Minecraft seems to have really hit its stride recently. Despite the lack of any sort of tutorial and looking like the twisted love child of Doom and a Lego set, the game has reported over a million registered players, made buckets of money, and has been praised by some of the biggest guns in the industry in addition to being blogged about, tweeted about, and Rule 34'd. It really looks like Minecraft is the new champion of the independent games industry and real proof that you don't need to look exactly like this to be successful.
For the uninitiated, Minecraft is a first-person sandbox game that revolves around exploration and creation. There's not much I could say that's not covered by this excellent (if cheesy) fanmade trailer, but the basic idea is this: You are stranded in a huge, open world. You can dig, mine, and chop down trees. Every time you destroy a "block" you obtain it as an item. Destroy a tree, you get a block of wood. Destroy some strone, you get a block of stone, etc. You can use these blocks to craft new tools, build buildings, and shape the world as you see fit. This is fun enough, and you quickly get lulled into a false sense of security. Your only real threat is falling off the huge glass castle you just built and your only companions are the friendly wild animals that roam the huge, (randomly-generated!) world, but as night falls, things get a lot more challenging. When the sun goes down, the friendly animals go away. That's when the monsters come out. Now you have to balance creativity and practicality; wanton playtime and survival. During the day, the world is your oyster. At night, it's theirs.
Personally, I was hesitant to get into Minecraft. I was introduced to the game last summer by a co-worker who was acquainted with the game's creator, Notch. I remember being unimpressed by what he told me, as well as his assurances that it was "gonna be huge." I did, however, give it a shot. I started up a game, chopped down a tree, built a rudimentary wooden box around myself and came up with the following syllogism:
1. To beat a game is to overcome all of its obstacles.
2. The only obstacles in the game are the monsters.
3. I am protected from the monsters due to my being in a wooden box.
4. I have beaten the game!
See, my beef with sandbox games comes down to two problems. The first is my attention span. After becoming hooked on a game, I have about a week to do everything that I want to do with it, because after that I will no longer be interested. Thus, open-ended games that require months of dedication and work never appeal to me. I know that I'll just give up on it eventually. The second problem is that I'm really not that creative a person when it comes to sandbox games. I remember when Garry's Mod was first released and my first thought was, "Awesome! I can do whatever I want! ...But I don't know what I want."
I ended up just spawning a car and driving around wishing I was playing a fun game.
With these two problems, it was pretty clear why I was so intent on not enjoying Minecraft. After declaring myself the victor, I put down the game and decided to never play it again. It's a shame that my arrogance and naivete prevented me from being a participant in one of this biggest events in indie game history. It was maybe two weeks later when Valve publicly declared its love for Minecraft on the Team Fortress 2 blog, and the ensuing rush of Minecraft purchases was jaw-dropping. Suddenly, everyone was talking about it. And there I was, grumbling in the corner about how no one was talking about whatever the hell obscure thing I was playing at the time.
It took months for me to come around. It actually all happened relatively quickly. Kotaku had a post (NSFW: language) about some guy who had recreated a lifesize replica of the Enterprise D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Impressed, I showed it to my roommate, who was not too familiar with the game. I explained to him what I knew: That there was a huge, open, randomly-generated world that you could fight monsters and build things in. He said that that sounded like fun and went back to his room, leaving me to suddenly realize that he was absolutely correct. It DID sound like fun! So, like a nervous moron who tries to get back together with is ex, despite absolute proof that it won't work out, I decided to give Minecraft another shot.
I'm not entirely sure what happened after that because the next thing I remember was having a gargantuan cathedral/fortress with a minecart roller coaster, killing pigs with my diamond sword, and screaming "I NEED IRON! WHERE IS IT!? IS IT IN HERE!? I NEED IT!" while my girlfriend asked me when the last time I had eaten was.
To say that the game is addictive is like saying that Thin Mints are a pretty good cookie. I was seriously glued to the screen in a way that I really haven't been in a long time. I built towers, shrines, roller coasters, mines, houses, greenhouses, aquariums (sadly empty, as there are no fish in the game yet), and a multitude of waterfalls. My castle was particularly impressive with three stories, a basement, an escape tunnel to my old house, and an underground roller coaster that led to my mine. I was in the process of setting up an electrical system that would allow me to use switches and levers to change the direction of my tracks to other parts of my mine when I started looking at the clock and taking longer and longer breaks. Oddly enough, my week-long attention span record had already been broken, but I knew it wouldn't last much longer. Minecraft held my attention for a full two weeks, and there I was with an unfinished roller coaster, a dozen uncompleted dungeons, and so many questions.
What did this game do to hook me that other games didn't? Why was it an experience that lasted so much longer for me? More importantly: The fact that I get distracted when there are still so many things left unfinished in a sandbox game usually bothers me. Why didn't it get to me this time? It took me a while to figure it out. I didn't have anything else to do yesterday, so I started up a new game of Minecraft just to play around. I wasn't glued to the screen this time and I was just kind of going through the motions. I was exploring this mountain, looking for a good place to set up camp, when suddenly I turned the corner, and there it was: the tallest, most beautiful in-game waterfall I had ever seen. And I found myself thinking, "You know, that would make an awesome water slide."
That's when I got it. That feeling right there is what makes Minecraft special. It taps into that feeling you get when you're a kid and everything you see has limitless potential. I remember when I was very young, playing in the backyard of our house in upstate New York. To me, every tree was a place we could put a tire swing. Every hill was where I would put my slide if it ever snowed. I remember thinking just how easy it would be to build my own underground fort if only Mom would let me borrow Dad's shovel. Every step further from home was an adventure, every fallen branch was the perfect walking stick. Minecraft sends you back to those times and allows you to carry through. Really, the world of Minecraft is just a big backyard for you to explore, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to experience that again.
Now, I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me. It's almost nightfall and I have to harvest some more wood.
I have a water slide to finish.
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