A self-proclaimed royal family “nerd” has earned the acclaim of thousands on social media by rebuilding Buckingham Palace in a video game.
Ben Conry, 21, from Melbourne in Australia, said he is a big fan of “all things British” – citing his love of the Netflix series The Crown.
During a discussion with friends while playing Minecraft – a video game which encourages players to build things out of blocks – the film production student decided to undertake the regal project.
“I’d been wanting to (build it) for quite some time,” he told the PA news agency.
“I’m a huge nerd of the royal family and all things British, as well as the Netflix series The Crown.
“A few friends and I were playing on Minecraft together online, and we had the idea of each creating our own big project builds.
“I saw this as a great opportunity to finally create Buckingham Palace.”
Mr Conry’s build includes the Victoria Memorial as well as the end of The Mall, and took between two to four hours’ work each day over the best part of a week.
Having started playing Minecraft around nine years ago, Mr Conry had previously attempted to make the famous landmark in 2014, but said “it was a much cruder build that now looks pretty terrible in comparison to this newer, bigger and updated version”.
While he has created Tower Bridge, Big Ben (Elizabeth Tower) and parts of the Houses of Parliament previously, this build did not come without challenges.
“It’s difficult to capture such intricate detail using chunky, cubic Minecraft blocks,” he said.
“I had to experiment a lot with different block textures and colours, as well as using stairs, slabs, fences, walls, etc.
“It took a lot of trial and error that’s for sure.”
Mr Conry shared pictures of his creation on the discussion website Reddit – his post prompted hundreds of replies and more than 22,000 “upvotes”.
One Reddit user described his project as an “amazing recreation” while another said “More like Brickingham Palace!”
The blocky tribute however does not include a recreation of the inside of the palace, and fans of Mr Conry’s work may have to use their imagination to picture what that might look like.
“I’ve considered going the extra mile by recreating the entirety of the palace both inside and out – that would take a lot of work though,” he said.
“Doing interior decoration and detailing is even harder because you’ve got much less space to work with, and I am a bit of a perfectionist.
“I like things to be as accurate as possible; therefore it would take a lot of research to get just the floor plans right.”
