Most of you probably know the hit indie game of 2010, Minecraft. Minecraft is a building game in a sandbox environment with a randomly generated world. You find and dig resources to build with, be creative and survive in the world.
I found out about Minecraft from listening to podcasts by 4playerpodcast. I first saw a post from Brad Simons showing a dude, who built this nice 2 floor house with stone floors and wooden walls, about to show how to create a fireplace that doesn't burn out. After he toured his house, he went back to the fireplace he set up and placed a block of wood. He set the wooden block a blaze and shortly after, the walls catch on fire. Watching him frantically try to put out the fast spreading flames was hilarious. Since the game auto saves, his house was pretty much gone.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnjSWPxJxNs&w=480&h=390]
"A fire! At a sea parks?!"
Listening to Nolan Hedstrom (Nolan the intern) talk about it for, I think, 3 shows in a row with all these amazing stories about his experiences in the game. Getting lost and frantically building a shelter at night, digging up a pathway for water to flow towards his house, etc.
I finally decided to get myself the game. Booted it, dug a bit and did a little exploring. I knew that once night fell, monsters would appear so once it got even a little dark, I already made a little dirt box to hide in with the top open so that I could see the sky. I nearly jumped out of my seat when I heard that first zombie cry and was seriously freaked out and scarred cause they sounded so near and of course I couldn't see them. I just stared at the sky hoping that the sun would come up and I can continue exploring. A few moments later I heard a strange slurping sound and saw a sort of rew glow on the corner of my roofhole. I thought it was just an indicator on where the zombies are on the other side of the wall, like how a red arrow appears on screen when you're getting shot in Call of Duty or something. That red glow creeped ever closer and it fell on top of me. IT WAS A FREAKING SPIDER! I only heard about zombies in the game but nothing about spiders, skeletons or creepers.
I quickly dug my way out of my dirt box before I took enough damage from the spider and I saw a pack zombies hopping towards me. I tried to fight back but it was in vain. When I respawned, it was still night. I made my way back to that small hill where I placed my dirt hole and got mauled my monsters thinking they disappeared since it was quite a ways from my spawn point. But no, there were still there. I decided to fully encase myself with dirt blocks and wait for day (alerted by the sound of the zombies burning in the sun). When I came out of my dirt shelter, I saw the zombies burning and laughed at them. Then I saw 2 green creatures approaching, they weren't zombies and I was wondering why they didn't die at daylight. I felt brave and went in for the attack. Oh how naive was I, they blew up. Creepers are the biggest F#%* You in the game. Not only do they blow up and try to take you with them to the grave but the explosions they cause can do massive damage to whatever you've built or building.
The next night, I already made a house but it didn't have a ceiling though it was high enough for me to be safe from spiders and I had an idea in mind to make it higher. Since I couldn't go out to my mine and dig during the night I thought to myself that I might as well work up on my house wall. As I was building, I was suddenly alarmed by the sound of zooming arrows from the side and since I didn't have many torches set up, I couldn't see where the arrows were coming from. A huge sense of fear and dread came upon me again as I frantically jumped down and look through my door hoping to see what was shooting at me. For some reason, the arrows were going through the door and eventually killed me. After respawning, I rushed back to my house and saw 2 skeletons, each wielding their own bow and arrow. Tried to fight them bare handed (again) and failed miserably (again). After that I just ran by them and quickly shut the door behind me in my house and hit behind another wall. When day time finally arrived which felt like an eternity. I went out and saw bones and arrows laying around, spoils from the burned skeletons. I also noticed that the side of my house had a bunch of arrows stuck on it, proof that they were shooting at me the night before.
Since then I looked up a crafting wiki for the game so I wouldn't be blindingly digging for resources and not knowing how to use them. I am enjoying the game very much and have created some impressive structures in my opinion. I shared the game with some friends and the some of the best stories are always about their first nights in the game.
Normally when you tell someone about Minecraft, you'd probably say "oh you can build stuff" or "its like a video game of lego" which won't sound interesting in the slightest. But when you tell people about your first night in the game, more often than not they'll check it out and will no doubt enjoy the game and will come up with their own story about their first night in Minecraft.
Me and some of my friends, including Quash, Arlie and Fader, have setup our own private server for Minecraft and have a blast of a time.
If you haven't tried the game, I strongly suggest you should. Its one of the best and most creative game I have ever played. Markus "Notch" Persson did and awesome job in creating this gem of a game and has since put up his own company called Mojang from the proceeds of the beta release.
If you're still not convinced about how awesome the game is, you can try the Alpha for free at http://www.minecraft.net/
The beta is currently going for €14.95.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npuw7oZ74wo&w=640&h=390]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn2-d5a3r94&w=640&h=390]
Someone was crazy enough (or brilliant enough) to recreate the whole map of Hyrule from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
Minecraft creator "Notch" joined this thing called the 48-hour game development challenge which had developers make their own game from scratch in a span of 2 days. Markus "Notch" Persson made a top-down Zelda looking game which had some crafting elements similar to Minecraft.
Minecraft finally gets a release date! It feels weird that with all those hours I spent digging, it never occurred to me to ask the question "When does this game would actually be released?".
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