Day 2 of my attempt to survive in the minecraft sandbox.

Sandbox survival is a minecraft survival map set in a bedrock box filled with sand and surrounded by void, which makes escape somewhat unlikely.

Survival mostly entails excavating the sand for treasure, so people who enjoy making and using spades are going to be super stoked with this map. Because the maker didn’t make the mistake of providing a ‘starting chest’ you have to actually work for your survival – which is the sort of labor minecraft survivalists enjoy more than anything.

Unlike other survival maps, where there is inevitably a waiting period in which you can do nothing besides wait for your trees to grow, Sandbox Survival provides you with the neverending fun of – digging! You can dig like a mad badger all night long if you want to, and you will want to because failing to do so will result in death. Or failed survival. Same thing really.

Are there challenges? Yes. A whole lot of them, including the usual farm buiding, cobblestone generating, infinite water sources creating blah, blah blah. Challenges aren’t my thing, but if they’re yours theres a hefty list to complete.

Sandbox survival is a compact, simple minecraft after the classic minecraft survival style. You’ll probably enjoy it, and you may as well download it or else you’ll never know.

Download Sandbox Survival Minecraft Map!

You’re underground in some of the largest, most cavernous tunnels known to man and you must survive. You must survive because the alternative is going outside and punching trees outside only leads to bloody knuckles and heartbreak.

There are several dungeons to battle your way through, which is nice and somewhat a little recursive. You’re pretty much in a dungeon already. This is a rather large survival map however, and to be honest, very enjoyable. One spends a great amount of time exploring the great spaces in which lighting glitches abound because minecraft’s engine was never designed with tall ceilings lit with glowstone in mind.

There are lots of useful signs about the place, such as the ‘hit long grass to get seeds’ sign. Quite frankly, if you’re so unaware of the basic mechanics of minecraft that you’ll starve to death without punishing absolutely everything in sight then there’s very little hope for you.

Download Tunnels Minecraft Survival Map

Minecraft Chest Survival is a simple minecraft survival map in which you spawn inside an oversized chest. Inside the chest is a you. And you must try to survive inside this thing that is, itself a minecraft chest. There’s also a massive crafting table you get to crawl inside of as well, so that’s nice. Oh, and an oversized bookshelf, for you literary types who eschew the brawny emphasis on crafting.

Played on peaceful, minecraft chest survival is a pretty easy map. Played on any other setting, it’s quite difficult because there are spawners absolutely everywhere. Because the entire thing is built on one of those flatlands saves, you’re not going to gain anything by mining out of the chest, in fact you’re better off in the chest than out of it. Your prison is your succor and your salvation.

So don’t get too upset by the fact that you can see all the ore out there in your face. It’s the only ore you’re getting so you better appreciate it and love it and call it George.

Download Minecraft Chest Survival Map!

Boxicated is a very small minecraft survival map that will please a bunch of old school minecraft survival map players. When I say ‘old school’ I mean people who consider Sky Block and Survival Island to be quintessential survival map types. You spawn inside a very small bedrock box. You’re allowed to mine outside the box, but you’re not allowed to mine to the surface outside the box. That’s a rule to remember because it will only take a wooden spade to escape the box if you really want to.

Fortunately the interior of the earth is more interesting than what lies above it. I won’t spoil it too much, but you should watch out for arrows coming out of nowhere, appearing from the void to spear your frail blocky frame. Though this is a small and simple map, it works. I thought it was perhaps too facile to be entertaining, but before I knew what was happening I was hoarding iron and wondering how tto best make use of my tall bedrock box.

Are there challenges? Of course, all the usual challenges, create houses, farms, design farms, generate cobblestone. (You always have to generate cobblestone, even when there’s really no need to on this map because you can mine right into the very depths of the minecraft earth if you want.) There are also other, more interesting challenges, like lake building and secret chest finding.

Download Boxicated Classic Minecraft Survival Map

A truly new type of minecraft survival map, The Jumper places the player in a quandary at the outset. There are several islands floating in a void. This probably sounds derivative and boring at this point, but wait, there’s more. There’s a portal to The End right at the beginning of the map – a sign of greater things to come.

Instead of grinding your way across the islands, trying to survive by building cobblestone generators and that sort of thing, you use Ender Pearls to teleport from island to island, each island acting like a separate level with gradually increasing difficulty – and offering increasingly powerful rewards.

At the end of each island, you have a choice. Do you grab your Ender Pearl, progress to the next island and risk death, and therefore failure, or do you go and fight the Enderdragon with the supplies you have managed to gather thus far?

With eleven islands to play on, there’s quite a lot of scope for extended play, though you can somewhat forget about building a homestead and settling down behind a metaphorical minecraft white picket fence. This map ends with one of two things: death or dragon.

Download The Jumper Minecraft Survival Map