Minecraft has had its next big patch update with Vanilla 1.11 coming in, dubbed the Exploration Update. It introduces a small number of new things to the world, as well as a good deal of bug fixes.

The big thing that many have been talking about is the addition of one of the new mobs, llamas – a new passive mob with some of the same mechanics as horses. Llamas will be found in Extreme Hill biomes and can be tamed by climbing on their backs and being kicked off a number of times until it is ‘tamed’. Unlike horses though, llamas will attack back with a spit that takes off 1 hitpoint or half a heart of health. Once tamed you can place carpet and chests onto your tamed llama, and each colour of carpet will have a different design – for example the purple one has an Enderman motif and the white one comes with a nice little neckachief. Although you can climb on the back of a llama the best way to direct them is via a lead, which will then cause all the other nearby llamas to follow on behind in a train, even the wild ones and babies! They drop leather upon death.

Other mobs introduced in this patch take the form of two forms of ‘anti-Testificate’ also known as “Illagers” as well as a small mob that one of them can summon. Both form of Illager are hostile to both the player and Villagers/Testificates, but their methods of attack are pretty different. The one with a physical assault form of attack is known as a Vindicator (with blue pants), and upon seeing an opponent will pull out an Axe and charge forward to attack. The other Illager is called an Evoker (with the gold trimmed robes) and upon seeing an opponent will pull their arms apart to summon small ghost-like mobs with Iron Swords known as Vexes. Vexes can go through blocks and will attack nearby targets but expire on their own after a certain amount of time. Evokers can also spawn ‘Fangs’ which aren’t mobs themselves but more a method of attacking hostiles or enemies. Both spawn inside of a new type of structure called Woodland Mansions, which are buildings of wood and cobblestone you can find dotted around the map rarely. Evokers drop a new drop called the Totem of Undying or sometimes an Emerald upon death; while Vindicators drop Emeralds and an Iron Axe.

Villagers themselves have something new as well, with a new ‘type’ of Villager added to the professions they can have. A Cartographer is a type of Librarian Villager and trading enough with them will give you access to special Exploration Maps – Ocean help you locate Ocean Monuments and the Woodland ones help you to locate Woodland Mansions. There’s also been a type of ‘untradeable’ Villager called a Nitwit added; Farmer Villagers can now give different amounts of apples or cookies on trade and all Villagers can now be named via Nametags.

Other things added to the game include a drop from the Shulker mobs introduced in a previous patch, they now have a 50% chance to drop a Shulker Shell upon death. Two Shulker Shells put on top of and below a Chest in a Crafting Table will make a Shulker Box, which is another way to store items but keeps what you put into it if you destroy and pick up the Shulker Box. It can also be dyed different colours, but unlike chests will not connect to become doubles. They open with an animation similar to how a shulker opens its shell just with a bit more spinning.

There has also been a block called an Observer added, ported over from other versions of Minecraft. An Observer will watch the block in front of it and when it detects a ‘block update’ it sends a redstone signal out of its back port. This block will probably be useful for map makers to get circuits across gaps without having to build a bridge for a line of redstone or similar.

This is just a taste of what 1.11 is bringing into the game. If you want to reach all the patch notes, you can see them here.

And stop by our own Sanitarium.FM server at www.sanitarium.fm. We’ve already set up a llama pen!

Squad is a very large-scale multiplayer shooter game that’s currently in Steam’s Early Access program. It aims to simulate realistic modern warfare in which both sides have fairly large sides and you need to be constantly vigilanet (with respawning obviously helping to make it seem like both armies are larger than they really are). The game is a spiritual successor to a widely-loved mod for Battlefield 2, Project Reality, and the indie studio behind it grew from the Project Reality team.

Now the game is going to have its first ever free weekend in a bid to attract the players numbers needed to make such large-scale battles work, because you can’t have a fight with 100 players if not that many people are around to join games after all. The game will remain like this until Sunday, November 13th at 1pm Pacific Time, or 9pm UK time. The game is also currently on sale at half its usual selling price and that will last even longer – until Monday 10am Pacific or 5pm UK time.

If you’re not familiar with Squad already, it features vehicle-based combat, combined arms gameplay, large-scale battle environments, voice audio proximity for talking and radio chatter and even base building so you can set up camp. If that sounds like something you could get into, check out Squad’s Steam page to try it out. Then if you like it, take advantage of the £14.99 UK or $19.99 US price to keep it for good.

Play with the fate of Legends in a battle of wits, strategy and combat, where lives are gambled on the turn of your cards. Leave your minions behind as you fight your own battles, expand and master your deck, and face the challenge of unique card combat. Chronicle is a new kind of card gaming experience.

I think at one point in every person’s life who has ever played pc games they have encountered “Runescape”. I for one was surprised to see that Runescape was indeed still going in such a strong manner after 15 years.

“Chronicles” is a tactical card game set in the runescape universe that is far closer to a strategy game than a card game. Playing in a one on one setting you need to manage several resources such the character HP and gold for your hero to survive through five chapters and then ultimately best your opponent in a duel at the end of the fifth chapter.  The other way to find victory is to have your opponent fail to survive to that point and die on the way.

Chronicles is entirely free to play with the only purchases being for cosmetic items, you gain cards by spending copper which you get at the end of each game or by levelling up.

Chronicles is a step in the right direction for a burgeoning card game genre on PC and looks to cement itself in its own unique way amongst titans like Hearthstone.

Check out the gameplay trailer below for more info…

Chronicles: Runescape Legends is available on STEAM right now and if completely free, check it out here

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada (releasing April 21, 2016) takes the idea of tall ship combat and places it the Warhammer 40k universe. Based on Games Workshop’s tabletop game, you can take command of the Imperium, Chaos, Eldar and Ork fleets in real time space battles.

This beta version of the game includes the prologue of the campaign as well as solo skirmish and multiplayer. To avoid spoilers, I’ve only demonstrated solo skirmish in this video.

The game features deep ship customization, detailed maneuvering options for your ships as well as a plethora of upgrades, skills and faction alignments. Only three fleets are available as yet, but each places extremely differently. It’s fun, flashy but can be daunting to newcomers to the RTS genre, or those that are intimidated by multitasking. Fortunately, Tindalos Interactive has taken that into consideration in the gameplay systems.

Let’s dive in and take a look!

Plague Inc: Evolved, successor to the highly successful 2012 iOS game Plague Inc., is out of early access and into official release as of 18th feb. 2016 for PC, Mac, Linux.  The game features many devastating ways to exterminate the human population of Earth.  It is hailed as a “highly authentic simulation of a world-ending pathogen”, so realistic that the developer was invited to the Center for Disease Control to speak about the game’s infection models.

Plague Inc. boasted a staggering 65,000,000+ players, and Plague Inc: Evolved has already sold over 800,000 copies before even leaving early access.

The game boasts a plethora of features, including:
10 different types of diseases, including the use of bio-weapons, mind control, and zombies.
20 Scenarios; spread a plague during an ice age, handle new strains of older diseases, and many more challenges!
Steam Workshop support where over 10,000 players have already created their own scenarios, worlds, and diseases.

The latest update brings multiplayer into the mix, where players can either join up in Co-Op to eradicate the world together, or compete against one another or AI to wipe out humanity and each other.

Plague Inc: Evolved by Ndemic Creations is now available on Steam!