Rainbow Survival, Minecraft Survival Map (Download + Review)

It's a minecraft survival map! Let's get the terrible predjudicial stuff out of the way first. Yes, it's a bit like SkyBlock, I think it's better though, mostly because of the rainbow that makes up most of the map. If you can't get excited about playing on a rainbow in the sky, then you've probably attended one too many compliance meetings.

I downloaded and played this map in the first official Minecraft release, Minecraft 1.0. Like many maps made prior to version changes, Rainbow Survival is now in a winter snow biome. This makes survival a great deal more challenging on account of the fact that saplings and seedlings tend to shrivel up and die when they get snowed on. This means you're going to have to be careful to shield your crops and orchards from the elements. It also means that water source blocks have an irritating tendency to freeze over, leaving you out of a source fresh running water. On the plus side, you do get the lovely snowy minecraft music which is new and which I love. (It turns out that there is no lovely snowy music, it was just a pop up ad that ran in the background the entire time I was playing the map. Still, it was rather nice.)

Your starting supplies are pretty meagre. There's some lava, a tree, some grass and long grass too. Unlike a lot of newfangled minecraft survival maps, there's no chest full off goodies to start you off.

It's just occurred to me now, though it should have long ago. It's strange that seeds you get from breaking grass grow to make wheat. It sort of goes against all the laws of nature. Anyway, you're going to have plenty of bread and wood, if nothing else. (And when I say plenty, I mean that odds are you're going to be starting out with one or two seeds and one or two saplings, so you better make them count.)

Though this might appear to be little more than another gimmicky map, it's actually quite a solid survival map, it gives you very little and it expects you to make the best of it. And you do. There are a few goodies hidden here and there, but they are few and far between and boy do you appreciate them when you find them. I've never been so happy to see bonemeal before.

For a compact test of your minecraft skulls, I highly recommend you download and play Rainbow Survival, a map that managed to renew my flagging enthusiasm for the genre simply by being true to the essence of minecraft.

Click here to download Rainbow Survival Minecraft Map