Minecraft Nomad Challenge 50,000: Part 2 (It’s Playtime!)
Hello everyone, and welcome back to It’s Playtime! We’re back at it with another part of my Minecraft Nomad Journey. This one turned out to be interesting, but… very weird. Go check out part 1 if you haven’t already to see the rules and what has happened so far. Currently, I’m at around 2,000 in the X coordinates, and around 6,000 in the Z coordinates. Let’s see if we can change that, starting with day 11.
Last time, I ended near some ice spikes, preparing for another dangerous situation. By that, I mean I got my bed and booked it for the other side. This time, the run was way more unsettling than the first.
For one thing, this ice spikes biome is way bigger than the other one. A lot of ice pillars prevented me from travelling in a wide space, so it’s harder to avoid anything in my path. Finally, my Nintendo Switch was lagging during this time, so it took a while for parts of the world to form.
As a result, I would often be forced to wait in one spot, which caused a whole lot of anxiety. At the very least, though, I hardly spotted any polar bears. I spent most of the time thinking up an idea I would use later.
I eventually got to a stone area on the other side. It was a rather uninteresting idea, with ocean on the other side. Looks like I was about to go sailing for the first time in this challenge. Weird, it usually doesn’t take this long to reach the ocean. I did not want to sail through the night, though, as that would make getting to any type of land very convenient. So, I simply decided to stay in the area until sunset, mostly spending it killing some sheep for wool.
On the morning of day 12, I started sailing. This didn’t take very long though, as I soon found a big island. There, I spotted another village. Well, here’s the third one in this series. I honestly didn’t find much of anything special. The chests didn’t even have any special items.
Something that was annoying was the lag. It was terrible here, and I still have no idea why. No village I’ve been to has ever had this level of lag. This wasn’t even a big village!
The lag was so bad that falling blocks stutter in midair, and I couldn’t even eat for several minutes. The game did nothing to change my food bar after I ate, and that actually got me worried. I started to wonder whether the entire game was going to be like this from now on.
There was not much for me at the village. Usually, I stay a night, but I saw no reason to this time. So, I left the village and headed off. Soon after, I realized the lag was completely gone and the game was running as smooth as butter. I was very confused (and still am!), but thankful that I didn’t have to deal with this the whole way.
I travelled a while, occasionally sailing before finding more land. Apparently, I was in a chain of islands now. Most of them weren’t too interesting though. Then, I got to a big stretch of mainland, and saw… a jungle. Jungles aren’t the safest places, as they provide shelter to monsters, but I was excited about it this time. Maybe I could get another bird here!
I looked around and… nope, all I could see were pandas… and wolves. This game really loves to make me regret throwing away bones. I quickly travelled through, and on the other side was an acacia forest. It was a good thing too, because the sun set soon after.
It’s day 13 time, the unlucky number. Let’s see if it was unlucky for me. Immediately after I woke up, I got the adventuring time achievement. I didn’t know what this was, but apparently it’s achieved by visiting 17 different biomes in Minecraft. Huh. Rather fitting award though, considering the challenge.
Today, I started doing a new plan. I started leaving my beds behind. It’s rather simple why. It gives me a respawn anchor. This way, I don’t have to travel tens of thousands of blocks to get back where I was. The only drawback is that I have to constantly make beds or get them from somewhere. Basically, I have to keep getting supplies such as wool to keep up. Still, I think it’s worth it, even if it brought an anxious situation later down the line.
Most of the day was spent travelling through acacia and desert. Halfway through the day, I spotted a desert temple. Nice, a second one! I did the same setup as before, where I left my bed and super important supplies outside in case I royally screwed up. Thankfully, I didn’t.
I avoided and broke the trap, then explored the chests. I only took a handful of stuff that nomads would find useful, but man, what stuff that was! I found 3 golden apples, a bunch of bones, and… 3 diamonds! Yup, I was now officially in the possession of diamonds.
