A combination CTM Survival map, Catharsis is sort of the minecraft equivalent of The Phantom Tollbooth . Set in caverns measureless to man and named with deep and meaningful titles like ‘The Intersection of Despair’, and ‘Broken Beach’, this isn’t just another complete the monument map challenge. It’s a way to cleanse yourself and make yourself whole. Or something. One does not simply complete the monument, you see. What one does, is one ‘fills the Altar of Consciousness’.

This is actually a very enjoyable map. The locations are excellent and the map maker has done a fine job of taking the ‘catharsis’ theme and making it come to life in the many cavernous rooms the player finds him or herself in. The map is so large it almost counts as an adventure map, to be quite honest. It’s missing some elements of story, but there is a narrator that follows you throughout your journey and playing this map really does feel like going on a journey. Catharsis is definitely one of the Must Play Minecraft Maps for January 2013.

Get the Catharsis Minecraft Survival CTM Map!

The invasion mod is the perfect mod for testing the strength and security of your stronghold and base designs. If spiders skittering up the walls and the occasional enderman teleporting into your base to steal your carpet doesn’t quite give you the sense of danger that you require in order to feel fulfilled in your minecraft life, then the Invasion Mod is the mod for you.

What Does The Invasion Mod Do?

Quite a lot.

Let’s start with the mobs. The normal mobs are scaled up to new tiers. A zombie now comes in two tiers, an almost normal zombie and a supercharged zombie which can upgrade its weaponry and all but gnaw through stone. Some zombies come in super flammable versions, being covered in tar on account of tar pits.

There’s also a siege mob, designed to test the strength of your walls. This mob will camp outside your nexus for all time.

The pig engineer. This mob won’t attack you, it will slowly and surely overcome all your defenses. It will build bridges and is capable of tunneling upwards. Which means your feet are no longer safe, because those supercharged zombies are coming in Mr Pig Engineer’s face.

This map contains several new blocks and items, including a nexus block, which is pretty much like building a temperamental self destruct mechanism capable of destroying every living thing in your base. That includes you, of course.

Click here to get the Invasion Mod, and let your personal invasion begin!

The major selling point for this map is the fact that it is sideways. The perspective is all wrong! Up is left and down is right and I don’t know where I am, but it feels good and oh, here are some colored blocks of wool to add a sense of meaning to this place of addled mystery.

Playing this minecraft map is a little like falling off the edge of the world. Jungle vines grow sideways along the trunks of tall jungle trees likewise heading off into the horizontal ether.

Download Twisted Jungle, Minecraft CTM Adventure Map!

In the Lonely Lands it is not enough to risk life and limb finding the precious blocks that will complete the monument. You must also risk life and limb finding the monument itself, a task made difficult by the hostile survival conditions that make getting a bite to eat, let alone collecting wool, a difficult challenge.

The Lonely Lands will one day be a collection of CTM maps. For the moment it is just one map, titled ‘Humble Beginnings’. In this map, one spawns in a Lapis Lazuili dotted canyon where birch trees grow leaves of ice and water pours from stone crystals suspended in the sky. Breaking blocks and crafting is more than allowed, it is encouraged. Although usually not necessary. This is not an adventure map, handing you tools and food along the way, this is a survival map that forces you to prove your worth to the land before you can be granted its bounty. (Unless you count the 32 pieces of leather and bunch of bread you get given at the very outset, possibly to offset the lack of cows. Or the 32 torches, or the fish. Okay, you leave the starting area very well set up. And every area after it too.)

So how hostile is this map? Well, the creator has it labelled as ‘easy’ and within the first five minutes of spawning you can easily gather enough wood, lightstone, cobblestone and coal to get you through most things, so resource wise it’s not too bad. There is the small matter of the apparent complete lack of saplings however, that’s a wee bit concerning as it makes the ice birch forest a non-renewable resource. Most of what you’ll need is provided along the way, so the challenge is really in moving through all the different areas of the map without falling into lava or being otherwise slain. There are some great mini-biomes in this map, including a mycelium floored brick forest.

In addition to different ‘levels’ as represented by changing biomes that never existed before this map was dreamed up, there are also dungeons to complete in which you will be rewarded with enchanted items, and in which you will discover the wool. Though the map maker states in his description that he doesn’t think much of the appearance of this map, I actually found the appearance of it very pleasing. Every new area had a specific sense of place and came with unique challenges and unique rewards. This is a brilliant map for anyone who likes to explore CTM worlds, most of the ‘work’ involved in the map isn’t in avoiding traps, or even battling monsters (though there is a lot of that) most of the work comes in enjoying the many, many nooks, crannies, secret passages and hidden areas. This map does have several hours of play time in it, get comfortable whilst you’re downloading, you’re going to be a while.

Download The Lonely Lands, Minecraft CTM Survival Map

Woah. From the very first inkling of the very first screenshot of the Inkstar minecraft adventure map one can’t help but be blown away by the scale, intricacy and sheer design chops displayed in this map’s builds. It puts most other minecraft maps to shame, it puts most real world buildings to shame. It puts shame to shame, that’s how incredibly impressive this adventure download is.

This map is so large, so incredibly complex that the creator recommends Optifine be used to run it. It also comes with a custom texture pack to show the builds in their best light. (Optifine will also assist in running the 32x textures that are bundled with the map download.)

How did such a fantastic minecraft world come into existence? Why, dragons made it of course. That explains the scale of things, although I’m not entirely convinced that dragons have the opposable claws necessary to realistically build these monuments to dragon architecture.

This map is so large that it comes with not one, but two downloadable maps to help you navigate around the place (one of which is over 5000 px wide, over twice the size of your average monitor) as you take a tour of a minecraft world that will make all your builds seem like dirt shacks in comparison. That’s what I look for in a minecraft world download, something that makes me feel about as creative as some mud on a stick. Some of the cities in this map are so large it is actually impossible to render them all at once, even from the giddy heights of the sky.

But it’s not just epic builds that make this map fun, it’s also the technical aspects that are impressive. As in Bethesda RPGs, fast travel has been added to the game, simply reach a fast travel pillar and right click it in order to activate a fast travel point. This saves days of traipsing back and forth between points because you forgot your enchanted sword in another castle.

This is definitely a must play, and it is almost certainly one of the best minecraft 1.4 adventure maps out to date.

Download Inkstar, Minecraft CTM Adventure Map!