Saturday 30 April 2011

Minecraft - What is it?

Anyone vaguely interested or involved with the online gaming community will no doubt have heard about the new and somewhat unexpected popularity of the latest indie game sensation - Minecraft!

Written by Swedish Indie game developer commonly known as 'Notch', Minecraft became somewhat of an overnight sensation. Sweeping across the gaming community, Minecraft reached thousands and eventually millions of hits and continues to grow today.

So what IS Minecraft? I'll explain.

Minecraft is an infinite world, randomly generated and populated with NPCs. A player can spend hours forging out their own homes, buildings - whatever comes to mind. But to do so requires dedication, raw materials such as wood and stone come from the environment itself, so a player needs to collect and craft equipment to efficiently gather the resources they need to build their constructs.


"You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum"

To quote Saruman from Lord of the Rings, Minecraft is all about collecting resources, some of them more rarer than others. The further you dig down into the earth, the more unique resources you can collect; such as diamond and gold. But as you go down deeper, you risk your entire inventory as you encounter strange noises and sudden movement. Oh yes, not only is Minecraft populated with cows roaming the rolling green hills and sheep bouncing over the horizon, but there exists a more sinister threat to exploring this terrain.

Image from http://bwochinski.files.wordpress.com/

The risk of encountering zombies, skeletons and red-eyed giant spiders is always a concern as you scramble to traverse entire cave systems to gather that little bit of diamond somewhere in the patchy darkness. These monsters can and will attack you, and if you die - you lose everything.

But with risk comes great rewards, and indeed, players are rewarded for their bravery as they attain items and rewards that can be used to add to their special 'project'. Red-stone (commonly found deep underground) can be used to power automatic door-ways and traps - you get the idea.

Players can really experience this game in their own way. Difficulty settings can be adjusted to fit play-style, mod-packs and texture-packs can be installed to always keep Minecraft looking fresh and different. This game always presents the player with a lot of fun challenges and so much creative possibility!

14 comments:

  1. i already knew most of it, still gread "guide". minecraft rocks!

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  2. Friends have been trying to get me to play this for months, i havent gave in yet but feels like im missing out

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  3. I have yet to play this as well. You did give a great explanation though, I may have to give it a try.

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  4. first time i hear about this game...im getting it asap

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  5. Only played it once, but enjoyed it a lot :)

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  6. Minecraft is a great game, unleashes your creative side and you can make whatever you like, its a great game and i can't wait for full release :) !

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  7. The creator of this was also part of an old game called Wurm Online, same concept as minecraft but with higher graphics and of a survival element, check it out

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  8. I started playing minecraft some weeks ago and i have to say if u start playing it for a while u can't stop until you have finished a structure.

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  9. i still have not played this game yet, i hear a lot of buzz about it though.

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  10. Oh jeez, this game has sucked up so many hours. I remember watching videos on youtube where people recreate the entire city of Rapture (Bioshock), or the guy who created, to scale, the USS Enterprise. Then you get stuff like the cow-cannon videos, which are just hilarious.

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  11. Im staying away from this game. I already have a life draining game to play, I dont need another! The game looks great for anyone who enjoys the tradeskill aspects of gaming.

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  12. dont like the game that much :P

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  13. When I first played minecraft I was "what?" and walked around for a bit.

    It wasn't until several weeks later that I learned about crafting that I gave it another shot. Also I didn't even know monsters came out at night.

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  14. its pretty damn addicting is what it is

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