#fanbyte

[leonaquitaine]

Just a quick post to announce my first published article @ Fanbyte!

Check it out, and let me know what you think. =)

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

Actvision Blizzard decides to "improve" diversity in their games by quantifying things like ethnicity, culture and sexual orientation.

Just another, sadly unsurprising step in Blizzard's long, long journey of promising a more diverse respesentation followed by more sexism and tokenism every time.

If you don't see what's wrong with that picture, please stop to ask youself how you'd represent something like ethnicity or gender on a numeric scale. And what would 0 on that scale be.

Thankfully, most of the fandom and media seems to react to this idea with well-deserved bewilderment and mockery (like comparisons to phrenology, a racist pseudoscience). Also with obligatory mentions of how this does the opposite of improving the company's image in the light of their bigoted, toxic work culture and corrupt business practices.

Moreover, despite now edited-out claims in the official announcement about the diversity tool, Overwatch 2 developers deny using it or even knowing about it prior to the media buzz.

If we could put a number on how out of touch this is, ActiBlizz PR would score off their little dystopian charts!

But hey, it's not like we've been pointing out for years that Blizz seems to do diversity by begrudgingly ticking off boxes on a list of superficial character features (and only after ticking some boxes multiple times), right?

~Ozzie

Media reporting on the matter:

Activision Inexplicably Introduces Tool to Rate Character Diversity Metrics - FanByte

Activision Blizzard Discusses Tool to Calculate Diversity in Video Game Characters, May Also Be Investing in Lab Coats - The Mary Sue

Activision Blizzard's New Diversity Game Tool Comes Across Terribly & Activision Blizzard’s Diversity Tool Has A Long, Even More Embarrassing History - Kotaku

‘Overwatch 2’ staff say they never used Activision Blizzard’s diversity tool - NME

Activision's "Diversity Tool" Is F*cking Awful - The Jimquisition (video)

edit: Added the NME link

[l-1-z-a]

How a Sims 2 Port Turned Into a Silent Hill Game for Kids

[game-levels]

"Just package physical carts in little SD card holders with cover art so small you need a magnifying glass to get a good look at it."

[felassan]

this blog (& associated projects etc) in the [online print] news -

TheGamer: EA Seems To Be Getting Ready For Dragon Age: Dreadwolf's Next Big Trailer

Game Rant: Rumor: Big Dragon Age Dreadwolf Update Could Be Coming Soon

Comicbook.com: New Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Trailer Rumor Has Fans Excited

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TheGamer: Dragon Age: 10 Morrigan Memes You Have To See

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SMA News Today: The Friends and Fate I Chose Thanks to ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’

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Game Rant: Fans Still Fighting to Save Dragon Age: The Last Court Browser Game

PC Gamer: EA deactivates Failbetter's Dragon Age game The Last Court

TechRaptor: Fans Band Together to Preserve Obscure Dragon Age Game

Fanbyte: Fans Rescued a Lost Dragon Age Game, The Last Court, Before It Faded

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Metro: New Mass Effect 4 artwork hints at return to Andromeda

PC Gamer: Bioware releases new artwork from the next Mass Effect

Eurogamer: Next Mass Effect teased again in new artwork

IGN: New Concept Art Revealed for Next Mass Effect Game

Rock Paper Shotgun: More artwork from the next Mass Effect has surfaced

Game Rant: New Mass Effect Game Concept Art Revealed in BioWare Book

GamesRadar: New Mass Effect art points to a return to Andromeda

VG247: Concept art for next Mass Effect game surfaces in new art book

NME: Check out new concept art from the upcoming ‘Mass Effect’ game

PlayStation LifeStyle: Three New Pieces of Art Offer Another Look at the Next Mass Effect

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TechRaptor: "We Made It." Celebrating Ten Years of Mass Effect

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Kotaku: Dragon Age: Inquisition's Ending, Explained

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bonus round

GamesRadar: Mass Effect: Andromeda fans are lusting over new companion Jaal, and BioWare has responded... pretty positively

Eurogamer: Fans really want to sleep with with Mass Effect's new alien

Kotaku: Some Fans Already Want To Bang Mass Effect: Andromeda's New Alien

(..no comment and no I will not elaborate 💀)

[scarskelly]

The Dramatic Dream World of DDT Pro-Wrestling by Scar The Skelly [DAMNATION T.A]

Next up, Damnation T.A. Please click the slides for their best quality and check out the presentation notes below.

