My First Adventure Map in Minecraft

http://www.minecraft.net/

So it took my boys several months to convince me to try Minecraft. I held off for the longest time for two reasons. My first reason: What are the goals? There are no goals. Only stay alive and build build build.

I have found the game really exemplifies how much the environment is affected by only a few humans moving in. It doesn't take long before the local resources are depleted, if not managed, and the users must start expanding out and down looking for new resources. Also the beautiful natural scenery is quickly changed, usually for the worse, as development continues.

Most of my Minecraft game time involved 4 or more users in the same world. It amazing how quickly a forest disappears or how large the holes in the ground become. And then they are slowly replaced by square buildings.

My second reason was the pixilated blocky look. I mean come on... Having watched PC games evolve from text based stories to the occasional graphic between levels. Next we had 2D side scrolling and then in 1991 Wolfenstein 3D!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_3D

Over the years I have watched the graphics continue to improve to where we now we have and expect photo quality graphics in our games. Why would I want to go back to 1991 style graphics? I just couldn't do it.

So now I have Minecraft. What do I think? Its actually quite involved and a lot of fun when playing with others. You must always keep an eye on the sky. At night zombies and spiders come out so you need either weapons and armor or a house. It can also be very frustrating. I joined an adventure map with some friends and as you can see from this video it can be quite frustrating.

Overall the game is quite fun. You think of what you want and then find the resources to create it. I built a house out of marble and an elaborate elevator that ended up filling my entire basement. In reality it only lifted me up three squares and took about as long to run as simply walking up steps but it was a fun and challenging puzzle. While I was working on my elevator my youngest son built a general store and a garden. I would say he was the more productive one in that evening of playing.

I don't know that I will post a whole lot more on Minecraft. The web and YouTube is flooded with how to's as well as video's of game play. I make a post or two about some of the mods if I run across one I really like.