Independent games are a passion of mine.  I follow the development and release of some really clever games that hit the PC, and for the most part they’re freebies.  Flash games, stuff like that.  Once in a while, one of these games will take on a life of its own, both in the development phase and with players.  I can remember a year or two ago first hearing about a game called Dwarf Fortress, an incredibly intricate “roguelike” that I found nearly unplayable; not due to its very old school ASCII graphics, but due to the complexities of the gameplay.  It really seemed like a game that I would love, being the kind of game where you build and let the population do as they will.  I’m a SimCity addict, so this seemed right up my alley.  It also seemed to have a real sense of humor about the game world.  But navigating the menus and deciphering what the symbols corresponded to ingame proved to be far too complicated for me to stick with longer than twenty minutes.

Jump forward to a couple of months ago, when YouTube was showcasing a lot of videos about a game that seemed to be very similar to Dwarf Fortress, yet something completely different.  That game would turn out to be something called Minecraft.  Developed by just one Swedish guy who calls himself “Notch” online, Minecraft is an open ended, procedurally generated adventure that is addictive, fun, and best of all, easy to pick up.

LOOK AT HOW MUCH FUN THIS IS

LOOK AT HOW MUCH FUN THIS IS

Minecraft is a very hard game to describe to someone who’s never seen it.  I recently tried explaining the game to a couple of co-workers, which went something like this:

Me: So it’s this first-person game.  The graphics aren’t amazing by any stretch, but that’s kind of what I like about it.  And you just show up on a beach like Leonardo DiCaprio at the beginning of Inception and you have to go and survive on your own.  You go and chop down trees and make wood and sticks out of it and then you go and start mining rocks and stuff but you have to mine coal too, so you can make torches, because pretty soon it’s gonna be nighttime and then monsters show up and they’re all really scary, so you need to build a shelter and light it up with the torches so they don’t creep up on you… and then the sun comes back up in the morning and the monsters all die in a fire and you go and start all over again.

Coworker #1:  Okay.

Me:  Yeah, and you start digging deeper and deeper and you find cooler stuff and sometimes there’s big huge caves miles underground with monsters in them and stuff.

Coworker #2:  Then what?

Me:  You just keep going.  You can build stuff if you want.  You can farm, too.

Coworker #1:  And that’s it?  You don’t beat it or anything?

Me:  Nope.  You just keep playing.  It’s all I can think about.  Right now  I’m thinking of what I should make the floor in my new house out of.

The game’s appeal is kind of hard to pin down, I’ll give it that.  I think the game appeals to the Lego builder in me, as you keep plopping down blocks you’ve mined to build a house, castle, who knows what.  You can make anything.  You can build a huge statue of yourself if you want.  You can even play online and build with other people, although I haven’t tried that yet.

Other little points to make about Minecraft that I’d be remiss to forget about:

  • It’s one of the scariest games I’ve ever played.  I’m not kidding.  I’ve played Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, and I think they’re more fun (if not frustrating in their execution) and engrossing than scary.  I have yet to play Dead Space, a game which has given me nightmares by simply watching gameplay on YouTube, but Minecraft actually matches up as far as the atmosphere and danger are concerned.  Just imagine going far into a deep, dark mine not knowing if a zombie, bow-and-arrow-toting skeleton, or giant spider could be lurking in the shadows.  And don’t get me started on the Creepers – a video game enemy that may very well become as iconic as, say, Silent Hill 2‘s Pyramid Head.  When one of those green exploding bastards comes chasing you, you run your ass off no matter what kind of bad guys you’ve slain in other games.  The incidental music or ambient sounds that play in caves once in a while (sometimes just to scare you for the fun of it) doesn’t help.
  • It will give you OCD at the very least.  The building process will drive you towards excessive symmetry or worse.  You’ll find yourself counting blocks as you build or mine, trying to maximize efficiency and get the most out of your resources.
  • Oh, and there’s not just scary music.  There are a few lovely, if not a little melancholy, ditties that play randomly whilst you roam your expansive world, exploring for things you might find helpful in your quest to survive… and have a blast doing it.
  • Mistakes will be made, and you will learn from them.  Digging directly under yourself?  You could fall to your death into a cavern you didn’t know was there.  Wondering if that weird-looking green guy is hopping around because he wants to give you a hug?  Have fun walking back to your house and find a crater with all your stuff in it.  Think it’s a good idea to go into an unexplored area without a sword?  Think again.  And you can also learn a lot from this guy:

That always makes me laugh.

If this all sounds like a good time to you, remember two things: first off, the game’s not free.  It costs ten euro right now (Notch is Swedish, don’t forget), and it’s still in the Alpha stage of development, so there’s plenty of bugs still to be worked out.  I mean, hell, I’m playing on Linux, which I think has led me to lose my game saves a few times already.  Don’t let that deter you, though.  My problem is probably because I’ve got a wonky laptop.  Join me and the thousands of players who have discovered the fun of punching trees and riding pigs in minecarts.  Especially before the price goes up when it’s officially released.  Go get yourself some Minecraft!

Creepers gonna creep!

Creepers gonna creep!