Unfortunately, 3 diamonds is only enough to make a sword, a weapon that I didn’t use often. So, I decided to wait so I could potentially get some bright blue armor later on. Either that, or for using my smithing templates… Anyway, I slept by the desert temple that night. To be honest, that day was the opposite of unlucky. Yay for me!
Day 14 has arrived. I crafted another bed for later and left. It didn’t take long for me to see a jungle in the distance, and I got excited again. Not only because I could find a bird, but now I had bones! I could tame a wolf! That could be amazing, to have my own adorable protectors and-
All I saw were jaguars. I am convinced this game hates me.
The jungle ended up being very tiny, and I came out to find more desert. It was a rather uninteresting day of travel, and I decided to sleep around the plain sandy area.
On day 15, I woke up to find that a village had practically spawned right in front of me. How did I not notice that until the morning? Anyway, I was extremely lucky to have already found a fourth village. Must be that rabbit’s foot, I suppose. I was excited for this village though. Usually, I don’t really care what type of village it is, but this time, it’s different. Recent events have made this village much more important.
I searched through the village, until at the very end, I spotted it. The glorious animal: the camel. And I had a saddle. Was this the animal I was looking for in the first part? Nope, but there was no way I was going to pass up this opportunity. I have never ridden a camel in Minecraft before. Ever, even outside of the nomad challenge. So, I was about to have my first experience with one.
First, I explored through the village, looting anything that was useful. To be honest, most of it wasn’t that good. It was only really wheat and bread, and I’ve already accumulated 3 stacks of bread from the other three.
Then, I went back to the camel and put the saddle on. He is beautiful. I spent the rest of the day getting used to the controls. Unfortunately, he was slower than I thought he was, but I still liked the ride. Even if the leap wasn’t as impressive as I thought. I gave him the name Mustard after his coat color, and left him inside as I slept in a villager’s house.
On day 16, I stole another bed to use later, and wasted no time in leaving. It was time for my first adventure with Mustard. We left, travelling across the desert. Afterwards, it didn’t take long for the desert to end, and lead right into the forest. That day, I learned of our new greatest nemesis. Trees. Yeah, Mustard was so huge that I often had to find routes around heavy greenery. Now I could see why camels were exclusive to desert villages.
I was still uncertain about Mustard’s slow pace. Was it worse now that he was here? Would it take even longer to reach the goal? Still, I figured that it was cooler this way, and it was fine to not run everywhere all the time. And then halfway through the day I realized that Mustard could actually run. Like I said, I was new to the camel thing, but that was embarrassing. Now, I had zero regrets with taking Mustard along! Aside from the trees…
At the end of the day, I spotted a ruined nether portal. Huh, all of this luck sure seems similar to the last part. Still, this one didn’t have any treasure I really needed. Most of the stuff wasn’t useful to nomads or wasn’t as good as stuff I already had. I did sleep nearby though, hoping Mustard wouldn’t be dumb and wander into the magma.
Day 17 was pretty uninteresting… at first. We were travelling through a forest, making our own way around. Then, as we were travelling through the forest, I spotted wolves. Three of them, to be exact. And now, I had bones. I quickly got off Mustard and tamed all three of them. Sure, I was slightly uncertain about how travelling would go, but how could I resist having three protectors?
I wanted some kind of naming theme for them, so I randomly thought of Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. Totally not based off of the Hoenn Pokemon games, trust me. There’s no way to tell the difference between them… for now. Sometime, I’ll dye their collars, but for now they’re identical. I didn’t think of it while playing, but I’ll probably call them ‘the Gemstone Sisters’ as a unit.
We kept travelling through, though it was difficult sometimes. Whenever I tried to get around trees, the Gemstone Sisters would squish Mustard in, making it more difficult. Still, it was workable. We had to cross several rivers as well, but I had leads to help Mustard across. It was all workable. Eventually, I fell asleep in a forest, my four new pals all around me.
On day 18, we began travelling through taiga. Rather fitting, though I worried about berry bushes hitting my dogs and them going on a murder spree for foxes. None of that happened, thankfully. I did see other wolves on the way, but I didn’t want to go overboard on the dogs. Three was a good enough number for me, and too many would get out of control.