Presentation Notes

Daisuke Sasaki

Fanbyte article about that one time Sasaki had a sword, written by Sasaki expert Sarah Kurchak.

[firecodex]

(Text on page read from right to left)

Official manga depicting Iono's arrival to Pasio

Transcript

Lisia: Hiii, Iono! Staying dizzying and dazzling?

Blue: Bonjour! How're you liking Pasio?

Leon: I hope you're having a champion time on Pasio!

[Text]: Buffering…

Iono: Aha! Brainbulb!

Iono: Pasio-style Iono-ese! My next viral hit!

Iono: Now that I've got my Tadbulbs all in a row…

[Text Box]: Gym Leader Iono

Iono: 'Ello, 'ello, hola! Ciao and bonjour!

Iono: Whosawhatsit? Iono!

Iono [with a speech bubble depicting Blue's and Mallow's heads]: Loyal fanbytes! 'Ello, 'ello, hola! Ciao and even more bonjour! Thanks for stopping by!

Iono [with a speech bubble depicting Lisia's, Rosa's, Wallace's, and Leon's heads]: Comin' to ya from Pasio-land, it's time for the dazzling, dizzying, utterly glorious Iono Zone! It's gonna be a super champion time!

Iono: Oh noes…

Iono: Did I just make the Iono Zone…the Pasio Zone?!

[Text over Bellibolt]: *Shiver* *Shiver*

[ Japanese version ]

[jcmarchi]

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Cover Story And Our Favorite Games Of 2023 | GI Show

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-cover-story-and-our-favorite-games-of-2023-gi-show/

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Cover Story And Our Favorite Games Of 2023 | GI Show

In this week’s episode of The Game Informer Show, special guest Michael Higham (Fanbyte, GameSpot) joins us to discuss our Final Fantasy VII Rebirth cover story, The Finals review, and our favorite games of 2023.

The Game Informer Show #686 Podcast:

[embedded content]

Follow us on social media: Alex Van Aken (@itsVanAken), Marcus Stewart (@MarcusStewart7), Kyle Hilliard (@KyleMHilliard), Michael Higham (@MichaelPHigham)

The Game Informer Show is a weekly gaming podcast covering the latest video game news, industry topics, exclusive reveals, and reviews. Join host Alex Van Aken every Thursday to chat about your favorite games – past and present – with Game Informer staff, developers, and special guests from around the industry. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

Matt Storm, the freelance audio editor for The Game Informer Show, edited this episode. Matt is an experienced podcast host and producer who’s been speaking into a microphone for over a decade. You should listen to Matt’s shows like the “Fun” And Games Podcast and Reignite, a BioWare-focused podcast. 

The Game Informer Show – Podcast Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Intro

00:03:41 – Cover Story: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

00:23:41 – The Finals Review

00:38:08 – Top Ten Games of 2023

01:39:28 – Housekeeping

[petal-monster]

Dogfighting for Justice

entirely 2 serious thoughts on the animal games (this was originally written in early 2021)

>> Read on Neocities <<

---

With the recent release of Pokemon: Legends Arceus, as well as the Diamond & Pearl remakes from a few months back, Pokemon has been at the centre of an awful lot of discussion lately — most of it centred around the troubled development cycles of each new release, the controversial reception of recent entries, and more notably whether or not Legends is the "breath of fresh air" the series needs. However, I've been thinking about Pokemon lately for an entirely different reason. I recently watched a friend finish up her first playthrough of a gamecube game that came out almost twenty years ago, and as far Pokemon goes its been surprisingly thought provoking. There's really no way of beating around the bush: Pokemon's mechanics have always been at odds with its own themes. Its easy to point at the way the games essentially ask you to dogfight with intelligent creatures while preaching about friendship, but I'm more interested in the way this dissonance is built into the series's most fundamental systems.

