Banana Scoop

I’ve had Minecraft for a couple of months now and I’m continually finding new things to keep me interesting from the rather simple game.  There are still a number of things I still need to investigate and haven’t seen: The Nether, The End and an even larger number of things I haven’t crafted, pistons, enchanting tables, and potions.  So there are definitely a number of things I still need to do, despite playing hours upon hours of mining, digging, and cutting.  But of course, there are a number of experiences I want to share with you guys.  Here are 4 heart thumping moments I’ve had with my time with Minecraft.

Go get Minecraft here!

Staring into the Eyes of Death on Hardcore Mode

For those who don’t know, Minecraft has a Hardcore Mode where if you die, your entire map is deleted and you lose all your hard work forever.  Like the name says, it’s truly only for the hardcore.  Well I tried this mode and made a beautiful 2-story log mansion that took forever to make.  It was complete with a log staircase, fenced yard and a lush garden.  The second floor had a ladder that led to the roof where a fence ‘protected’ me from dangers.

In this gameplay, I was always careful with what I did, extremely terrified of every corner knowing it could be my last breath.  One night I was trying to sleep and I heard a spider creeping around.  Frustrated at my inability to sleep through the night, I ventured to the roof to vanquish the pestulant bug.  As I arrived over the final ladder block, I saw a figure in front of me: black, tall, and with a beautiful and haunting pair of purple eyes.  Enderman.  If you’re familiar with Minecraft, you know Enderman will ‘end’ any player who looks it in the eye.  After a prompt ‘holy shit’, I tried to climb down the ladder as I lost half my health in one instant.  With a couple of more seconds of life, Enderman attacked me again where I ended up on the bottom of the ladder with all my inventory scattered on the ground.  I didn’t even read the message that came up before exiting out of the Minecraft screen.  I knew what I had done and that I couldn’t escape it, but I I tried to load it back up anyways.  The death screen was still there, trying to prompt me to delete the world.

After a moments of brief crying, I submitted and vowed to never play Hardcore Mode again.  I guess am not as Hardcore as I thought.

Building the Glass Floor to my Sky Tower and Falling to Oblivion

There are a lot of cool things I had seen done Minecraft screens and gameplay videos.  Making really awesome houses are something every Minecraft player thrives to build.  So I had created my house on the top of a high mountain and the mine I was digging into was on sea level.  I had to build a safe passage from my house to the mine site where I could emerge at any time of the day and make it back to the safe house.  I had initially thought of a pathway from my house to the mine in a suspended road and then ladder down straight to the mine.  I had decided to take it a step further because I had saw earlier in a Minecraft video that someone had made a glass house.  I decided my pathway would be made of glass, so that I could look down dozens of blocks above the ground for a breath taking view.  It took a couple of hours – digging and furnacing sand, creating the path [this was before I knew holding shift would keep me on a platform, so it was a pain in the ass because I kept falling and dying], and then building a  ladder.

It was nothing too special these days, as people are building mansions and hotel sized buildings, but the kicker is that as I finished my glass floor, I fell off one more time, but I missed the “ground”.  I instead fell into oblivion where I was surrounded by nothing and couldn’t dig my way out..  Being a Minecraft noob, I didn’t know the kill command to return me to my spawn point and in my rage, I deleted my world out of spite.

The Wooden House and the Magma Pit

I’m really ashamed because just seeing that headline makes me face palm.  In one of my first games, I had created a large wooden tower as my home base.  I never considered making it into stone because it served me well enough.  So as soon as I started getting more and more comfortable I started going further and further into the mines.  I eventually got a bucket of lava, for which I placed outside in a whole directly adjacent to my wooden house for a cool lava pit.  You can already see where this is going.   So after coming home from another mine excursion, I found my entire house in flames.  I had lost everything: my walls, my roofs, my chests, everything.  I never knew things could catch fire like that.  Now I make everything out of cobblestone.

Participating in the Hunger Games and other Multiplayer Servers

I read in my Game Informer magazine about how Minecraft was one of the best co-op games.  But in an unorthodox way.  Instead of killing aliens or solving puzzles, Minecraft’s co-op more lies in the creative minds and games.  You can build a survival lifestyle with a buddy which is really fun to delegate tasks that need to be done like building a wheat farm of hunting cows for leather.  But what’s more interesting is how Minecraft creators have created a Hunger Games type maps where they pitch players in a death match where they survive, ally, and kill each other in a Panem-gladiator style battle.  It’s really neat how these things can go down and how feasts, sponsors, and controlling the maps, like real gamemakers from the book.  I usually die early, but I’m hoping I get better with each death.

MineZ is another multiplayer server that plays similar to Left 4 Dead and DayZ.  It’s hyper survival, where supplies are limited and weapons are scarce.  With zombies and other players trying to kill you, it’s really fun to travel woods and abandoned [or not so abandoned] towns and buildings.

Overall

I highly recommend you get Minecraft for yourself.  Think of it as Legos for adults, where anyone of all ages can enjoy it.  Go and create some memories for yourself.  If you already have it, please share some awesome stories you’ve had with Minecraft or let me know if you play on a server and are interested in letting me join you guys, I’m friendly enough!  But otherwise, if you don’t have it, get it.  Because it will take you.  Like an addiction.  You’ll find yourself saying “One More Block…”