Minecraft
Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:00 pm
http://www.minecraft.net
Minecraft is a game that's become a rapid cult classic recently. There are several game modes in Minecraft, depending on what version of the game you're playing, but the most recent is called Alpha. Alpha is a free-roaming exploration style game that is really quite unique. It centers around three main things; Mining, crafting, and fighting. Mining involves breaking Blocks, big pixelated chunks of terrain (of which there are dozens of types) to get resources. These resources can be used in their raw states, in refined forms, and they can be combined with other resources to craft tools and the like. Crafting is basically a glorified form of drawing; you have a 2x2 grid in your inventory that lets you craft things like sticks, torches, and a workbench. The workbench is a static station that offers a 3x3 grid for creating more advanced tools and the like. For instance, putting down a Stick with two pieces of Wood above it will create a Wooden Sword. Putting down two Sticks on top of each other with a piece of Wood on top creates a Wooden Shovel. There are various tiers of building materials (wood, iron, steel, gold, diamond, and so on) and various tools/things you can make (swords, bows, shovels, axes, pick-axes, hoes, steps, windows, arrows, etc)
The main attraction of Minecraft is the creativity behind it. You can make so many things out of the terrain and the resources you mine. The game feels like living art. In addition to the retro graphics and the simplistic play style, the game features a beautiful soundtrack which, although it plays sporadically, has some amazing atmospheric tracks by C418.
There are also Mobs. These include passive mobs like Sheep, Pigs, Cows, Chickens, Fish, and the Zombie Pigman, along with aggressive mobs aka Monsters like Skeletons, Zombies, Ghasts, Creepers (aka exploding green penises), and so on. There's also a realm called the Nether that you access through custom Portals which is essentially hell- full of lava and monsters, but it has valuable materials, and you travel much faster in the Nether. Just go about twenty feet in the Nether, make a new Portal, and you will find yourself much further away in the real world than where you started.
There's also a rough multiplayer mode with no monsters and no working health, but people have gotten creative with their friends and created games like Spleef. In Spleef, you and a number of other players (typically 4 in total) are on an arena made of a single layer of blocks, underneath which is lava or water, and you all try to mine each other off with pick axes or shovels. Here's a video of me playing leaf-wood-hellstone-lava Spleef with the boys at Data Realms (yes, that is a Batman skin I have there)
And here are some screenshots.
Minecraft is currently 9.95 Euros (roughly $13.65 USD) but will be 20 Euros when it is finished. Buy it now to get the future updates for free. There is a free browser version for single player and multiplayer on Minecraft.net which is essentially the outdated versions of the game that Notch has decided to just put up as freeware.
WARNING - THIS GAME IS EXTREMELY ADDICTIVE I SPENT LIKE 10 HOURS PLAYING IT TODAY AND YESTERDAY. APPROACH WITH EXTREME CAUTION.
Minecraft is a game that's become a rapid cult classic recently. There are several game modes in Minecraft, depending on what version of the game you're playing, but the most recent is called Alpha. Alpha is a free-roaming exploration style game that is really quite unique. It centers around three main things; Mining, crafting, and fighting. Mining involves breaking Blocks, big pixelated chunks of terrain (of which there are dozens of types) to get resources. These resources can be used in their raw states, in refined forms, and they can be combined with other resources to craft tools and the like. Crafting is basically a glorified form of drawing; you have a 2x2 grid in your inventory that lets you craft things like sticks, torches, and a workbench. The workbench is a static station that offers a 3x3 grid for creating more advanced tools and the like. For instance, putting down a Stick with two pieces of Wood above it will create a Wooden Sword. Putting down two Sticks on top of each other with a piece of Wood on top creates a Wooden Shovel. There are various tiers of building materials (wood, iron, steel, gold, diamond, and so on) and various tools/things you can make (swords, bows, shovels, axes, pick-axes, hoes, steps, windows, arrows, etc)
The main attraction of Minecraft is the creativity behind it. You can make so many things out of the terrain and the resources you mine. The game feels like living art. In addition to the retro graphics and the simplistic play style, the game features a beautiful soundtrack which, although it plays sporadically, has some amazing atmospheric tracks by C418.
There are also Mobs. These include passive mobs like Sheep, Pigs, Cows, Chickens, Fish, and the Zombie Pigman, along with aggressive mobs aka Monsters like Skeletons, Zombies, Ghasts, Creepers (aka exploding green penises), and so on. There's also a realm called the Nether that you access through custom Portals which is essentially hell- full of lava and monsters, but it has valuable materials, and you travel much faster in the Nether. Just go about twenty feet in the Nether, make a new Portal, and you will find yourself much further away in the real world than where you started.
There's also a rough multiplayer mode with no monsters and no working health, but people have gotten creative with their friends and created games like Spleef. In Spleef, you and a number of other players (typically 4 in total) are on an arena made of a single layer of blocks, underneath which is lava or water, and you all try to mine each other off with pick axes or shovels. Here's a video of me playing leaf-wood-hellstone-lava Spleef with the boys at Data Realms (yes, that is a Batman skin I have there)
And here are some screenshots.
Minecraft is currently 9.95 Euros (roughly $13.65 USD) but will be 20 Euros when it is finished. Buy it now to get the future updates for free. There is a free browser version for single player and multiplayer on Minecraft.net which is essentially the outdated versions of the game that Notch has decided to just put up as freeware.
WARNING - THIS GAME IS EXTREMELY ADDICTIVE I SPENT LIKE 10 HOURS PLAYING IT TODAY AND YESTERDAY. APPROACH WITH EXTREME CAUTION.