Build 02 · Season 1

The Player’s Den

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              Week 02
              Collective Build
            

The Player’s
Den

Everybody builds the same little room in their own 16×16 plot: one door, two windows, a bed, a light and somewhere to keep your snacks. Line the plots up and the rooms stand wall to wall, and the row becomes a street of dens.

              16×16 plot
              30 min, no rush
              Creative mode
              10 steps
              {{ totalBlocks }} blocks
              1 or more builders
            

              Name on your sign: ____________
              Plot #: ______
            

Fig. 1 — five dens joined. Drag a photo of your club’s street over this.

This week · Social–Emotional Learning

The Healthy Gamer’s Guide

Setting yourself up well before you play.

Set up first

Get everything ready before gaming: lights, a drink, somewhere comfy to sit. Then ask one other person what helps them.

Where the shape comes from

This is a terraced house: narrow, deep, and sharing a wall on both sides. Cities have built them this way for hundreds of years because a shared wall is cheaper, warmer and faster to put up than four walls of your own. A whole street goes up in the time one detached house would take.

Same outside, yours inside

Every den on the street is the same shell. What goes in it is not: where the light sits, what colour the bed is, what is in the barrels. Walking the finished row is the point — ten identical rooms and ten completely different setups.

Why this build, this week

This build is the club challenge made out of blocks. Every single thing in it is something you set up before you start playing: the light, the seat, the drink within reach, the door you can shut.

Doing it in Minecraft first makes it obvious how much easier the room is to be in afterwards, and how little time the setting up actually took. Then you walk the street and see that everybody needed something slightly different. There is no wrong den on this row — which is worth saying out loud to whoever built the one next to yours.

Claiming a plot

Walk the row, find the first plot with no name sign on it, and put yours on the front-left corner. Stand with the path behind you — that is the direction every den faces — then work left to right across the plot.

The big idea

One den each.
One street for everyone.

You build a unit

A room 16 blocks wide and 6 deep, with a door, two windows, a bed, four lanterns and a shelf of snacks. About half an hour.

Your edges are shared

Your left wall and your neighbour's right wall stand back to back. Two thin walls make one solid party wall, exactly like a real terrace.

The row keeps growing

Four dens make a cul-de-sac. Forty make a neighbourhood you can get lost in. You will probably never watch the whole street go up — you just come back another day and find it longer.

How your unit fits

Yours is the one in the middle

neighbour
your plot
neighbour

Three rules for lining up

Do these and your den meets your neighbour’s. You never need coordinates.

Touch, do not measure.

Your very first floor block goes against your neighbour’s floor. Not near it — touching it.

Walk it, do not jump it.

You should be able to walk out of their den straight into yours. If you have to jump up, your floor is one block too high. If you drop, one too low.

Path behind you.

Always stand with the path at your back before you start. Every den faces the street, so “left” means the same thing on every plot.

Nobody next door yet? Build on flat ground and put your name sign on the front-left corner. The next person lines up to you.

Right Touching, and level

Wrong One block gap, one block high

Reading the diagrams

Blocks you place this step

Already built in earlier steps

Air — leave it empty

However many turn up

One builder or forty

Nobody needs to know the head count in advance, and you do not all have to be on at the same time. The den is the same either way — the street is just longer. Every den that gets finished adds to it.

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If there is a gap in the row

An empty plot is not a problem — it reads as a gap between two houses and the street still works. If you want a tidy row now, put a plain wool wall across the gap at the same height as the dens either side. The real den can go in later.

At the end of the row

If you are on the end of the row, add one extra thing: put a window in your outer side wall, since nothing is going to be built against it. Two minutes, and the end of the street stops looking sliced off. Somebody can always extend past you later.

Parts list · one unit

Grab these first

Put all of it in your hotbar before you place a single block. Tap each one as you get it — then you never have to stop mid-wall to go and find something.

{{ gotCount }} of {{ gotTotal }} in your hotbar

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Pulled apart

Bottom to top: floor, walls, roof.

Swap it out

Keep the shell the same — walls, roof, window size — so the street reads as one street. Everything inside is free: swap the wool for concrete, change the bed colour, change the floor. Match the den next to yours for the shell, then do what you like indoors.

Speed tip

In Creative you can hold down place and walk backwards along a row instead of clicking each block. The floor and the roof are both one flat rectangle.

