Dark Island, Minecraft Survival Island Map Download

There's lots of Survival Island maps out there, but this is a new one made by Dark Skynet, who should probably taken seriously. I've downloaded it to play and because Mod Loader is conflicting with the HD texture pack to the point that it's pretty much one or the other at any given time you can trust me when I say I didn't use any cheats. (Of course, the third party inventory editor INVedit would still work but I didn't use that.)

So what's great about this Survival Island map? Well for starters, there are already animals spawned on the island the moment you get there. That saves a lot of the challenge of the original Survival Island (Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!) which doesn't have any animals until you work out why none will spawn.

There's also a half built house along with an amusing sign that informs you that the house has not been found. That's an Internet joke, and given the recent wild instability of the Minecraft Forum (down for 37 hours and counting as I type!) it's also rather apropos. That's the first time I've ever used that word in a sentence and I am now dispropotionately proud of myself.

Strangely enough, the island and the surrounding water level are surprisingly high. I know this because after placing seven sand blocks so as to get a screenshot of the island, I found myself gazing through the interminable dreariness that is the cloud layer. The surrounding terrain is pretty much a flooded world, which leads me to believe that this survival island map could be taken as a biblical analogy if you so desire.

So how hard is it to survive on this island? Given the vast amount of wood (there's two trees and they both have additional 'root' wood blocks sitting around doing not much at all) the presence of animals for food and whatnot, and the body of a house ready to go, survival is pretty much guaranteed. There's even a lava source in case you want to get creative with lava. Satellite islands also provide promising places for exploration. All in all this probably won't be the most difficult survival island map you'll ever play, but it does promise fun.

There are some nice touches like the graveyard in which Lorri the Cow, the Blacksmith and Prickly Joe are buried. It's touches like this that really give you the sense that you have arrived somewhere that was once inhabited. Well, it's more than a sense really, it's pretty obvious that you've allegedly spawned on an island that once supported life. The question is, what happened to the other inhabitants? Oh, and who buried them? And where are they? Is that someone behind you?

(I should also mention before I go that this map will show up in your maps list as 'MC Edit Test'. It's not pretty, but it'll do.)

Check out the /r/Minecraft thread for this map and download!