Pokemon is a series of collectathon video games designed for merchandising. The in-universe expression of this conceit is the Pokedex: a device for documenting the wildlife of the world. Each game opens with a regional professor asking you to help them discover a whole new set of 60-150 Pokemon that "have never been seen before!". This has never quite meshed with fighting the same beasts for sport, and neither conceit is really in tune with the nominal goal of making lasting friendships with these seemingly sentient creatures. Pokemon never reconciles that contradiction. In fact, the deeper you get into the games the more dramatic that tension becomes: if you want to be the very best like no one ever was, that probably entails getting involved in a competitive scene which by design asks you to engage in a prolonged eugenics program as you carefully assemble a perfect team of genetically engineered warriors. While the series did eventually introduce ways to take your random assortment of best buddies to a ready-for-competitive level, its significantly less accessible than just breeding a new set of so-called 'friends'.

There's a fun recurring conversation in the competitive scene: more casual players will bemoan the metagame, snarkily referencing Karen's message from Gold and Silver about winning "with your favourites". I find this immensely funny: I'm not sure the intended meaning of that message was 'you should breed the perfect Furret'.

That said, while the mainline games might not deliver on the promise of the original anime, the spinoffs have done a much better job by zeroing in on specific elements of the franchise. Pokemon Snap contextualizes the collectathon with photography, Pokemon Ranger has humans and Pokemon work together to mutually beneficial ends, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon in particular has always stood out as the game that really gets the friendship angle right. In an article for fanbyte titled "Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a Pokemon Game Actually About Friendship" Ben Sledge writes:

"Pokemon is built around promises of friendship and cooperation, but the only games that truly embody this benevolent spirit are the Mystery Dungeon series. The core premise of helping and rescuing other Pokemon is a perspective that, in the main series games, is often lost amongst the constant battles and grinding, and by characterizing Pokemon as sentient and motivated, Mystery Dungeon explores our relationship with Pokemon in a way that no other games can achieve."

This brings me back to that Gamecube game I watched my friend play, a game that I think manages to at least partly get at the same ideas — even while working within the context of the main series mechanics.

If you haven't played Pokemon Colosseum before, the initial setup distinguishes it from the rest of the franchise immediately. You are a member of a villainous group of Pokemon snatching thieves. The game kicks off with you going rogue, taking the machine the gang uses to steal Pokemon for yourself and heading to the one place in the region you can buy Pokeballs. This suggests from the outset that our protagonist does not have good intentions in the slightest. However, before they can act on those intentions, we inadvertently thwart an in-progress kidnapping, rescuing a girl who has the unique ability to perceive a strange phenomena that's making certain Pokemon turn violent and aggressive. It isn't long before it becomes apparent that this is the work of 'Cipher', a much larger criminal organization horrifically modifying, then distributing these (now violent) 'Shadow Pokemon' to trainers throughout the region. Our unlikely duo end up working together to put a stop to their scheme.

The bulk of Colosseum pits the player against other trainers as normal, but in a twist you capture the Shadow Pokemon they own. Unlike in the main series of games there are no wild Pokemon in Colosseum's Orre region, meaning you end up with a surprisingly limited pool of creatures to pick from. There's no "winning with your favourites" here, no carefully engineering that perfect IV Furret with egg moves. You have to take what's available. In that respect Colosseum is wildly distinct from the main series of games: you have limited resources for team building, meaning you're inevitably forced to use Pokemon you aren't as familiar with and likely develop bonds with them as a consequence.

