Building up Blocks

Who is Blocks?

This is Blocks. He’s been our friend for over 10 years, and he’s in a desperate situation right now. We want to help him rebuild his life and we need your donations to make it happen.

He's been creating in the Minecraft community for more than 12 years. Blocks has hosted hundreds of games of Chunk Wars, his epic mini-game for Minecraft, for players all around the world - and he’s streamed them on Twitch for people to see and enjoy.

He also has been giving to the SimCity BuildIt community by creating over a hundred tips and tricks videos on YouTube. He even reached out to the game developers to get behind the scenes sneak peeks for his small audience.

Blocks has had major health issues after getting Covid in early 2020 and nearly dying in hospital. His recovery to start with took about 3 months before he could get out of bed, walk around safely, or even look at a computer screen without extreme pain.

As he worked on his recovery, and started learning to manage his new health conditions, Blocks came back to Minecraft, built Super Blockio World, and started to develop Chunk Wars again.

This GoFundMe aims to cover his immediate needs for the next 6 months, so he can get safe, get healthier, and build a new life for him and his daughter.

We need your donations to make it happen.

Any amount you can give will make a difference, putting a roof over their heads, and food on their table.

Who are we?

We are a group of friends who have known Blocks for many years. We have played games together, enjoyed fun times, and had great laughs.

But Blocks is more than just a friend.

We value his thoughtfulness, his helpful life advice, and his professional experiences that he has shared selflessly to help us build up our own lives.

It is painful to see him in distress and we want him to be in a good place again. We want him back in action, back streaming, back living his life.

What has happened?

Blocks is at rock bottom. He needs to rebuild himself and his daughter’s life.

He’s about to be evicted by his ex-partner from their family home.

Earlier this year he injured his spine and has been unable to work for some months. At the same time she started a divorce.

His savings have been used up by living costs and he only has enough money left to buy food for him and his daughter for the next 2 months, but nowhere near enough to pay rent or bills.

His immediate focus is on finding a safe and secure new place to live and build a new life.

We want to help him cover the costs for him and his daughter for the next 6 months so he can get them both back on their feet and ready to build more positive years ahead.

We need your donations to help him be able to rent somewhere, put food on the table, pay water, electricity, and heating bills, and help with legal fees through his divorce.

He will need to buy a fridge, freezer, washing machine, new bed for his daughter, and a blow up mattress or fold out sofa bed for him to sleep on too.

Medical Details

Blocks had an extreme case of Covid in early 2020 and nearly died.

He was one of the first patients, there were no vaccines, no-one knew what was going on, or how to treat it. He almost didn’t make it.

His entire body was messed up. Blocks started struggling to breathe, got a fever and began overheating. Then he got nauseous and dizzy, and had head pain so extreme he had to wear a blackout mask to avoid any light. He began suffering from exhaustion and full body fatigue.

Doctors thought he might have had a stroke or burst a blood vessel in his brain.

I remember him telling me about when he hugged his daughter to say goodbye and he completely broke down because he didn't know if he was going to make it home alive to see her again.

In hospital his symptoms got even worse. He couldn't breathe properly. The fever became extreme as his temperature reached 41°C. Blocks lost his eyesight, and had black shapes passing across his vision. He couldn’t walk or control his legs to stand or move in a straight line. His brain, lungs, and other organs began to fail, and he had an exploding headache so painful they gave him an emergency injection directly into his stomach.

Nurses checked on him every half an hour for many days and nights until he stabilized.

When he finally got home, the first recovery took about 3 months. His vision was still so painful that he couldn’t look at a TV or a computer screen for even a few seconds without getting stabbing pain in his eyes.

He now lives with a wide array of symptoms:

All of these problems make it difficult to live his daily life, concentrate on tasks, and to do basic things like listen make telephone calls to his friends or listen to music. Blocks is managing his health as best he can and working hard to keep getting better every day.

A few months ago things got worse though when he injured his back and spine and cannot work at the moment. He is expected to recover over the next 6 months, but may need spinal surgery to help.

He has had some physiotherapy and is on the strongest pain medicines while waiting for an injection into his spine to help manage the intense pain across his neck, back, shoulders and arms.

Future plans

Blocks’ highest priority is making sure his daughter is supported and cared for. That she has a roof over her head, food to eat, and all the things she needs when growing up.

He will keep working hard on his physical and mental health so he can lead a fulfilling life again too. He wants to give back to his family and friends, the people who have helped him, and the world around him.

He’s excited about getting back to creating videos and streams again, and using SimCity BuildIt and Minecraft to help and inspire other players.

Blocks also dreams of launching a development studio, creating mini-games for Minecraft, and other experiences, skins, and mod-packs to share with players everywhere.

He already has experience in this. A few years ago he built and led a dedicated team to design a brand new mini-game for Minecraft, working in partnership with DoorDash, Del Taco, and 3BlackDot.

The first studio release would be Chunk Wars, and then a golf mini-game where you’ll be able to play with your friends. We know he has so many ideas for other games and Minecraft experiences that he’s been writing down for years! Ready for the moment he has time to create them.

With your donations, that moment can be now.

You can help him get the time he needs to be healthy and get building again, creating his dream life of looking after his daughter, and sharing games and ideas with people all over the world.

How can you help?

Share his story. Post this on social media.

Send this fundraiser to your friends. Ask them to share it too.

Please donate.

Check back here later, we will set up a Patreon for more long-term support.

What is Chunk Wars?

Chunk Wars is like playing Minecraft inside Minecraft.

https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/chunk-wars-1487425/

Blocks has built a fun, exciting, and strategic PvP mini-game, where you punch, dig, mine, craft, and gather resources, just like you would in a new Minecraft world.

But on the other side of the Chunk Wars arena, there’s another team doing the same things. They’re coming for you, so knock them out of the game first, or be knocked out by them. Your choices and actions make the difference. Last team standing wins.

Everything in vanilla Minecraft is available to you, craft swords, axes, potions, shields, bows, and as this is vanilla, it’s the one PvP game you don’t need any special knowledge to play!

Blocks began creating Chunk Wars over 12 years ago to get his friends involved in playing PvP mini-games, before PvP mini-games were even really a thing. It’s been his dream since the start to find a way of sharing his mini-game with the wider world and see players everywhere enjoying it. He hopes one day to get it featured on the official Minecraft Realms.

Blocks on YouTube and Twitch

He started making videos on YouTube about Minecraft and Chunk Wars over 10 years ago, then had to travel more for work and got into making tips, tricks, and playthroughs about the mobile game SimCity BuildIt, and moved his Minecraft building over to Twitch instead.

He even reached out and built links with SimCity BuildIt’s developers to bring insider information directly to his small audience of under 8,000 subscribers, with over 3,000,000 views from people who found his videos useful.

What will your donations be used for?

Essentials for him and his daughter;

We think this will be around £2500 per month, including rent, food, council tax, electricity, water, heating, internet, and travel costs getting his daughter to activities and school.