I don't know how I discovered Minecraft, maybe it appeared to me in a dream, maybe I actually created it and just forgot about it, sold the rights to a Swedish man and fled into the night, probably I just discovered it on the internet. All I know is I found this obscure indie game long before the masses clung onto it and made a certain Swede a very rich man.
The first time I played Minecraft was back in alpha, when all you could do was run around and place blocks. I fucking hated it. I played it for ten minutes, thought life was too short, and went back to playing another game in all likelihood. I just didn't understand the concept, I ran around, I put down a block, I made a little house, I got bored. I don't think Minecraft was in a stage where it knew what it was either. It was sort of like lego, but far less interesting. (You can make a fucking death star out of lego now! Kids these days)
Months passed and I kept hearing more and more about Minecraft, it had change, evolved I was told, but I'd been lied to in the past so much (I still don't forgive Warhammer Online for getting my hopes up so much), I wasn't sure I could take another heartbreak. But nevertheless I dove in and pre-ordered it, it cost me €9.00 I believe, about £7 of my hard received student loan, so I thought what's the worst that could happen?
The worst happened, I fell in love, I forgot to shower, I'm not ashamed to say I shat myself.
The first night playing it, I found out how to make stuff, I made myself a little pickaxe, I ran around punching trees, for of course that is the first thing any man who wakes up in a strange world must do, I was a king of my own world, Lord of the Sheep Emperor of the Cows, HIGH WARLORD OF THE... Oh hey there little buddy, what do you do?
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
This was my first encounter with the horror, the terror that is the Minecraft creeper. Minecraft is a game which has some of the worst graphics of any game released in recent history. This is not a criticism, it's just the design that the developers have gone for. It works, everything is pixelated and blocky and that's fine. What I want to know, is how these sadists have managed to instill such fear in me merely by arranging pixels?
The Minecraft creeper is a metaphor for everything that is brilliant and terrifying in this game. It is a strange creature. It has four legs, the pixelated face of a double stroke victim, and a penchant for eating explosive materials and generally fucking up your life. Everything about it is terrifying, the simple coding of the game adds to the pure horror of these fuckers. You walk towards it, thinking it's just ambling around, until you reach it's aggro range. The second you step over this horrifying threshold the creeper's entire body cracks round and faces you, it's face, looking like a green turd that someone has crudely scribbled a clown's face on with their fingers staring at you. It doesn't run towards you, it merely approaches you, in the shortest route possible. The first time this happened I was a bit creeped out but I wasn't scared as such, more curious. It walked towards me and uttered a simple sound, a sound that now terrifies me to my very soul.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Then my face exploded, I was instantly killed, thrown downwards into the crater that this creature had created, showered with all my belongings which miraculously survived the ordeal and was presented with a Respawn screen.
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| What the hell are those? |
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| Oh god it's seen me... |
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| WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU!? |
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| HOW DID YOU EVOLVE INTO THIS!? |
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| WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EAT THAT MAKES YOU DO THAT?! |
I THOUGHT THIS GAME WAS FUCKING GLORIFIED LEGO!?
After this event, I instantly developed a phobia for these walking bastards. This world I had created and explored was tainted, the creepers had found me. I left it. Deleted the game. Cried for a while. Then started anew.
In the new world I was paranoid. I got into the game and was worried about nightfall. I had to find shelter, I had to find light, I had to survive. I punched a tree, made a pickaxe, dug into a cliff face, found some coal, made a door, and cowered. The first night was the hardest. The creeper brought friends, skeletons, zombies, spiders. They all hated me, but they couldn't get me, I was safe. I was better than they were.
After this night, I realised how good this game was. Never before had I been so invested in a character. This was not glorified Lego at all. It was something far better.
This is where my obsession began. After that first night I was prepared. I mined down, I found iron, I created tools, I collected stone and I built. I built a tower, it had walkways and arrow holes and a grand staircase leading up to the doors. I carved out rooms inside, I built it higher, I made it into my actual fortress, away from the evils of the outside world. My obsession grew.
I discovered just how far my obsession went when I began playing Minecraft at my friend's house. I was just showing him what I was doing on his computer. I made a little tower and he looked on, vaguely disinterested. I again made my tower bigger, then I made a mine, I mined over to another location, built another tower. He then started giving me suggestions, and one of the strangest conversations I've ever had in my life occurred.
"Made a glass walkway between your two towers"
"That's crazy, they're like two miles apart it'd take me ages, I'll have to make all the glass and I'll probably die whilst doing it"
"Fine"
*ten minutes passes*
"What are you doing Badger?"
"Making a glass walkway"
*two hours later*
"Walkway is done"
"Great, I'm off to work, you going to get a train in with me"
"Nah, I've got something to do on here, I'll hang out with your housemates"
*one hour later*
"Badger what are you doing?"
"Minecraft, check it out, I'm thinking of doing something else"
"Make a ballroom"
"Seems kind of girly don't you think?"
"Fine"
*three hours later*
"Ballroom is done, wait everyone is in bed... It's four in the morning... I need to seriously think about my life"
I then went to bed ashamed, my friend returned from work later and we talked about the game the next day. He suggested I split the continent, creating a new river. I said this was ridiculous, the continents are huge.
Three days later I had fucking done it.
This game is quite possibly the most enthralling game I have ever played... but I don't know why. Having read this review most of it seems like gibberish and not much of it sounds like fun at all, but it is, I have wasted so much time making things in this little pixelated world that it seems ridiculous that I can't explain why it's fun.
Minecraft is a game you have to try for atleast an hour, it looks like shit, the concept is shit, but when you play it, it's so much fun, and isn't that what computer games are supposed to be?
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