These bonds are what Colosseum is all about. Shadow Pokemon come with one attack that harms themselves, and the only way to cure their affliction is by taking them into your party and fighting alongside them. In essence Colosseum is a game about taking abused animals, teaching them to trust again, and then working together with them to rescue other creatures from the same fate. While this theme is still somwhat undercut by the broader context of a game where you engage in random fights for money and experience, you can at least rationalize the need for strength and resources as part of the fight for the greater good.

All this is further underscored by Colosseum's surprisingly gritty setting. Unlike the fluffier regions of the main series Pokemon games, Orre is a distinctly harsh and largely barren desert where people make their homes in whatever small pockets of respite they can find. As you soon discover, a good chunk of the region isn't just run down: its actively controlled by the villainous organization you're fighting against. Cipher isn't just creating and distributing Shadow Pokemon, they're the only real industry this region seems to have. The most opulent location in Orre is the Realgam Tower, the centrepiece of Cipher's master plan to distribute their weaponized Pokemon to the world at large by showing their value by televising fights in the colosseum. When you finally defeat the front facing and comically villainous leader of the team, you discover he was only ever a cover for Cipher's true mastermind: the sweet mayor who presides over Phenac City — the one other place in Orre that seems to have any real investment in it.

Its worth remembering that the first place you visit in Colosseum is a run down bar built into a derailed train car: the single place left in the region that still sells Pokeballs. This is immediately juxtaposed against Phenac's radiant oasis, which is presented to the player right before the dilapidated Pyrite Town. Pyrite is overrun with criminal activity, and the only opportunity anyone has is the Pokemon Colosseum that Cipher is using to hand out Shadow Pokemon. Furthermore, Pyrite is literally built on top of another city called The Under: an even more improvished pit of misery which has entirely devolved into fanatical worship of a celebrity idol. This idol, it turns out, is one of the admins of Cipher. Miror B, another admin, runs the local gangs in Pyrite, and the game later reveals that even Team Snagem (the group the player character breaks away from at the start of the game), is supplying Cipher with stolen Pokemon to experiment on.

It would be silly to suggest that Pokemon Colosseum is making any interesting points about the impact of corporate exploitation on improvished regions, but its depiction of a villainous organization actively investing in places with no infastructure to further its own agenda at least warrants some acknowledgment — especially since Colosseum was taking an interest in these themes years before the mainline Pokemon games began to gesture at similar ideas. It's this harsh tone that helps sell Colosseum's presentation. While it still exists within the framework of a series ultimately designed around collecting and battling cool monsters, Colosseum manages to give a little weight to those actions in a way the mainline entries have tried (and largely failed) to for years.

Sadly, Colosseum is a footnote in Pokemon history. Many of the things that made it interesting were also targets of popular criticism, and it was succeeded by a sequel that was "bigger and better" but which as a result misses the point. Gone is the implied redemption arc for a former criminal who uses his talents for good in a corrupt world. Also gone is the much more restrained roster of available Pokemon. The story of Colosseum's sequel Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness gestures at being more bombastic but renders its villains in a far less interesting way. In Colosseum Cipher operate by integrating into the systems that run the world; in the sequel they have a literal evil lair on a supervillain island. Despite all this, Gale of Darkness at least retains the thematic heart of Colosseum, which is more than can be said for the one other time Shadow Pokemon have come back...

In July 2019 Pokemon GO (of all games!) decided to bring back Shadow Pokemon for the first time in 14 years. Instead of tying purification to the pre-existing Buddy system present in GO — the most obvious and thematically poignant approach — developer Niantic simply made it an in-game purchase. This is (somehow) the least of the problems with Pokemon GO's take on shadows. As it lacked meaningful incentives, the playerbase largely ignored Go's shadow system. A consequent update in 2020 made Shadow Pokemon substantially stronger than regular Pokemon, gamifying the mechanic at Colosseum's thematic heart in the single most tone deaf way possible. Two years on Niantic is now introducing 'Apex' Shadow Pokemon: stronger versions of existing shadows that are locked behind a real money paywall.

