Over the last few weeks, Minecraft has become the internet’s newest pre-beta hot-to-trot indie game. You know the type, the really cool glorified tech demo that all the podcasters talk about, the ones that ‘show a lot of potential’ and the ones people see being ‘way more awesome after some more polish’. Well they couldn’t be more accurate. Rivaling the underground thrones of of games like ‘Cortex Command’, Minecraft combines simple ‘Lego block’ worlds with a clever crafting mechanic… and not much else. There’s no story, there’s no goal, there’s no point. Except your own greed. The only achievement you will ever receive is that of personal satisfaction a sort of ‘I made it’ feeling. Its not a direct social commentary, but it makes you think about a world where the only objectives ever set for you, are set by yourself.
The game is downloaded in a mere 3 seconds, seeing as the whole thing is crafted on the Java™ platform, and there’s no install. It’s the quickest I’ve ever gone from purchase to play. Once you start, you’re in a random spot, in an infinitely huge randomly generated world, with nothing but your curiosity and your blocky hands. And your greed. The first thing to do, is to chop down some trees, trees that you craft into wooden planks and sticks and then into a workbench (the centerpiece of all homes). Then, instead of going out and exploring the world, you need to burrow yourself into the nearest mountainside and seal yourself in. Staying out at night is deadly, since all different types of baddies make their way onto land once the sun sets. Now, as strange is this all sounds, you’ll have more than enough time tomorrow to explore gaming’s largest ever game world.
As you adventure, weather above or far far far below ground, you’ll come across more and better resources; coal, iron, gold and even diamond. Use all this cool stuff to build larger, better, deeper. Then relish in it, because you’ve just done something no one else has ever done quite like you have. Then step back and look at your impact on this very green (literally) world. Suddenly, there are towers in the horizon. The night is no longer dark, but instead lit by the rays of your many beacons. The depths are no longer sealed and safe, but instead pillaged, spewing out lava onto the surface. Hapless pigs run around with saddles on their backs and the chicken population dwindles, since you gather every egg you’ve found. Let me ask you, have you figured out what to do with the eggs? I sure haven’t, I have about 60 unborn chicken fetuses sitting in a chest in some dungeon somewhere, and I have NO use for them.
These thoughts I had while playing Minecraft were out of form for me, Im usually not so introspective. I like to play games simply for their solo story, but Notch (the manchild who created this pearl of a game) has put nothing of the sort in here to distract me. So I sat, and I played, and I thought about what exactly I was doing. I was sinking hours of my life into a game who’s only reward is its gameplay. The only thing you’re rewarded with is a token of all the time you’ve spent hunched over your computer; you’re world. Its a place you crafted, its a place you mined, its YOUser generated. You’ve created a place for yourself, most likely, no one else is ever going to appreciate it the way you do, or even see it at all. But you will, you’ll appreciate that there used to be a mountain there, until you and your greed and your curiosity came and turned it into a gargantuan stone tower.
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