This island is what happens when you take Minecraft out for a night of hard liquor and even harder women and then switch it on the next morning. If that analogy isn’t appropriate for you, it is what happens when Elmo and Megatron have a fight. This small block of WTF is nestled cosily in the void, and it is your job, as a player of the game of minecraft, to attempt some form of survival upon it. No animals will spawn naturally at first (unless you count the three little pigs clinging to outcroppings above an endless fall,) who are highly likely to turn themselves into cooked pork chops if they get loose. Arable land is at a premium, meaning there is almost none of it. Good luck growing crops when the flame from the netherblock keeps turning them into crispy wheat flakes before you get a chance to harvest them.

This simple minecraft survival island / sky block map is the sort of thing that survival dreams are made of. Can you sort out the chaos that is the random smattering of blocks into something useful? Or will you slip and fall into the void, never to spawn correctly again? Although this sort of map has definitely been done before, the randomized terrain adds a new level of challenge that most players will find quite enjoyable. I liked the fact that the mandatory ‘single tree’ wasn’t one of the usual oak tree sticking out like a sore thumb. This is a sky survival map for a new generation, a generation of players using the minecraft 1.4 update.

Click here to download Corrupt Island!

Are you tired of rehashes of old minecraft survival maps? Me neither! Sky House is the latest iteration on the popular sky block minecraft survival map theme. In Sky House, you begin the map with a house, surrounded by void. Yard space is at a premium and there’s only one tree, which you’re probably going to cut down within the first few minutes of gameplay. The map creator is quite adamant that you should not cannibalize the house in order to expand your sky holdings, but there are some secrets you’re allowed to break out of the walls. Unlike real life surprises in house walls, they’re probably not dead rats or bee hives. This is quite a fun twist on the sky theme, perfect for those who want to explore all the new 1.4 tricks in a new sky setting.

Download Sky House, Sky Block Minecraft Survival Map

You’ve survived Skyblock. You’ve survived in a bottle. You’ve survived an Ant Farm. You’ve survived the Bonsai experience. Now it is time to survive in a flower pot. Sure why not. This is a perfect sky survival map for anyone who enjoys feeling cramped and possibly falling to their doom.

As with other sky survival maps, most of the challenge lies in getting from one place to another, expanding your physical holdings so you can wander about without falling into deep blue space and working out how to spawn yourself some animals in order to feast on their flesh. This map is available in both a normal survival download and a hard mode download, in which death means your save is deleted and you must start from the very beginning if you want to try again.

What sets this map apart from those many, many other sky island / skyblock minecraft survival maps is that this one does NOT allow you to build cobblestone generators. That’s right. Your lava to cobblestone skills are not useful here my friend. Can you unite the potted plants in a unique fashion? Let us hope so.

Download Pot Plant, Minecraft Sky Survival Map!

Two thin concentric circles of life giving earth intersect beneath your feet and rise high into the sky. Gravity is not your friend. Your friends are not your friends. You’re all alone here, against the elements and the bending earth.

The Wheel of Misfortune is a fickle minecraft survival map, it might reward you or it might destroy all your hopes and dreams in a single instant. Sort of like life, but with the option to re-extract the file and run the game from the beginning again. The challenge is in building structures that will not only keep you safe, but allow you to access all the structures that hover in the void, so close and yet so far.

Are there challenges? Of course there are, so those of you who don’t feel a map is complete unless someone is daring you to make a stack of bricks will have that particular itch scratched in totality. A little bit sky island, a little bit MC Escher painting, Wheel of Misfortune will stretch your minecraft survival skills to their very limits and beyond.

Download Wheel of Misfortune, Minecraft Survival Map!

Biomes. In Cubes. Cubic biomes. That’s a pretty apt summary of this minecraft survival map. Though there are many like it, there aren’t many that are quite as unexpectedly dangerous. Spawners, spawners everywhere!

There’s an awful lot of bridge building ahead for the avid minecraft player, also an awful lot of cultivation and an awful lot of spawner destroying. So many spawners. Although the premise of the map is simple, there’s actually rather a lot of work involved in completing the challenges. Although you’re really supposed to play the map on easy mode or higher, it’s still quite a fun map to play on peaceful.

What’s most enjoyable about The Cubes is the fact that each little cube must be cultivated and tamed. Stone must be mined, wood must be harvested and trees replanted. Then one is off to another cube to harvest some handy cacti and dig some sand for more glass.

For a good solid minecraft survival experience with some sky island-esqe twists, why not download The Cubes, minecraft survival map!