Developing tools for streamlining the map creation process in Minecraft

Sammanfattning: This thesis gives an understanding of how to develop tools for streamlining the map creation process in Minecraft. The thesis was done in collaboration with House of How. To study how to streamline the map creation process the subject was researched thoroughly. A literature study and 8 interviews with experts in the field were conducted to gather information and find pain points in the current way of creating maps and to get a better understanding of the subject. Prototyping and user tests were then created based on that information. There was 2 lo-fi prototypes with 2 user tests, 1 Hi-Fi prototype with 1 user test. Lastly, a tool was developed for House of How based on these findings. The results from interviews showed that there is an abundance of logistical issues while creating maps, which could potentially be solved by a tool. To make changes in a map, multiple operations has to be done in order for the changes to function correctly. To highlight the issue, here is an example of one pain point, creating a new block requires textures in the correct folder and JSON entries in multiple different JSON-files. This makes it time consuming to implement a single block to a new map. By creating prototypes based on the interview findings and developing them through user tests, we have started to come to grips with a design for a tool to streamline the map creation process. The resulting hi-fi prototype, developed in WPF C\#, is also the initial implementation of the tool for House of How. The conclusion is that functions that should be implemented in a tool used for streamlining the map creation process is: A way to create a new map. Functions for creating/editing and importing entities. Functions for creating/editing and importing blocks. How these should be implemented remains to be discovered, this thesis provides an alternative of how this could be done.