What did you make your very first Minecraft house in your very first Minecraft world out of? I’ll bet you a stack of diamonds that it was either dirt or our block of the week – cobblestone.
你在我的世界大陆上建造的第一个房子是什么做的?我敢用一组钻石和你打赌,肯定是泥土,或者是我们本周的方块——圆石。
Cobblestone, as you’ll know if you’ve played Minecraft for more than about ten seconds, is what you get when you break stone. As a result, it’s one of the substances in the game that will fill up your storage chests faster than a diamond pick chews through sugarcane. The glut of cobblestone you obtain in the course of normal play, combined with its blast resistance, is why it’s usually the favoured building material of anyone who builds for function rather than aesthetics.
圆石,所有拥有超过十秒钟Minecraft游戏经验的玩家都会知道,是石头的破坏掉落物。因此,它填满你的箱子的速度可能比钻石镐收割甘蔗的速度还要快。由于在正常的游戏体验中,圆石总是过剩的,再加上其爆炸抗性,因此在不考虑美观性的前提下,圆石通常是玩家最喜欢的功能性建筑材料。
Fun fact: cobblestone was actually one of the very first two blocks in Minecraft, alongside grass. In actuality, it existed before Minecraft did because it was created for RubyDung – a building game that Notch created before he started working on “Cave Game”, which became Minecraft.
有趣的事实:圆石和草方块是我的世界最早加入的两种方块。实际上,圆石比我的世界更早出现,因为它起源于一款名为RubyDung的游戏——这款游戏开创了Notch的“Cave Game”游戏创作史,并最终形成了我的世界这一游戏。
The first version of Cave Game had cobblestone blocks, grass blocks, a player, and pretty much nothing else. You couldn’t even place or destroy blocks. “It will have more resource management and materials, if I ever get around to finishing it,” Notch wrote in the description of a YouTube video that showed it in action.
“Cave Game”的第一个版本有圆石,草方块,一名玩家,除此之外,没有其他东西,你甚至不能放置或摧毁方块。Notch在YouTube发布的视频描述中写道:“如果我有时间完成它,这款游戏就会有更多的资源。”该视频也展示了“Cave Game”的概况。
Cobblestone quickly became one of the growing game’s most recognisable elements – it was used in game’s first logo, and when crafting was added in January 2010 cobblestone was one of the key ingredients for most of the game’s tools and weapons. Over time, more and more recipes were added that use cobblestone, from brewing stands to observers. Today there are nineteen different things you can make with cobblestone – can you name them all? (Stop getting our readers to do your job for you, Duncan, you lazy oaf - Tom)
圆石很快成为了这个游戏在成长过程中最容易识别的元素之一——它被用在游戏的第一个标志中,当2010年1月加入合成机制后,圆石是游戏中大多数工具和武器的合成配方之一。随着时间的推移,越来越多的配方需要圆石,从酿造台到侦测器。今天,你可以用圆石做19种不同的东西,你能说出它们的名字吗?(不要再让我们的读者为你办事了,Duncan,你这个懒惰的家伙 —— Tom)
Cobblestone, like most of Minecraft’s blocks, exists in the real world too – though it’s not as common there. You’ll most often find it on old parts of towns and cities, where for centuries it was used to make roads. Cobblestones have a lot of advantages over other road materials – they don’t get dusty in dry weather, or muddy in wet weather. They don’t allow ruts to form. They offer good traction, and make a lot of noise when wheels and horses pass over them. That last one might not sound like an advantage, but in the fogs of Victorian London the clatter of cobblestones helped many a pedestrian avoid getting run over an oncoming carriage. As a Brit myself, without cobblestone, one of my ancestors could’ve been carriage-whacked and I would never have been born. Which (more importantly) means there would have been no Block of the Week. Blimey! Thanks, cobblestone!
圆石,就像我的世界中的大多数的方块一样,也存在于现实世界中——尽管它们不那么常见。它最常出现在老城区的古街道中,几个世纪以来,它一直被用来铺路。与其他铺设道路的材料相比,圆石有很多优点——天气干燥时它们不会尘土飞扬,而天气潮湿时它们也不会泥泞不堪。车辙不会改变它们的形状,而它们会提供足够的摩擦力,并会在车马路过时发出巨大的噪声。最后一条听起来可能不是什么优势,但在维多利亚时代,身处在伦敦的大雾中,圆石的咔哒声帮助许多行人避免被迎面而来的马车撞倒。(作者Duncan Geere)作为一个英国人,如果没有圆石,我的一个祖先可能会被马车撞倒,而我就不会出生了。这(更重要的是)意味着不会有《本周方块》栏目。天哪!谢谢你,圆石!
Normally cobblestones are set in sand or mortar by humans, but it’s possible for them to form naturally too – in which case they’re usually called “conglomerate”. Conglomerate forms when a collection of rocks settle in one place, but are then surrounded by sand, silt, clay or other finer materials, which harden over time into rock of their own.
通常情况下,圆石是用沙子或砂浆人造的,但它们也有可能是自然形成的——在这种情况下,它们通常被称为“砾岩(Conglomerate)”。一堆岩石聚集在一个地方,随后被沙子、淤泥、粘土或其他材料包裹,随着时间的流逝,经过硬化,这些材料与岩石本身融为一体,砾岩就会随之形成。
Wannabe martian travellers will be pleased to hear that we’ve even found conglomerate on Mars, in what researchers believe is an ancient streambed. So when we eventually, inevitably ruin the Earth, don’t panic – you’ll be able to put all those cobblestone building skills you’ve been developing in Minecraft to use on the Red Planet instead. Good luck!
想成为火星旅行者的人会乐意听到,我们甚至在火星上发现了砾岩,研究人员认为这里一个古老的河床。因此,当我们最终不可避免地毁掉地球时,不要担心——你能把在我的世界里学到的圆石建筑技能用在这个红色星球上。祝你好运!