Celestale
Children of Steel
A charity event on Minecraft for Un Cadeau Pour La Vie, produced by Skytale, the team behind Celestale
24 streamers, 4 teams, a space adventure where every viewer donation changes the course of the game. One evening, on 24 March 2023, 17,131 euros for hospitalised children.
One evening, one impact
A top-tier cast, an original game, a strong cause and an inventive donation mechanic. It all played out in a few hours.
Watch the evening
The trailer that launched the event, and the recap of the charity evening.
A cause, a game built for it
Mobilise top-tier streamers, capture a wide audience, and turn every donation into a visible game lever. The charity format was not a frame, it was a design constraint.
Starting from Ball of Steel
A popular mode, spheres floating above the void. We keep its core idea, going to fetch resources on floating spaces to bring them back to the centre, and rebuild everything on top.
Choosing space
A galactic fiction consistent with the idea of planets to explore and a void to cross. The theme guided every game-design decision, from the scenery to the mechanics.
Streamer friendly
A spectacular and accessible game, readable for the viewer even if they don't play, with a sharp pace and quick reversals. Fun as the only filter.
How far we pushed the gameplay
4 teams, a 40-minute game, a central deposit zone. Collect the most diamonds on the planets and bring them back to the centre. Under this simple rule, mechanics entirely new to Minecraft.
The jetpack
Minecraft offers no flight of this kind. Reproducing arcing trajectories, managing fuel, keeping a credible gravity, with no mod on the player's side. The curves were designed with contributors trained in the aerospace industry, to recapture the feel of a real takeoff. Fuel is found on the planets, use is limited, flight stays a tactical tool to ration.
The laser guns
In place of the bow and sword, an instant shot. No more range calculation, no more melee. A shooter mechanic, accessible to streamers less familiar with Minecraft combat, and visually striking for viewers.
Merchants and equipment
Characters at each team's spawn let players upgrade guns, jetpacks and defensive abilities during the game. Every individual choice benefits the collective.
A less punishing death
Death does not make you lose all your equipment. A deliberate choice to avoid the discouraging spiral, keep the pace, and let a less comfortable streamer get back into the game quickly.
When the donation becomes a weapon
The game-design find. Every viewer donation gives the streamer's team a Lucky Block, an object to place that triggers a random effect. The bigger the donation, the higher the level.
About a dozen effects, offensive, defensive, sometimes deliberate penalties
“The donations influence the game. The more money the streamer raises, the more advantaged they will be, that is the most important thing.”
A tutorial turned cinematic
At the time, scripting a Minecraft event with cinematics was rare. Rather than instruction panels, a filmed scene, set to music and voiced. Training players in an unfamiliar gameplay, and giving the feeling of entering a world, not a game.
- Camera moves driven by the Skytale Map Editor engine
- Dedicated music for each sequence
- Voice acting for the ship that accompanies the player
- Custom 3D models for the planets and the scenery
- Full styling of the interfaces, the sky and the space world
The Skytale Map Editor’s first outing
Children of Steel marks the first public use of version 0.1 of our in-house game editor. The modules built here were designed to be reused directly in our flagship project, The Last Artifact. For the same effort, events of growing quality without multiplying the costs.
24 streamers, 4 teams
Pillars of the French-speaking Minecraft scene and guests from neighbouring communities, 6 per team. 3 rounds, and 2 wins for the yellow team.
A French-speaking co-production
A demonstration of what the French-speaking Minecraft community does when it pools its strengths around a cause.
Pixel Crew
The idea, the steering, the communication, the casts and the link with the charity. Project leads Uncheated and InoRyth, with Bruno Haccoun alongside Un Cadeau Pour La Vie.
Skytale
The mechanics, the server, the balancing and the narrative. The game engine on the Skytale Map Editor.
Corin, bZx, mokuura, RougeCiel, Vincent, Zary, The_NT, Prototype. The team behind Celestale.
Visual Game
The map construction, the 3D models, the resource pack and the visual styling of the space world.
Libras, Airning_, VGama, IRTDome, Magali, Fiir0z_, ShobatsuMitei, agm_ssh, Nasardes.
OMGServ
A stable server facing around 20 streamers and several tens of thousands of viewers at once, with live monitoring.
Public ambassadorship by Aypierre and Bichard.
For the benefit of Un Cadeau Pour La Vie, a charity that gives gifts to hospitalised children and supports families affected by illness.
“We confirmed our place among the influencers and, above all, we left a fine mark in the French history of Minecraft.”
Press coverage
- Le tournoi caritatif Children of Steel avec Zerator, Aypierre, Inoxtag et TerracidBreakflip, 23/03/2023
A charity event to build around a live stream? See our custom Minecraft experiences