On the 18th of March, the Victoria University Roleplaying and Games Club embarked on their craziest scheme yet—to use the recently popular computer game “Minecraft” to raise money for the New Zealand Red Cross.
Their method? A 48-hour marathon, that involved using the game to construct a 1:1 scale replica of the Christchurch Cathedral. They had to collect in-game resources by hand (a process that consumed much of their time), and defend their building site from zombies, giant spiders, skeleton archers, and the ever dreaded creeper; a foul creature that explodes like TNT upon contact with a player.
There were many out-of-game troubles to contend with as well. The server crashed at one point, threatening to destroy the first 20 hours of work. Thankfully, a little computer magic got everything back up and running smoothly.
Live feeds of the players and in-game footage were available online. The audience made ridiculous demands in exchange for donations, and pretty soon, everyone had performed at least one Queen song for the camera. Over the course of the weekend, they raised over $2000 for the New Zealand Red Cross.
Images of the completed Cathedral are available on the website, minecraftforchristchurch.org.nz.