Before the steps

Every step looks the same

There are 10 steps. Each one is laid out in exactly the same order, so you always know where to look. You can do one step, stop, and come back later.

Part 1

Look

Tells you which of the three pictures to use for this step. Read this first.

Part 2

A numbered list. One action per line, in order. Nothing is hidden between the lines.

Part 3

Check

One thing to count or look at. If it is true, the step is right and you can move on.

Part 4

If it looks wrong

What to do if the check did not work. Nothing is broken and nobody is in trouble.

Two kinds of picture

In the game — at the top of every step. Your plot after that step, the way it looks if you fly round it. Full colour is what you place now; pale is already built.

Front — standing in front of your plot. Up in the picture is up in the game.

Above — looking straight down, like a map. Row 1 is the edge nearest you.

Side — a slice through the build. It only shows the 6 blocks of depth.

Front, Above and Side are on every step, always in that order. The one you need has a green Use this one tag.

Example — the “in the game” picture from step 4

What the squares mean

Place these blocks now

Already built in an earlier step

Leave empty

The dashed box shows the new part

The numbers around the edge count blocks, so you can count along instead of guessing.

You can stop any time

Tick the box at the bottom of a step when you finish it. This page remembers where you were, so you can close it mid-build and come back to the same step tomorrow.

What good building looks like

Counting out loud. Checking the same thing twice. Doing the identical move sixteen times in a row. That is not being slow — that is exactly how this build is meant to be done.

If you get stuck

Read the If it looks wrong box first. If it still will not work, leave it and come back to it, or ask in chat. Nothing here is a test, and every mistake is a block you can break.

The whole build at a glance

All ten steps

Here is everything, before you start. Nothing on this list is hidden from you and nothing gets added later. Tap any step to go straight to it.

How far are you going today?

Decide now, before you start. Picking a finish line is the whole skill — and any of these three is a good answer.

Today’s plan: {{ planLabel }}. Change it any time.

{{ w.count }} blocks

□ {{ w.pause }}

{{ doneCount }} of 10 done

Your ticks are saved on this device. Close the page mid-build and it opens on the same step.

Clear ticks

Step {{ step.no }} of {{ stepTotal }} {{ step.effort }}

1 · Look

2 · Do

{{ m.name }} ×{{ m.count }}

3 · Check

4 · If it looks wrong

{{ step.nextUp }}

{{ step.pause }}. Your ticks are saved — come back to step {{ step.no }} whenever.

In the game After step {{ step.no }}

Your plot after this step. Full colour is what you place now. Pale is already built.

The way it looks if you fly round it

Three pictures of your plot place {{ step.count }} blocks

Count blocks here. The same three pictures every step, always in this order.

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              place now
              already built
              leave empty
              the new part
            

Unit complete

Now check your edges

01Touching? Walk to your left edge, then your right. Where somebody has built next door, your wall should stand right against theirs with no gap. Empty plot? Leave yours as it is — it will meet up later.

02Level? Walk out of their den and into yours. No jump, no drop. If you jump or fall, one of you is a block out — whoever built second moves.

03Lined up? Stand on the path and look along the row. Every door and every window should sit at the same height.

04All clear? Put your name on the sign above your door, then knock on one neighbour’s den and tell them one thing you liked about it. Whoever builds next takes the following plot.

Fig. 2 — one den with the roof lifted off. Drag your own screenshot over this.

Before you log off

Thirty seconds. Nobody marks these — they are for you, and they make the next build easier.

Did you get as far as you planned?

If not, was it the plan or the day? Both are fine answers.

Which step took longest?

Next week you will know to leave room for that one.

What would you gather differently?

Anything you had to stop and go and fetch.

Got time left? Three add-ons

Put a window box of flowers under a window.

Add a bookshelf, a jukebox, or somewhere for a pet.

Leave a barrel by the door with something in it for whoever visits.

Appendix

Community Build:
50-Week Calendar

One community build per week of Mud Club programming, each matched to that week’s theme and club challenge. They all share the same shape: one identical unit per builder, and a result that only works because everybody built the same thing.

{{ g.month }} {{ g.cat }} Weeks {{ g.range }}

Spares bench

Eight more units that follow the same rules, for a week that needs swapping out.

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The Player’sDen

One den each.One street for everyone.