I've been very used to seeing my kids building wonderful constructions in Minecraft over the past however many years, and more recently have been introduced to some of the YouTube streams that the Chaos Gremlin likes to watch, and have seen some of the Minecraft Championship videos - which admittedly do make it all look like great fun. So, having had Chaos Gremlin's friend staying over for a few days - Friend has a minecraft server and is keen that I should start playing too - it seemed somehow inevitable that a few evenings ago I borrowed Mr B's laptop and downloaded the game.
One of the reasons I'd never been particularly interested in playing was that I couldn't see the appeal in creating buildings just for the sake of it. Of course, as soon as I started playing I decided that I was going to build myself a traditional little Swedish cottage, and have found it absolutely compelling. Seeing my vague concept start to take form on the screen, and finding ways to make it look more the way I think it should has turned out to be surprisingly rewarding. And of course it helps that the Chaos Gremlin is there with me both in person and in pixels to help fix things when they go just too wrong, and to remind me how to do the very simple things that I've got all tangled up with yet again. (Any link between this and my late bedtimes/lack of reading recently are purely coincidental... honest!)
I've barely scratched the surface of the game as yet - I've learned how to move around and to craft simple things, and yesterday I tried to fight my first zombie instead of just running away and leaving the Chaos Gremlin to fight it for me! There's clearly infinitely more to explore, to try, and to learn even just in terms of building things, let alone fighting the scary bad things, working properly with other people, or getting very ambitious and using redstone to power mechanisms.
It seems notable that Minecraft seems to be a game that you really need to be introduced to, rather than just making your own way. Unlike just about every other game I've ever played, there doesn't seem to be much (if anything) by way of instruction or objectives in the game itself, so learning is done mostly by other more experienced players sharing their knowledge and experience (and quite often their tools and equipment too), and a bit by trial and error. Without being set up in the 'creative' mode and shown how to find the different colours of wood, I wouldn't have had the first idea how to go about creating my little log cabin. And when it turned out that mangrove wood is the ideal colour for what I had in mind, my Gremlin had a stock that I could use to get started, and knew where to go to get more. I've been provided with a set of waypoints to use in our world so that navigation is easier, and been told to help myself to anything I need from the other players' plentiful chests of supplies. And having the gremlin's favourite 'mods' installed (player-created modifications which add or change features in the base game) means I can see where I am in relation to the landscape, other players, and my waypoints, and can see what material any block I'm looking at is made of and what's needed to break it.
On my very first evening I learned how to plant vegetables in a farm, so I should really revisit that - or see if I can make a little vegetable area by my house. And I (accidentally) made a bit of a mine when I fell into a hole and kept digging, so I might need to explore that area a bit more to see if I can find any more iron ore, or other helpful materials.
Over the couple of evening since then, I've created my cottage, complete with veranda, planted a little grove of birch trees around my house, and put some little raised flowerbeds outside the front. The Gremlin added water to the area we thought would make a lovely little lake, and has planted a few reeds in it for a bit of interest. That feels like a very good start, and I'm already bursting with ideas for extending and improving my patch. My little house will be built on and built up; the lake will have more planting around the edge; some spruce trees could be planted nearby to suggest a proper Swedish forest. I'll want to add a few animal enclosures for chickens, sheep and maybe pigs. And perhaps a barn too. Oh, and of course I'll need a boat on my lake.
As well as the basic structures which even I can manage to put together, there's the potential for much bigger and more impressive creations. Chaos Gremlin has built an underground circus, complete with stripy red and white Big Top, ferris wheel, and carousel (which automatically plays its tune when you walk near it). There are thousands upon thousands of YouTube tutorials for just about anything you can think of, from a simple house, to a battleship, a huge spaceship, or an extensive underwater base on a coral reef.
I can see how this deceptively simple world draws players in. Unlike other games, there doesn't appear to be an end goal - it's all about creating your own world and doing what you want to do. Having originally thought I'd never want to make anything in particular, I'm finding immense satisfaction in creating my little nordic-inspired home, and seeing how quickly I can make progress with it. (The impressed noises from 20-something when she logged in and came to see my house were also rather gratifying!) The Chaos Gremlin already has plans for what I should learn in the next couple of sessions too - and I'm keeping quiet for now about the idea I have for a village of fairy toadstool houses... Send help - but you might need to log into the server to find me!
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