do the best they can to contain the virus’ spread and keep their village healthy.
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The mechanics of Blockdown are surprisingly simple. The player resides in a tower that allows them to oversee the entire town. In the tower are many levers, each of which allow the player to enact different social distancing measures. The town can go from free to roam to complete lockdown with the switch of a lever. Underneath the tower is the next layer of the map, the hospital. Here the player will directly confront the spread of the virus and the consequences of their own decision-making.
The experience of playing Blockdown is intended to be casual and informative. It’s simpler to have villagers turning into zombies than to have a more realistic virus spreading. However, there’s clearly a level of realism here that’s going to make many uncomfortable. That’s likely the intent, however. Better to learn about the situation in a video game to better understand the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One important note is that the developer of Blockdown describes the Minecraft map as always being in beta. It’s unlikely to be heavily built upon unless another modder decides to explore further ideas with the building blocks Blockdown has placed.
Blockdown was developed by innovation company AKQA in support of the United Nations Development Program and Heart17. It was made with the support of Mojang. The map can be downloaded entirely for free, but only for the Java Edition of Minecraft on PC. There’s no bedrock edition of Blockdown at this time.
Minecraft is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and mobile devices.
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