Minecraft

Sphere in a Box
The top of the box is pulled back to reveal the construction within.

A few weeks ago, I caved in and bought Minecraft.  It is a fun little game.  The game can be played single player, or multiplayer.  Currently, multiplayer is a little broken – the monsters can’t hurt you, in fact, nothing can hurt you, so jumping off stuff is fun!  Multiplayer servers can also be modified to allow players the ability to summon items instead of mining them.  The picture to the right is what I’m currently building on one such server.  If you want to spend some time, you can go through the map of that server and see all the awesome things that people are building.

Anyway, the one thing I really dig about this game is that it shows what an indie developer can do, and that high end photo realistic visuals aren’t needed if the game is fun to play.  Minecraft is a blast and it has a very 8-bit look to it.

The game is still technically in “Alpha” (the phase before Beta, which is the phase before release), however you can purchase it now for about $15, which gets you the Alpha and free upgrades to future releases.  If you wait until release you’ll have to pay double, at least, and you’ll miss out on months of fun!

Another thing I like about this game, and the buzz it is getting, is the idea that, if embraced, some of the free form creation that exists here might find their way into other games, other MMOs.  Though I do think it will work best on a small scale.  Can you imagine World of Warcraft allowing people to make their own buildings and destroy terrain?  Insanity!

3 comments

  1. For people unfamiliar, I should note… that box is 40 blocks high (and we are working on going 61 blocks deep). A player in game is 2 blocks tall.

  2. What are you making?

    So far, I’ve been content building bridges across impossible spans to visit some of my map’s floating sky-islands. I haven’t thought of any big building projects.

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