Never one to just disparage people for playing a game, I have to admit that the craze from several years ago regarding Minecraft sort of blew my mind. I was a kid in the era of some very cool 2-dimensional video games and was in the thick of my teenage years when the levels became worlds with 3-dimensional movements.
I can tell you from my perspective, it was incredible.
Graphics have also continued to improve to the point that you can actively control play in a game that is becoming eerily lifelike.
That is why I didn’t initially understand Minecraft. The graphics are almost absolute garbage. Think of reversing the digital and technological advances by 20 years. Smartphones weren’t even part of our world at that time. Even then, I had Golden Eye on the Nintendo 64. The graphics in Minecraft aren’t even to that standard.
Here is where the rub is.
We got a Nintendo Switch for our boys for Christmas, and in my aging ways, I didn’t realize there was a difference in the Minecraft genre of games. Our oldest had several friends that had the basic version, but I got a different version. It was frustrating for me. It was basically your average role-player game where you go through levels and defeat enemies, complete with very inadequate graphics.
Both boys loved the game, but it quickly became evident that I had missed when my oldest started referring to the game his friends had as the ‘real’ Minecraft.
I bit.
It didn’t take long for me to find the game and buy it. It was inexpensive compared to other games on the platform, and if it was going to make him stop dad-shaming me for not knowing what I was buying, I was all for it.
What I did not expect, was that I actually enjoy the game a lot, and to explain why, I might have to tell a bit about myself.
Some of my favorite games in the past were never the first person shooter games or the role playing games. I enjoyed them, so don’t misunderstand me, but there was always an element of the games which seemed missing. The role, or the mission, is already laid out for you. As the games got more advanced, there might be multiple ways to defeat it, but the overall scheme of the game is already laid out for you. The best part of the first person shooters, for me, were the multiplayer games where you could battle against others, either in the same house or eventually over networks. They were less scripted.
In fact, my favorite games on some of the older systems, and on computers, were the other “crafts.” Many of you may not remember that Warcraft wasn’t always a role-player game. Before they transitioned to that model, the game was based on the idea of building structures, upgrading structures, and building and training armies to take over a geographical map. How you chose to design your war machine was entirely up to you. The limitations of the games in that genre were just that the structures and the potential upgrades were entirely mapped out. You got to choose your path, but the choices were fairly limited.
These real-time strategy games were an absolute blast for me. I could waste hours trying to figure out the most efficient way of gathering resources and building an army to both defend myself and take offensive action to conquer a map.
Many games were released in this genre, but I particularly remember Command and Conquer, War Craft, Star Craft, and Age of Empires. They all had the same general scheme and were limited by the same factors.
So, that gives you a bit of the background for understanding why, at 37 years old, I have really appreciated an aspect of Minecraft that I wouldn’t have ever understood if it wasn’t for my oldest shaming me for buying the fake Minecraft.
The world that you create for yourself, is nearly limitless. What I still admit are terrible graphics are more than made up for with the flexibility for the player to form the literal ground he or she is standing on into practically any structure desired. Resources are still limited, which forces players to be creative with their use, and the time it takes to gather some of the resources is also limited, forcing the players to set priorities.
As players utilize resources to craft other items or resources, it unlocks other potential resources and crafts as well, allowing the player what seems like infinite possibilities. It really is almost infinite within the confines of the game. Even though the types of resources and crafts are limited, but with a very vast array of possibilities, how they are used and what they are used for is up to the player, adding countless other possibilities with the vast capacity already present.
For a strategy gamer like me, almost 20 years removed from playing video games, I have been astounded at how much fun I have had playing as a teammate to my wife and boys, and slowly turning a mountain into a castle. It has been surprisingly exciting learning how to properly mine some of the ore and gather the trees or to strike out in search of zombies or other enemies to seek other resources. You can even fish in the game if you happen upon, or craft your own fishing pole, which helps you eat to sustain your health.
Just watch out, because if you dig a very deep mine, an enemy will occasionally spawn in it and, if you’re like me, you might learn that lesson the hard way walking into a poorly lit mine shaft as a zombie proceeds to kill you.
I’m actually excited to tell you that if you enjoy strategy games and you haven’t played Minecraft, give it a shot. The multiplayer mode is actually a battle mode, so part of the fun is that you can play people on the same system, or online, and put your crafting to the test against other players. So maybe you are beyond your gamer days, but want to see if your kids would enjoy it.
Give it a shot. If you were a kid that enjoyed real-time strategy games, but also loved LEGOS or LINCOLN LOGS, or if your kids are, they will love Minecraft.
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