I don't know how anyone at Niantic looked at Pokemon Colosseum then decided they wanted to be Cipher. Whatever the case, so long as we're all writing erudite thinkpieces about video games for children, I think the case of Shadow Pokemon potently exemplifies a thematic contradiction at the heart of recent Pokemon games: the anti-corporate themes these products gesture at are being sold to you by the world's highest-grossing media franchise.

[by-ag-mn]

This is stipid, but i like that

("Models" from fanbyte viewer)

[monsterfactoryfanfic]

Polygon adjacent but it looks like Fanbyte’s entire senior staff just got laid off. Games journalism is a fucking nightmare. What a catastrophe.

[0utcsts0utlet]

Owl House acnh build

okay it seems like Luz is winning so let me know in the comments the model of acnh house with emojis😊[colors are most likely going to be changed]

💚

🖤

🧡

♥️

💜

credit for the photos of the houses are

animalcrossingworld

Game8

Fanbyte

Reddit

nookipedia

[yukihime242]

Honkai Star Rail is a brand new game set to be released some time in April 2023. Players who are fans of the Honkai series could not wait to get their hands on the game.

(Picture Source: GameSpace.com thru’ Google Image Search)

I am quite surprised myself to be covering this as i was not a fan of Honkai Impact, partly due to me not enjoying the game as much as I hoped. It took me just one log in and I never touched the game again.

Anyway, the battle mechanics in the game is different from the other Hoyoverse’s games. Honkai Star Rail is set to use a tap-turn based mechanic in its battles. If you are unsure what that is, just think of Pokemon games where the Pokemon take turns to attack in a battle.

(Picture Source: Relic Castle thru’ Google Image Search)

Tap-turn based battle games are usually quite easy to play, but given that this is Hoyoverse, I am pretty sure that this is going to be more difficult than we will expect.

(Picture Source: ONE Esports thru’ Google Image Search)

I have watched one TikTok clip covering this and the player playing the game said that we will need to prioritize the character’s health regardless of their element or battle type. 

Speaking of elements, if you are familiar with Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail seems to be incorporating elements into the game. The character screen is also quite similar to the Genshin Character screen.

(Picture Source: Fanbyte thru’ Google Image Search)

But because Honkai is set to be very cyber-ish, we will definitely see more of guns, cannons, and other related weapons in the game, unlike Genshin which is more of a medieval-related theme. 

You will also see the famous Gacha system in the game where you can roll for characters. I am not sure if you will see prominent characters from Honkai Impact in Honkai Star Rail; I think Himeko is already one of them? 

Pre-registration is already available in the Google Playstore, App store, and if you prefer to play it on PC, you can head over to their website to pre-register for it. 

Of course, most of the screenshots I took from Google Search are definitely from Beta. There may be changes to them so don’t be surprised if it looks slightly different when it comes to live.

I just hope that this will be more fun for me than Honkai Impact. 

[noescape-vg]

Media layoffs are nothing new anymore. Surprise and anger has been replaced with this kind of exhausted resignation (no pun intended), this beleaguered acceptance that “this is just the way things are.” The games media industry is certainly no stranger to cuts and closings. Fanbyte gutted, Launcher gone… every other site shedding handfuls of talented people seemingly by the day. It paints a bleak picture. Even before today, the accepted wisdom has already changed to “don’t try to get a job as a critic or a journalist in this industry, at least not right now,” because there are just very few safe, stable options. 

Vice shuttering Waypoint, though, is a total unmooring gut-punch.

What does Waypoint mean to games media? I mean, just ask around. Folks all over what’s left of social media have been talking about the often profound effect Waypoint‘s mere existence has had on them, either as freelancers trying to make a name for themselves in a cutthroat industry or simply because of the content the site published. Some of the keywords people have used to describe the criticism and journalism put out by Waypoint: humane. Holistic. Comprehensive. Thoughtful. Life-changing. 

