My daughter's first day of kindergarten began in her room on a Chromebook that I had, years ago, bought and provisioned for children that were now likely second graders. This was right in middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and remote learning. And her teacher was holding the morning meeting Zoom call letting everyone know the rules even though we were all, using the parlance at the time, asymmetrical. I recall her teacher, who, at the time was also a coworker, being everything on the screen, highlighting her freckles and curls "We are going to teach each other. I know a lot about letters and numbers and animals. I don't know a lot about Roblox or Fortnite or Minecraft, but I bet you do"
Minecraft. Yes, my kids knew a lot about it. Minecraft is likely the game I have played the most in my entire life. Xbox did this thing where during its 20th anniversary it sent reports of hours played and Minecraft came in at close to 800. And in vanilla* Minecraft. Note, my children shared my account, but yeah its a lot. I spent many early morning evenings during the work from home period just going endless in Minecraft.
This is a favorite video game because it is game I played with both of my children who have dressed as Steve, the "hero" of the game, and then an axolotl. Which is not from Minecraft originally but my kids know what it is because of the game.
Minecraft is the biggest video game of all time. It is likely the most successful (over 100 million copies sold. We own five different versions of it on multiple platforms) albeit there is debate that Tetris beats it. It is so big Microsoft bought it from the original developers and now its licensure is integrated into bundles of licensing for Windows, Word, etc.
Trying to talk about it is akin to trying to talk about an entire country. A good writer would struggle and this is just a blog I write to be read by a lonely bot on the shores of Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russia. So I will talk about things that impressed me about the game and why I played it so much.
Minecraft is a sandbox game. Everything is block and the world is made of distinct biomes, inspired by real world and fantasy locations, that are randomly generated when the game save launches. The game has a decentralized lore where the word is live in (There are monsters** and people but you are the only person that has any impact on the world). There is no reason for you, the player, to be here.
And when you begin a new world (Seed in the game's nomenclature) you are just dropped into it and that its. There are no tutorials or in game prompts. Just go. Build or survive. I always played survival which is the more arcade style element where you have health and hunger and enemies can damage you. The other is creative where every block (feature) is available and you can fly/float in every direction and you can make anything. But, fuck, I did not know that and I sucked when I began. I am not ashamed that I, as a "noob", did not know how to make a bed and spent the first in game week (about 40 minutes in real time) awake, never saving, and being attacked by the mysterious Phantom monster. That only comes out when you don't sleep.
My children, at the time 5 and 7, had to tell me, having learned the lore and mechanics from YouTube. How do you make redstone work? How do you get to the end? How do I tame a wolf? How do you make glass? TINTED GLASS!? These are all things they taught me like I helped teach them brush their teeth and make toast.
Once briefed by my in house advisors the world was mine. My favorite thing was just to walk/sail for hours (literally) and, as I move, setup small base camps and cairns (lit with torches). I would find a unique spot where the landscape seemed unique and make an ersatz castle from the materials there. Then, after that, would hike back to my original starting point and my original home. Then, I would repeat this, going in another direction. Eventually I would stumble on old camps and bases and recall a specific time or memory. Here is the home I made by the swamp where I first saw a Witch. Here is the mine where I first found some diamonds. I named it Big Hole Country. There are spots by rarer biomes (Mushroom forests and Jungles) and a spot where I dug an underground and underwater tunnel uniting two islands across a digital bay.
I never achieved the holy grails of Minecraft (beating the Ender Dragon) and never found a Woodland Mansion but that world is still there.
*Unmodified. Most games, especially BIG games, have modding communities that let you tinker with the code to make things look a certain way, sound a certain way or get really out there. Way beyond me.
**The iconic Minecraft monster, the Creeper, needs to be up there with Goombas and the PacMan ghosts as iconic video game villains. Their wonky yet menacing blocky look and their tendency to just sneak up to you and then EXPLODE really makes you feel worry from the curls of your toes. You are digging underground and constantly turning around to make sure that soft whisper isn't behind you.
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