Narzack

Minecraft is a pretty sweet game.  I think most anybody who plays it will know that.  The sheer vastness of the world to explore is worthy of the game, but add to that the incredible variety and amount of things to build and create, and you have a really spectacular game.  And it’s unlike any other game that I play.  I suppose you could liken it to Garry’s Mod, in the way you play, but it’s more of an experience than a sandbox, I think.

There are two main modes, creative and survival.  Creative mode is great if you want unlimited resources and want to build, say,  Minas Tirith   It’s good for the, obviously, creative types and the sort that know what they want to build and can focus on that task.  You have infinite blocks, you can fly, and you are invulnerable.  You are the architect of your own world.

In survival mode, one starts with nothing and must construct everything from scratch.  You have to build a shelter, you have to forge weapons to defend yourself from monsters and tools to use, and you need to find food.  Generally, this means making wooden tools and living in a hole in the ground.  As you explore, you’ll upgrade to stone, then iron, then diamond tools and weapons.

Unsurprisingly, my feeble attempts at creative mode have yielded little more than a few giant dirt towers that may or may not resemble a phallus. (Hint- they do).  I much prefer survival.

I like being thrust into the world, with nothing but the clothes on my back(though I’m sure there are nude player models floating around).  You’re forced to scrabble out an existence in a not-too-unforgiving world.  I like always having something that needs done.  For instance, on our current world, the SWARM has colonized LARGE chunks of the world.  Walk in any direction from our central village, and you’ll encounter our stuff for days.  I wanted to strike out and discover fresh, untouched land.

So, I did a sort of vision quest thing.  I removed all my armor and all my items and placed them in a box in my home at one of our outer villages.  I took only a sword and a few steaks, picked a direction and walked for a few days.  Passed a lot of land, killed a few cows and pigs for their meat (raw until I could find a way to cook it), and fought off a number of zombie and spider attacks.  One of the cool things about Minecraft is all of the amazing terrain it will generate.  I passed swamplands, plains, mountains, steppes, a few deserts, and a jungle or two.  I then came to snowy country on the coast of a frozen sea. 

I thought, Here.  Here I will build my new life.

So I chopped down a couple trees for their wood and built some wooden tools.  An axe, a pickaxe, a shovel.  I found a hill overlooking the frozen sea and began to build the foundation of my home.  At first, I had to range for the wood, trees were sparse in the cold, inhospitable country.  But, as I planted trees closer to me from the saplings that fell from the trees  I chopped down, I could forest closer to home.  Before long, I had a one story wooden house built.  No amenites, just a bed, a stove, a door, and a workbench.

Knowing that I would need a renewable food source soon; if I killed all the animals around, I’d soon find myself starving.  So, I dug a pit, put a fence around it and managed to get a couple cows, some chickens, and some sheep.  I foraged for some time for some seeds in the sparse, scrubby grass.  Finding some, I tilled some soil near the water and planted them.  I struggled for a while with them, until I was able to build torches near them to keep the water from freezing over and wheat started to grow.  I used the wheat to breed the animals, and I knew my food source was secured.

I built another story, baked sand into glass for windows, and began working on sustainability.  Trees planted by me were generating the wood I needed, I could get sand from the shore for glass, underwater clay was fired into bricks.  Next, I needed to explore underground for minerals such as iron and coal.  I forged some weapons, prepared some food, took a pack of torches, and ventured underground. 

I explored for some time, mining iron, coal, redstone, gold, and even found diamonds.  I found an abandoned mining operation, overrun with cobwebs and continued their work, wondering what disaster had caused them to flee.  Or had they all died?  I stayed as long as I dared, and fled back to the surface, my packs laden with supplies from underground.

Now that I had iron for a bucket, I made a small growing garden by the house.  Wheat and sugar cane.  The sugar cane I used for maps and books.  The wheat was used to breed animals, as before.  In my house I built a fireplace, and for the first time, I felt I had a handle on things.

Days passed.

At night, I’d stay by the fire, warming myself against the icy chill outside.  During the day, I would venture into the snowy wastes to tend to my animals, gather crops, and chop wood.  Some nights, I’d don my homemade armor and the weapons I’d made myself and fight the zombies, creepers, and spiders that had trespassed on my land.  Other nights, I’d gaze out of my second floor balcony and watch the moonlight snow gently fall, covering everything in beautiful white layers.

Alone, in the frozen wilderness, I was surviving.

That’s what I love about Minecraft.  Even if I didn’t realize it or quantify it, I was sort of roleplaying in my head that I was living by my own wits in the wild.  I was that dude, chopping wood, trudging through the snow, picking crops, and looking around in terror in the dark abandoned mines.  Even if it wasn’t overt, and I wasn’t chatting in-character or anything, it was still happening.  And I loved it.

The even better part?  Since I was playing on the SWARM server, I knew that SWARMies were there, too, so far away and living out their own stories.

It’s a really cool game.