This Is Why I Never Played Minecraft… Until Now!
Whenever someone mentioned Minecraft I used to roll my eyes at them in exasperation because it was a game I believed was waaayyy too popular for no real reason. After seeing people be so excited about it and share YouTube videos of this block based video game my first impressions were that it had very little to offer. It literally just looked like the only thing I could do was to gather blocks. For years it just seemed like it would be really boring to run around and collect really bad looking blocks and trying to make something out of it. There was no story or point to the game and that really frustrated me!
So years after its first huge rise in popularity, when a friend of mine gifted me the game to try and get me to play more games with them, I bit the bullet and opened Minecraft for the first time. I have to say I was definitely skeptical. I warned them that I might never actually play the game due to the fact that the graphics looked really horrible and open-ended sandbox games are not the kind of video games I would usually play.
The first time I actually played the game I couldn’t help being annoyed as people tried to show me how to get into the swing of things. I was having a really hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I struggled to gather items and what to actually do. The game offers no tutorial of any kind! This kind of annoyed me since MOST video games have one in some shape or form, and although I am one of the few people who skip tutorials immediately this little detail annoyed me.
So after what maybe felt like an hour or so of doing things wrong and learning the hard way I finally got into the swing of the game. The moment everything ‘clicked’ for me was after I had been warned of the dangers that lurk at night and I ignored them and went off on an adventure. I of course ended up getting my first jump scare and now I will forever remember to not volunteer to go out at night.
I’m only a few days in and I cannot wrap my mind around the unlimited options this game offers. Just the other day I started Minecraft up around 10 and the next moment I checked the clock it was 6 hours later!! Within that time I managed to build myself a tiny house, a farm and I’m now the proud owner of growing vegetables and breeding cattle.
I haven’t watched any online videos or tutorials because I feel like that will take some of the fun out of it for me since the game is made for the player to learn things for themselves and to be creative beyond their wildest imagination! For me, I got to find out just how creative some players are when I join a friend’s server.
She managed to build a castle, a Nando’s (chicken farm) a building that reminds me of a hotel with an elevator that sends you to each level of the building. Right next to a village that seemed to be flourishing, while I am yet to find a village on my little test world, where I’m secretly practicing to not suck at the game.
No other video game has managed to unlock my creativity in the way that Minecraft has. I have spent most of my time gathering materials and planning my next masterpiece! Every new world or server you play on creates a random world meaning that everyone will have a different kind of experience. Playing Minecraft on survival mode allows you to go and explore, conquer and survive as you test the limits of what you can achieve, whereas playing in creative mode is the ultimate mode for those gamers who want to do nothing other than building all day every day.
Personally I prefer survival mode as I get to learn more about the game and explore a bit more, unlike creative where everything is handed to you. Survival mode allows me to work for the materials and makes me feel proud of the first tiny little house I built. I felt accomplished in a weird way… like getting my first paycheck! I worked for it :)
I think one of the funniest things I’ve noticed some of my friends do is when they memorized all recipes on how to craft items by heart or how they have to google something when they forgot how to craft something.
Probably one of the biggest reasons I refused to give Minecraft a try was because of its graphics. It somehow looked childish and since it’s 2020 I couldn’t help but want to play a game with graphics that would blow newer generations’ minds. Instead, the game felt effortless to pick up and play. It’s not the kind of game that requires me to focus all the time or aim for an enemy’s head, it was a game where I could jump into and get lost in. The music sending you into a trance, making you feel calm and relaxed even when its night time.
Through Minecraft’s peaceful and colorful scenery nothing seemed out of my reach and nothing seemed like it could hurt me if I stayed in the confines of my comfortable little house at night. That was until one of my friends created a portal to the Nether for me to go and explore. This immediately placed the ‘scary and unknown’ feeling back into a game that I began to feel was about building and conquering.
The Nether is a dark, hellish part of Minecraft where you can find some really good materials for crafting and help you expand your peaceful little world. Be warned though, it’s very easy to die in there!
So far I have done nothing but sing Minecraft’s praises but I think the one thing I might actually dislike about the game is the fact that after all my hard work and efforts to survive and build a base that I’m really proud of, a simple “zzzzzzhhhhhhhhh” sound of a zombie I somehow didn’t see ends up killing me and I have to restart!
So how do I feel about Minecraft now? Do I still think it’s over-hyped and not worth playing? Well, I guess for years I just wanted to be right about not liking the game… unfortunately, I was not. All of the things I originally thought were stupid or not worth picking the game up for actually ended up being some of the games biggest strengths. There is a level of replayability with this game that you genuinely don’t see in many other games these days.
Overall Minecraft is a really fun game, whether you are playing with friends or on your own, it is a game that grabs your attention and keeps it for hours on end and that is a great quality in a video game during lockdown right now.
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