It took me halfway through the day to realize we were going the wrong way. Somehow, I had gotten turned around at the start of the day, so we had to go all the way back.
Some annoying quirks showed during this time. Travelling through the water was slow with a camel (as I had to use a lead), and getting around trees could suck up precious minutes of the ingame day. Plus, Mustard would sometimes randomly take fall damage out of the blue, and that always startled me a bit. He was fine afterwards, it just gives me a little jump each time. Still, I loved the travelling party I formed. Even if it was annoying, it gave the journey a little spice.
Anyway, we found another taiga after finally going in the right direction, and we slept there for the night.
On day 19, Mustard had wandered off for a bit. For a huge furry yellow animal, he’s really good at hiding. I could have tied him to a post, but I had been too lazy to do that thus far. I eventually did find him, and he was resting in a relatively flat area with no trees around. Huh, maybe Mustard was secretly a genius.
Anyway, I took the path Mustard had found and we kept travelling… until we spotted some ice spikes. Oh, come on, are these always here? Ice spikes aren’t supposed to be that common, why must I get so unlucky-
Honestly, ice spikes haven’t been too bad for me, but now that I had animals that could slow me down, it’s even more dangerous. Plus, if a polar bear ended up hitting me, I and Mustard might escape, but the Gemstone Sisters would absolutely get murdered trying to protect me. I might have been extremely paranoid, but I still wanted to find a way around.
I saw a forest around the corner, and decided to take a detour to see if there was a way around the biome. This just led to more snowy taiga. We cannot escape the snow, it seems.
I spent a few minutes trying to get Mustard around a tree using a lead. That was a waste of my time, but it was kind of funny. Also, anytime I get off Mustard, he wanders off and rests somewhere, as if he thinks we’re stopping for a while. I don’t know why, but I find that hilarious.
Aside from the tree fiasco, the day was spent travelling. I got my X coordinates up a bunch during this time, but my Z coordinates were going down. The best route for getting both of them up is, of course, the ice spikes, but I believed I was making significant progress.
The sun started to set, and I realized I had not made a bed. That was fine, though. I could just make another one. Then, I realized I didn’t have a crafting table. Well, that’s fine, I could just make another one. I did just that, but then I couldn’t find the crafting recipe for the bed. By now, I realized I was burning time, and it was night. So, I panicked, and dug underground, filling up the hole I left behind. Then, I tried to figure out the bed stuff.
I even thought that maybe beds were only made with normal wood. So, I made some of my other wood into sticks so I could convert it to wood- Until I learned that was impossible. It took me a while to figure out, but apparently I just… forgot to use the crafting table for it… somehow. However, I didn’t have enough wood. I would have had enough if I didn’t convert any to sticks. Great. So, I just waited the night out.
Day 20 arrived, and it took me a few minutes to realize it was even day. I was a little bit afraid though. You see, because I didn’t sleep through the night, monsters hadn’t despawned, and some could be under trees.
I came out of my hole, and noticed Mustard had wandered off again. I found him a few minutes later, but as I was about to get him, I noticed 3 creepers and a skeleton hanging out under a tree nearby. I had to wait several minutes for Mustard to walk back to me. Thankfully, he did, and I got out of there as fast as I could. On the way, I also crafted a bed, so we wouldn’t run into that fiasco again.
As per usual, we travelled, until… we bumped into the ice spikes. Yep, the Taiga only got us a tiny bit of progress. We were now back at the ice spikes, and there seemed to be no way around. Kind of poetically, we have ended back where we started, about to go through the ice spikes. Except this time, there were four animals that needed to survive as well. Will we able to survive?
No clue. Probably yes and I’m just exaggerating, but we’ll have to see.
That was interesting. Honestly, even though the animals slowed me down, I did end up making about the same progress as I had last time. It’s weird how much this echoed the first part, only with the steps switched around. I wonder how things will change in the future. But I guess we’ll have to find out. See you next time to see what weird adventures I get into next.
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