You feel a chill. No, it’s not freezing outside. It has been 32 days since you last saw the sun. Your supplies are dwindling, down to the final can of beans. The bad news is that you despise beans, and the “good news” is that you’re hungry enough to eat them anyway. So hungry that even the rats from the outpost start to look quite appetizing.
But what you don’t realize is this: those rats think you look pretty tasty too.
This sensation was what the creators Vubervos and Pang aimed to convey when they designed their flawless yet terrifying Outpost Calacatta. Perhaps they didn’t intend to take it as far as “you’re eating rat,” but they definitely wanted to create something that would provoke all sorts of questions among their fans.
“When we started building,” explains Pang, “there wasn’t any real knowledge. However, we developed it along the way. Everything really began to take shape when we started adding details, especially soldiers. That’s how we realized this was an outpost. Then I asked Vube to construct a ship in Minecraft Pocket Edition, because he’s really good at it, and I thought it would add a nice touch both aesthetically and atmospherically.”
Thus, the atmosphere of impending dread and fear is the main focus of Calacatta!
“I thought it would be interesting for the ship to appear wrecked on one side,” adds Vuberbos. “To make the place seem even more ruined and abandoned, indicating that no one had been there.”
Adding this detail changes the entire mood of the piece. Because, as Vuberbos points out, this ship seems to be the only escape from this eerie location in MCPE. In any case, it was indeed the only way out.
“We included birds and icicles to give the feeling of being in a dark and cold spot in Minecraft PE, where no one ever came. And the ship serves as the sole means of transport to and from the outpost.
The wrecked ship raises just one question: how long ago did this happen? Or worse—how much time has passed since anyone returned home?
“Why is the ship there? What happened?” These are the questions we want the audience to ask themselves upon seeing our project,” says Pang. “It’s important for people to ponder such questions and come up with their own stories about any creative work.”
Questions like: “Would you eat a rat if you were terribly hungry?”
“We decided that this is a remote outpost guarding the border, but people will have to use their imagination to figure out what it’s protecting against.” Both Pang and Vubervos agree on this.
There’s no doubt that it’s an impressive structure, but it’s the details that render it such a creepy, grim place. A location so isolated and frigid that you shudder merely hearing its name. Great job, Pang and Vubervos! But next time, how about creating a rainbow or something cheerful?
