» Thu Sep 09, 2010 12:22 pm
So I was supposed to be writing some essay for a class, and I felt really inspired to write about Minecraft instead. So I wrote a quasi-opinion-review type deal. Whatever it is, I thought someone here might appreciate reading it, so I present this for you, BSGF:
(Discalaimer: I wrote this at 1:00 AM and did minimum editing. It might be incoherent and poorly written)
"So what's Minecraft you say?
Minecraft is a game about seeing what's over the crest of the next hill. Minecraft is a game about furiously trying to hew a shelter out of a cliff-face to weather the dangerous night. Minecraft is a game about the childish glee of having a virtual and unlimited set of Lego bricks. Minecraft is a game about dying underground in the dark whilst alone, terrified, and confused. Minecraft is a game about mining and crafting. So it's actually about a lot of things.
These descriptions aren't new. I'm sure they've been spoken by thousands of people across the Internet describing the game to others a month and a half ago when Minecraft came out of nowhere to become what is likely the indie hit of the year. But I feel compelled to write now, so I'll just have to deal with it. It should be clear now that the allure of Minecraft is its flexibility. Upon starting the game, the player is confronted with a vast, sprawling world where every block that makes it up can be interacted with. There is no goal. Just start chopping down trees (With your bare hands no less!) and gathering blocks of dirt and rock, then let your imagination roam free. Do you want to make a grand castle to live in? Go do it. Do you want to travel as far as you can in one direction by day just to see the world and camp out in a makeshift shelter by night? Nothing stopping you. Do you want to carve an edifice in your likeness out of a mountain so large that your face can be seen from space? Have fun.
Despite it's apparent innocence, evil lurks in this almost saccharine looking low-resolution world. They come when darkness falls. Zombies, skeletons, giant spiders, the nigh unimaginable horrors known as “creepers,” they populate the seemingly carefree world as day turns to night. This is why you build yourself a home initially. Not so much a permanent dwelling on a magnificent scale, but a hastily excavated hole in a hillside large enough to accommodate yourself. Something small enough to be constructed in a day. As you learn to survive in the world, crafting gradually better weapons, armor, and tools, you become more adept at warding off these monsters until they become nearly a nuisance. The world is once again yours to shape!
Until you find the caves. And you need to go in the caves to acquire the better crafting materials. Want to gild the paraqets of your already decadent fortress? You have to go underground because that's where you'll find gold and other valuable resources. Suddenly, the happy-go-lucky game about exploring the world and exploring your imagination made manifest through building really cool stuff has taken a turn for survival horror once more. Because being underground is horrifying. Absolute darkness is your destination, your path marked only by the feeble torches left in your wake. And you better leave something else behind to mark a path back to the surface, because these caves are huge. Myriad tunnel systems split off of other tunnel systems, leading deeper and deeper below the surface. It is trivial to become hopelessly lost.
Oh yeah, there's monsters in there too. I've honestly experienced few things like it. Complete darkness combined with absolute silence punctuated by the occasional monstrosity shambling into your field of view is a scary thing to behold. Even worse, hearing the moans and cries of the undead abominations, knowing they are near, but not knowing where. It will drive you crazy with fear. The scariest thing to happen to me in probably years occurred just two weeks ago when I was playing Minecraft. I finally believed the cave I just explored to be entirely safe, having driven out the darkness with more torches than I should have been able to feasibly carry. When there is light, monsters stop spawning. I breath a sigh of relief and lower my defenses. Then, my cellphone rings in my right pocket just as I'm pegged from the same side in game by an arrow. I was not pleasant to the person who called me. But if you can make it past all of that, you can finally put the finishing touches on your ridiculously huge tower with the diamonds you managed to haul from beneath the earth's surface.
However, both exploring and shaping the world around you and fighting for survival underground are two distinct parts of Minecraft. While they compliment each other, neither is necessary for the other. If you don't want to go into the caves, don't. If you don't care much for making structures, don't. Like I said before, there is no goal. No rules. No game over or victory screen. Just go do what you want. Minecraft is about absolute freedom and having fun in the purest sense of the word.
I think I'll go see if there is an undiscovered continent on the other side of that ocean. A new land to explore."
bliviongate: 
