Mojang Studios and Hive Games recently launched the first-ever private Minecraft server for Seattle Children’s Hospital. On the server, patients can play “in a safe and monitored environment” with one another.
As the Seattle Children’s blog post points out, the children can now explore the hospital in Minecraft, even if they can’t leave their rooms. The Minecraft hospital was designed by attending surgeon and pediatric otolaryngologist Henry Ou, MD, and the project’s goal was to help children feel more comfortable in the hospital.
The server itself is supported in more than 10 languages. It includes survival elements and minigames to ensure children of all ages can enjoy it. One of the minigames includes a parkour mode in which players race to specific points before time runs out, all while being chased by other players known as hunters. The Survival mode will be on one server to allow all the children to work together, if they want.
The project took a few years to complete and was made possible by Mojang Studios and Hive Games, both of which donated their time to ensure it was built correctly. The server is meant to be a form of Therapeutic gaming intended to help improve the patients’ time at the hospital and “provide opportunities for socialization, education, and rehabilitation.”
Mojang Studios is always working on various projects. Just recently, it announced a collaboration with Tetris, which introduces a new way to play the iconic game.
