Developing your Craft

I do enjoy my video games and my movies. Lately, I have gone back to a game I began playing last year. It is called Minecraft and, if you haven’t played it, perhaps you should. Here’s the basics and some pics. Except for the one above, all the pics are screenshots of my game. You decide for yourself. The site stated today that over 44 million people have registered (free) and over 7.8 million have bought it.

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Minecraft is a downloadable game (or it can be played from your browser). One version is free and one has a one-time cost (and that cost is very reasonable). I played the free version long enough that I knew I wanted to play the pay version (I may be wrong, but I think in the free version you build and such, but no monsters and some other items).

Anyway, the general idea is that you have an entire world made of little cubes. The cubes all have different properties, depending on what they are: dirt, grass, rock, wood, gravel, sand, cobblestone, coal, diamonds, and quite a few others. You collect the cubes and by doing different combinations, you build houses, tools, and a lot of other items.

I think this is my favorite Screenshot!

In the beginning, it seems like a lot of work, but, as you do it and get used to it, second nature drops in. As an example:

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You appear in an area. You use your hands to dig up some cubes of dirt.

You also use your hands to chop down a few trees (yes, it takes awhile for that).

Now, you have a small built-in craft table. You make a larger craft table and put it in the dirt house you make (reason in a minute).

On the bigger table you make the wood into sticks, the sticks along with some boards makes a sword, a hoe, an axe, and a pick.

You use the axe to cut more trees (much faster) and the pick to gather cobblestones.

You use the cobblestones to make a tougher and faster pick and shovel. With these items you can make a small furnace, and a chest to keep things in.

You continue to build until night time. If you have monsters then you must be in your house and protected (sealed in) through the night.

After a time you get a bed (which lets you sleep and skip the night while in the house) and so on.

The possibilities are nearly endless.

I have built a house in the sky, under water, huge houses, and little ones all over my world. My object has been to look all over and be able to find a house when night falls. If not, I have learned how to make a small hut very quickly and have a bed with me all the time to sleep in.

The game is very well documented. If you have a question, one way to get the answer quickly is to tab out of the game and, in Google, type in “minecraft” a space and your question or a word like “house”.

The only warnings I will give you to start is that you don’t want to be out at night and you don’t “save” the game. It perpetually saves so whatever you do, is done (just like real life). If you die (and you will, at least, at first) you appear either back at the beginning or in the nearest bed in a house, but without anything you were carrying!

Commands are pretty simple and you can farm wheat, make armor, gather animals (pigs and chickens), make food (even a cake), and even have a pet (a dog/wolf).

It is truly an amazing game and this short once-over is not nearly enough. I have not played to the end. There is a quest that is hard and long. I don’t do it. I have enough fun building and gathering to keep me busy.

You can look on YouTube for some clips about it, but they are not usually the simple things. I don’t want you to get overwhelmed. Just building a simple house that protects you that first night is really great.