I think a lot about this speech from Brassed Off, where Pete Postlethwaite’s character Danny Ormondroyd refuses to accept the award for a national brass band competition after his band, the Grimley Brass Band, wins for their rendition of the William Tell Overture. “This band behind me’ll tell you that that trophy means more to me than aught else in the whole world. But they’d be wrong,” he says. “The truth is, I thought it mattered. I thought that music mattered. But it doesn’t bollocks. Not compared to how people matter.” Waypoint understood this. It was a site that specialized in games criticism that focused on the people who made and played them. Losing it feels like losing a piece of one’s soul. It isn’t like death, per se, but a comprehensive diminishing, a removal of life’s color in a meaningful sense.

Former Waypoint Editor-in-Chief Austin Walker reposted the site’s mission statement in response to the news today. I’ve spent the afternoon slowly reading through it and digesting it. In the post, Walker talks about how terrifying nights in Dragon’s Dogmaare (can confirm, holy shit) and how, in order to complete some of the game’s more involved quests, he would have to plan extensively in advance; and prior to departure, he would set a titular waypoint to guide him. 

Waypoints in the context of games, Walker continues, are “the first (and brightest) illustration of a player’s intention.” They are ways of orienting ourselves to our goal in inherently unfamiliar environments combined with statements of purpose: we are going to the place to do a thing, and in so doing we will have Played The Game. “Before we assault the fortress, before we start the race, before we leap from one star system to another, we set a waypoint,” he wrote. “They are the marks we leave on the map, the beacons we place in the dark that declare, yes, we will walk into the night.”

I didn’t get too terribly far through Death Stranding, but waypoints were one of the basic mechanics I loved—and grew to rely on—in my short play sessions. There are different kinds of waypoint markers in Death Stranding, including purely social ones, just little digital pips that let you know someone else had been there before, or liked a bridge you made, or warned of BTs in the area before your baby in a jar could wake up to tell you. These signs of life – also seen in games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring – made the empty world feel less barren. It helped make me as the player feel less alone. 

Losing Waypoint feels scary. As others have commented, it feels like the end of a specific era of game criticism, one where thoughtful, considered writing about games and the culture around them had an institutional home, is officially over. But like the little thumbs-up or emoji strewn across the alien America of Death Stranding, I don’t think Waypoint – what it as an institution stood for, what its people represented, what its body of work entails – needs to go away entirely. We can carry its mission forward. We can set new waypoints. We can continue to walk into the night.

Waypoint‘s raison d’être is as follows: 

be a guide to games culture

investigate how and why people play games

make readers think, laugh, and ask new questions about games and the world around them

Games will not save us. But we cannot escape them. They are reflections of the way we interact with work, with household chores, with our friends, family and neighbors, with the world itself. For as long as video games exist, for as long as there is a digital culture to speak of, we can continue to light beacons in the night for ourselves and whoever else might come this way.

[skyeheron]

Research: Gen Z Design Tastes

I then felt it was important to get a better understanding of Gen Z design aesthetics and tastes so that I could apply this research to my work. Even though this article is for Interior Design it gives a broad view on general preferences and styles.

"From funky light fittings to 70s pattern-mixing, enter a room decorated by a Gen Zer and you’ll find a trove of unique items. This generation loves bringing a sense of individuality to their spaces, and the interior design trends they champion are proof of just that" (Fanbytes, 2022):

Natural Materials - From rattan furniture to woven wall art and hanging plants, natural materials are one of the most obvious design preferences for Gen Z. Afterall, "it stands to reason that the generation most concerned with climate change and sustainability would lean towards a more natural, homespun aesthetic". 

Looking at incorporating this within my work would work well I think due to creating an eco-friendly brand suited to the ocean and ocean lovers.

