Minecraft

It's about time I posted about the indie game that's taking the internet by storm: Minecraft!

Yeah, it really looks like that.

So I first found out about Minecraft recently when minecraft.net had a server meltdown and Minecraft effectively had a free weekend.  I was initially skeptical about the game, especially considering its alpha status and the €9.95 price tag (works out to about $13-$14 depending on the exchange rate).  I can even be quoted saying "lol@charging for software that's still in alpha".

But then I played it.

And I played some more.

And I played some more.

And some more.

Quite simply, I can't put it down.

Currently, I'm following a couple Let's Plays of it on YouTube. It's a game which has gameplay that's pretty fun to watch as well as experience firsthand.  If you check it out and like it, buy it now, because when the game enters beta status the price is going to double.

The game is so simple and the graphics are so retro, yet it has this charm about it that can only be experienced by playing it.

Here's a quick overview of how it all works.  In Minecraft, you mine stuff, and you craft stuff.  It lives up to its namesake 100%.  Your goal is simple: survival.  During the day, this is generally a trivial thing, but at night (or when exploring underground caves), it's a different story.  Enemies can spawn anywhere it's dark.  To combat this, you can craft weapons, and also torches to provide light.  The enemies are fairly typical, but with one very cruel enemy thrown in for good measure.  Your normal enemies are zombies, skeletons, and giant spiders (which can occasionally spawn with a skeleton riding them).  However, the cruelest enemy is known as the creeper.  It's a green... thing with four legs that makes no noise whatsoever and explodes if it gets near you.  They can be killed, and doing so yields gunpowder, which can be crafted into TNT.

The crafting interface is fairly simple, and has a lot of possibilities.  Initially you start with a 2x2 crafting grid with which you can make simple items like wood planks, sticks, torches, and workbenches.  To craft anything more complex you'll need to make a workbench, which gives you a 3x3 crafting grid.  To make an item, you place raw materials in the grid and kind of draw the item you want to get with their placement.  For instance, to make a shovel, you place your desired shovel blade material (selecting between wood/gold, stone, iron, and diamond, listed in order of durability from least to most) in the top row and then one stick each in the two squares below it.  There is comprehensive documentation of the game here.

Many things can be crafted, a good portion of which are entirely optional.  You don't really need minecarts, but being able to move from place to place while not having to hold any keys on your keyboard can come in handy.

The world you play in is procedurally generated, and will be different for everyone who plays the game.  You can make up to five worlds, and each will be entirely different.  You may be lucky enough to start near the resources you need to survive your first night (which are coal and wood), but you may just as well need to search high and far to find them.  Wood is usually easy to find, just look for the trees.  Coal can be difficult at first, but easiest place to find some is to locate a mountain with some exposed stone and look for stone blocks with black specks in them.  If it gets too overwhelming, delete the world and try again.  There is currently no tutorial world, so you'll just have to use the wiki I linked to a couple paragraphs back.

The game truly is what you make of it.  You can go anywhere, do anything, and build whatever the heck you want.  It really unlocks a creative side in a lot of people.  People have made all sorts of things ranging from a 1:1 Enterprise D to a recreation of the temple at Chichen Itza and a fully operational 16-bit CPU.

Plus, it has multiplayer.  Multiplayer is currently fairly buggy, but it's the top priority of the dev right now, so it should get better soon.  As it stands now though, you can still mine stuff, craft stuff, and build things, so basically the core gameplay is there.  Health was implemented recently, and there are still a few combat-related bugs left to work out, but it's looking better every day.

Myself and a few of my friends have all picked it up recently and have found it to be a surprisingly complete game for a game that's still in alpha.  Most of the things being added to the game these days are new blocks and crafting recipes.  The Halloween update added a ton of stuff, including a brand new world called The Nether that you can build a portal to, where the most common block will burn indefinitely if set on fire.

The verdict: a surprisingly complete and fun indie game.