Slipknot’s Clown built a dark fantasy ‘Minecraft’ realm to help him grieve

M asked metaller Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan has spent 30 years helping to make Slipknot one of the biggest bands around. But away from bashing drums on stadium stages, delighting hordes of teenagers and generally horrifying parents around the world, he’s been busy working on a very different project. Last year, Clown released his first fully playable game . Vernearth, a twisted, surreal extension of blocky cyber-sandpit , went live in December and will expand over the coming months. In it, you can do everything you can do in the original - team up with friends to build impressive creations, engage strangers in pixelated combat and take on a variety of quests. Minecraft “It might seem weird that this big metal dude is messing around with Minecraft but I just love games,” Clown says over Zoom. Growing up, heand his friends played Dungeons & Dragons before moving into the local arcade for early classics such as Astrosmash, Robotron: 2084, Defender, Stargate, Bonk’s Adventure, Moon Patrol and Gorf . A pivot to consoles soon followed. “It was Doom that really changed my life,” he says of the iconic 1993 first-person shooter. “There was this darkness to it that spoke to my soul.” Its spiritual successor , released in 1996 with a soundtrack by Quake Nine Inch Nails ’ Trent Reznor and permission for players to modify maps and create their own levels, was even more influential. “That’s when I really started thinking about what kind of game I would make.” Over the years, Clown pitched a number of different ideas to developers but was knocked back. “Most won’t even talk to you unless you’ve got $25million to put into it,” he explains. One was inspired by fantastical role-playing card games Vampire: The Masquerade and Rage: The Apocalypse , while another took inspiration from D&D . There was also a straight up rock and roll game. Clown spent three years working on it but couldn’t get it greenlit. “That still pisses me off because it’s such a no-brainer [coming from a member of a huge rock band]. I reckon it would be as [influential] as Grand Theft Auto .” He might revisit the idea in the future but for now, he’s all in on Vernearth . “Building this world has opened my mind so much. It’s some of the best art I’ve made in my life.” Recommended Clown discovered Minecraft through his four kids, who all sunk a lot of time into the 3D metaverse. “I didn’t really understand it at first,” he admits, but that soon changed when - in late 2021 - he got involved with NFT Minecraft project Critterz. Players could earn cryptocurrency and cash for playing in their privately-hosted environment. “I started building and I’ve not stopped. Something just hit,” he says, often playing for up to 18 hours a day. Critterz shut down in 2022 when Minecraft bosses banned NFT and crypto tech due to concerns about fraud and profiteering that might “detract” from the family-friendly nature of...

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