Adventures In Minecraft - Part I: I Play So You Don't Have To!

Despite many stern warnings from others to avoid Minecraft because of the addictive death grip it imposes on all who enter it, I decided to listen to the one suggestion telling me that I should play it. (Thanks Mike!) What can I say, I'm a sucker for reverse peer pressure.

So, I present my "Adventures In Minecraft" series, where I am doing you all a huge service by playing the game and documenting my experience so that you, my loyal and devoted readers, can heed the warnings that I did not. Why waste time experiencing it for yourself when you can waste time reading my whimsical take on it! I promise lots of pretty pictures, too. If I'm losing you already, please bear with me. It's mostly pictures and captions. If you enjoy my other posts, I don't think you'll be disappointed here. Hey! Get your mouse cursor off that back button. There we go. So, lets begin, shall we?

For those of you who don't know what Minecraft is, here's the skinny. Minecraft is an open-world sandbox style game where you wander around a landscape that is composed of cube-like graphics (think Lego).

A Minecraft sunset. Not taken by me, but still nice.

The object of the game (and I use the term "object" loosely) is to explore, mine, craft, build, and survive. You'll see what I mean as we go. Long story short, the game cycles between day and night, and the whole cycle lasts almost 20 minutes. During the day, you are generally safe to explore the world's fields, mountains, lakes, and caverns, collecting materials and building items and shelter, but when night falls, that's when things get hairy and monsters start showing up to ruin your fun. Good times, good times. Hey! What did I tell you about the back button??

To Note: While I have logged a couple of days in the multiplayer portion of the game, this is the first time I'm trying out single player. I'm playing on "Hard" in the single player mode, mainly because I like torturing myself, and it'll make for more interesting literature. Aaaaaand go!

Day 1: The First Day (Wow, what an awesome title...)

I could have gone with "Survival 101" or "Enter the Minecraft". Or not. When you first start a new game, Minecraft randomly generates a huge, unique world just for you. Here's where I found myself:

Yup. Just me and my block for a hand.

The above shot was taken literally seconds after I started. This series is going to be very candid. I'm literally typing as I play. There is no "right way" to play Minecraft, it seems, but the first order of business is usually to gather some wood. But I'm hungry. First Honeycomb, then wood.

I wish I could chop down trees with my bare hands in real life. Well...maybe not.

When you start out, you have nothing. Literally. After obtaining wood, you can use your crafting interface to create a variety of things. Right now, I need to make some wooden planks, which I can then use to make a crafting table. The crafting table allows you to make more intricate items, but it needs to be placed on the ground to be used.

Your basic crafting interface. Wood makes planks, and planks make numerous other things, including a crafting table that has nine spaces instead of four.

So, now that I've got my nifty crafting table, I'm going to create a basic shelter before night envelopes my blocky world and unleashes a swarm of blocky ravenous creatures who want to rip me to blocky pieces. I've got lots of wood. Lets make a a little wooden house. Construction in this game is simple. Just highlight the piece you want to use, point to a block in the world, and hit the right mouse button. If you can do Lego, you can do this.

There's something creepy about a blocky pig staring at you while you're building your survival shack.

As soon as I placed my last block down on my little hidey-hole, the sun went down, the moon came up, and out came the legions of creepers. I didn't have time to make a door, so I just built myself a few little windows so I could look outside.

Don't be fooled - blocky zombies are just as dangerous as fleshy zombies.

This particular zombie was jumping outside my shack all night long. Well, until this happened...

I was delighted to learn that, when exposed to direct sunlight, Minecraft zombies burst into flames. Glorious, blocky flames.

When the sun was high in the sky, I broke my way out of my doorless shack and continued to gather more wood. I also found a cobblestone deposit right next to my residence. To mine harder blocks, you need to make tools, so I made myself a wooden pickaxe, which can mine stone but breaks easily from repeated use.

The cobblestone can be used to make better tools, as well as a furnace, which can be used to make even more great stuff. For example, placing sand in the furnace along with something burnable (like wood planks or coal) will create glass, which I used to make permanent windows after a spider found its way into my house through my previously glassless window. I was able to kill it and learn a valuable lesson in the process. While zombies can't enter a rectangular hole, spiders easily can.

My cobblestone furnace in action - making some glass after a spider attack left me with half my health. (Crafting table on the left)

How to make a wooden pickaxe. Two sticks and three wooden planks. Simple, yet brilliant.

So folks, that concludes my first day (and perilous first night) in Minecraft. Next time, I will explore my surroundings, build a better house, and maybe even enter some spooky caves! But first I'll need to make some torches. Its dark in them caves.

I'll leave you with a triumphant shot of me, wooden sword in hand on the second day, standing proudly over my crappy shack, complete with double doors and a ditch to catch unsuspecting monsters. So long!

Bring it. But not too hard. I don't have a very good sword yet.