Scandi Maxilmalism - "Also known as “Danish Pastels” or “Avant Basic”, this style trend is focused primarily on building vibrant colour onto basics: white walls and wooden floors". Examples of this are adding pastel colours that look pyschedelic or are checked and floral patterns.

Throwback Style - Gen Z again love Nostalgia, "‘ from 90s wall stickers to ‘70s conversation pits, Generation Z is bringing the throwbacks back to the forefront. Retro chairs and accessories are rife, with zany wall colours and framed vintage prints and posters adorning the walls".

[sheacabrera12]

How to Obtain Minecraft Amethyst Shards and how to make use of them

Minecraft Amethyst Shards are obtained by mining amethyst clusters that are found in geodes. They can be used as fancy decorations and also as a crafting material to create Spyglass or Tinted Glass. If you're planning to look for the purple crystal shards you'll need to understand the particulars of where you can find Amethyst Geodes and how to maximize the benefits of shards. Here are the details about how to locate and mine Amethyst Shards within Minecraft.

Where to find Amethyst Geodes in Minecraft

To locate an Amethyst Geode in Minecraft, it's best to just go underground and start mining. You don't have to go deep though: Amethyst geodes can spawn between Y-level -64 to Y-level 30. Because they're large and often cracked, geodes are easy to identify. You might also see small glowing lights from a distance.

Keep an eye out for smooth basalt during mining. It is the dark outer layer of an Amethyst Geode. Break through this initial layer to find calcite, and then proceed to locate the amethyst. There are Blocks of Amethyst and Budding Amethyst as well as Amethyst Buds and Amethyst Clusters. Let's look at which:

How to get Amethyst Shards from Minecraft using Amethyst Clusters

Minecraft Netherite is extremely valuable, but it's much harder to find Amesthyst Shards.

Amethyst Shards are released from the growing amethyst crystals known as Amethyst Clusters. They are located in Amethyst Geodes. Amethyst clusters can be mined to earn Minecraft AmethystShards that can be used to craft certain items.

It is important to only mine fully grown ones. ian blog The smaller Minecraft Amethyst Buds will not drop any Amethyst Shards. An Amethyst Bud goes through three stages before becoming an Amethyst Cluster. You can see them in the picture above.

Fully formed Amethyst clusters drop two Minecraft Amethyst Shards when broken with any other tool, and four when mined using the pickaxe. The Fortune enchantment can increase the number of Amethyst Shards you get. Use the Silk Touch enchantment to pick up the cluster.

Minecraft Amethyst Clusters and Buds grow on Budding Amethyst blocks. You can identify them by the cross-shape that is visible on their sides. Budding Amethyst is not possible to mine, however you can return to find newly-spawned Amethyst Buds. The second amethyst solid block is called the "Block of Amethyst" and can only be mined with a pickaxe. This block can only be used for decorative purposes and cannot be used to grow Amethyst Buds. You can use Amethyst Shards to build more Minecraft Blocks of Amethyst if you intend to build with them as a material.

What can you make with Minecraft Amethyst Shards

Amethyst Shards is a brand new, posh building material. You can also use them to create the following items:

Spyglass: One Amethyst Shard placed on top of two copper ingots creates an Spyglass. Spyglasses can be used to zoom into distant objects. Tinted Glass: One block of glass with an Amethyst Shard above, below and on either side will make two blocks of Tinted Glass. Tinted Glass blocks light, but you are able to see through it. It isn't able to suffocate mobs however, it can be used again when it's broken. Block of Amethyst as mentioned earlier it is only a decorative. You can make a Block of Amethyst using four Amethyst Shards. It's time to find some Amethyst Shards in order to build your luxurious amethyst home!

Minecraft Honeycomb

I am a freelance journalist and (surprise!) a freelance journalist. I have a thing for videogames. When I'm not working on guides to GamesRadar you can meet me in Teyvat or Novigrad. Erangel is my favorite method of competition unless I feel like it. You can also find my words on PCGamesN, Fanbyte, PCGamer, Polygon, Esports Insider and Game Rant.