Minecraft

Following on my theme of video games from yesterday, I want to talk to you about one game in particular. It's a game I've attempted from time to time, but one which Himself loves and can play for hours at a time (and has, when his insomnia is bad). That game is Minecraft.

I'm sure at least some of you have heard of this game. Here is the main website where you can get a brief rundown of what the game entails. Essentially you're hunting resources and building things. The more you build the better your game becomes.

The base game, or “vanilla” Minecraft, is very simplistic. It isn't simple. I've played vanilla and died so many times I can't count them. The monsters – called mobs – are dangerous after dark. But it's still a fun game where I get to harvest and build. They also have what they call “creative mode” where you have access to everything in the game and can experiment and design without the threat of mobs or having to go hunt for it all.

Then you have the mod packs. This can be anything from adding technology packs (redstone and circuits) to Thaumcraft (magic). They have mods where you're on the ground and ones where you're on a sky island and have to buid that up with limited resources to start with. Himself loves challenges like the skyblocks and learning the magic system.

One of the most beautiful things I've seen him build on any server was when he was doing one of his skyblocks. He spent days on his island. When he was finished, he had a huge stained glass pyramid full of water, flowers, and trees. It was very impressive. The whole island was impressive since he went from a very small space to one as large as the server would let him grow. But the beauty of the stained glass pyramid was amazing.

Once he finished it he got bored with that server and moved on to something else. While he hasn't built anything in stained glass (though he's used some for decoration), he's built some equally as impressive things.

As a video game, Minecraft can be tedious. But it teaches people resource management, spatial relations, and lets them expand their world to the limit of the game engine and their own imagination. If you're into building things, I recommend getting Minecraft. You can look up all sorts of videos on YouTube about it, including tutorials on how to build things.