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How do you know that something is “hip” and “cool” in indie gaming society? Well, you hop on a band wagon a bit too late, as I did, since Minecraft seems to be the next big thing in gaming society in general. Ugly? Well, sort of, if you’re accustomed to modern photorealistic gore splatters. Java? That’s not a real programming language for games! Well, that may not be the most efficient, and yeah, it might stutter sometimes. Should be banned as illegal narcotic? Hell yes.
Okay, I have thing for “work simulations”. You know the genre, like Harvest Moon and other mostly Japanese creations. There’s just something that ticks my clock there. While Minecraft is not necessarily that much of a simulation, it still works on predictable physical rules. And yeah, it’s all about work.
Basically you start exploring the world with your bare hands. Basically the aim is to survive, since during night time monsters appear to harass your peaceful dwelling around the landscapes built from blocks of different materials. Soon you’ll find out that if you cut down some wood (harvest wood-blocks), you can make different equipment which help you on your task of… Well, exploring the world really. There are quite many elements that can be for example melted in a stove so they are refined, and from that material you can make sturdier pick-axes and shovels and press plates which you can connect to TNT and build traps. Just for example. The game is in alpha state, and it’s already a bit too much to describe even the basics of the world in a short feature article. You have to experience it yourself really.
Visually the game redefines the word tile-graphics. But for some reason, or maybe that is the very reason, why it has this certain feeling of wonder and soon enough it gets real. So real, that you are about to ruin your pants when you find one of those natural caves which is filled with skeletons and stuff. But in you go, since you really need that diamond ore.
Or maybe you just want to play on ‘peaceful’ (difficulty level where no monsters appear) setting and build things. You still need to mine for the material though, but that’s part of the fun. From Minecraft gallery you can see what kind of constructs others have made. And yes, this all comes with a multiplayer server too, though the implementation isn’t quite ready yet, but it seems it will be soon. In fear I wait what will happen to my personal life when it’s possible to defend your fortress against mindless undead with your best buddies in this strange fantasy land.
Outside the game itself, which is about the best things since ready sliced bread, there are few points of interest surrounding it. One interesting thing is money. The developer of the game some times reports the sales on Twitter, and it’s quite astounding. How do 4600 sold copies in 24 hours sound like? I say it really shines light on whole indie gaming industry. The game sells only for 10e in alpha phase, but you don’t need to be mathematician to calculate that, indeed, it will get you some butter for that ready sliced bread. The magic of the tile-world seems to reach beyond the byte code, and that’s quite much how it should be.
Also the development of Minecraft embraces the modern way of software development, being agile and close to customer. Notch, the developer, reads user forums and has a public to-do list for features he’s about to implement. Also, he comments the development efforts frequently in his blog and communicates with players through Twitter. This gives the players who bought the game in alpha stage a first row of seats in game development movie theatre. Of course, the developer still holds the strings on how the game works, but I think it’s not one or two things that have emerged to the game via player community. It’s unlikely that this interaction would stop, at least if the game isn’t hijacked under some bigger game company and even if that should happen, there’s still a good chance that all stays good.
All in all, if you hear some fuzz and buzz around Minecraft, there’s a real reason to that. Yes, it’s just that good. It’s bloody good I’ll tell you. It makes you look cacti with respect; it makes you dig the sand with a birch every time you see a stream of water to make it flow differently. It’s bloody great.
Links:
Minecraft official site: http://minecraft.net/
Minecraft museum (gallery): http://cubicworlds.net/museum/gallery.php
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