Minecraft: Education Edition gets a Maori-inspired world for New Zealand students

(Image credit: Piki Studios)

Minecraft: Education Edition has found plenty of use in classrooms, the latest allowing students to explore New Zealand's traditional Māori culture in voxel form.

Ngā Motu, which means The Islands, is a world made by game designer Whetu Paitai, of Coromandel-based Piki Studios, to teach children about Māori language and culture. It has kiwis and moa, and a traditional pā—a defensive settlement protected by palisades. There's a waka hourua double-hulled canoe in the harbor, and even the swords have been replaced by the short-handled clubs called patu.

"We're believers in learning being organic, being able to explore all the elements, because nothing in our lives exists in isolation. Our mission is for everyone to be able to play these games and see more than just what a waka is – they’ll be able to see how it fits into that whole world," Paitai said.

Ngā Motu is being released to coincide with Māori Language Week in New Zealand. You can check it out for yourself at the official site.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.