Toronto Minecraft player used the game to build a virtual map of downtown Toronto, reports CityNews.
Reportedly the gamer who uses the handle ‘Gamefruitpulp,’ has built a 1:1 scale model of the city in the game.
Gamefruitpulp, alongside two other builders, has constructed a large section of the downtown core. The map includes RBC Plaza, Brookfield Towers, the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts even King Subway Station. According to the report, Gamefruitpulp started with Brookfield Place, though his first video on YouTube back in 2017 was of the TD Tower.
Gamefruitpulp estimates that he put in more than a thousand hours into the game, which isn’t that much time given it’s over almost three years.
He says that his virtual map can even help people find their way around if you’re unfamiliar with the city.
Gamefruitpulp and his builders initially relied on Google Maps and Google Streetview, alongside a few building schematics. But as his project grew more popular, the gamer tells CityNews, that architects and urban planners reached out to him with a several of schematics and plans for buildings.
The map has even gained some traction with the mayor of Toronto, John Tory. Tory told CityNews that he sees “tremendous value in the project,” and believes given the game’s popularity there’s a potential for the map to draw people to the city.
GamefuitPulp and his group even hope to get the attention with the developers of Minecraft. Currently, the group can’t build Toronto’s most iconic landmark, the CN Tower, due to the game’s restrictions. The tower is 553m tall, but Minecraft limits the height of blocks to 256 metres.
The group hope to expand their map to the Don Valley in the east and High Park in the west. “If we reach that, I’d be satisfied with the project and think there isn’t really much work to be done after that and we can just keep going strictly out of interest and not out of goal setting,” Gamefruitpulp told CityNews.
The project has no planned end date.
Source: CityNews
