Minecraft Chronicles, pt. 2

I’ve been on this island for months, probably.  After those first few nights, struggling to scrape together enough supplies to survive, I’ve made a decent home.  I’ve plumbed the depths of a huge cavern.  I’ve mapped out my surrounding ocean so that I know where to go next.  To that end, I’ve been slowly building out a minecart track to the nearest continent. 

It’s been a few weeks of work on the track.  It’s slow going.  Iron is not exactly the most abundant resource in my caverns.  I’ll lay out 64 tracks, spend a few days finding iron, lay out 64 tracks, etc…  This morning, I finally completed the stone support going off to the continent and a thought struck me.  Why am I building track out here?  Why don’t I just move my base?  Heck, why don’t I go find a village?  That’s why I came here in the first place, right?

I head back to my base and gather a few supplies.  My clock, a compass, enough materials for a new map as I’m exploring, a few pickaxes and swords.  Basic survival stuff.  Maps are huge, right?  It surely won’t take long to find a village.

After about a week of exploring, I’ve exhausted my map.  No village that I could find anywhere in its borders.  Disappointed, I start heading back home, across the forest, through the huge swamp, and over a very nice plain.  I take a look at my map to make sure I’m walking the correct bearing, when all of a sudden, I fall.

Turns out that plain had a few ravines cutting through it.  Big ravines.  My insides are squashed out by gravity and, in my last moments, I see my two maps, clock, a good amount of iron, some gold, and all of my tools scatter across the ground.

Horrified, I respawn all the way back home.  Now mapless, I have no idea how I’ll get back to my body to get all my valuables back.  All I had left in my base was a half-used stone pickaxe.  Trusting in the map I had somewhat memorized in my head, I immediately run in the direction I think my stuff might be.

It’s four days of wandering before things start looking somewhat familiar.  There’s the forest that I crossed through.  And the edge of that desert.  And there’s a bunch of pigs here.  I think that’s near the plain.  Lo and behold, I came across the very same plain that I traipsed across before.  Before long, I found the ravine, all of my belongings still at the bottom. 

Very carefully, I mined my way to the bottom of the ravine, accidentally hurting myself in the last little jump.  But everything was there.  Now, to get back up…

The Minecraft Chronicles, pt 1.

I've been playing more Minecraft lately.  Maybe you've noticed.

So I'm combining a couple of blog-tested ideas for a few posts.  Since gamers should be artists and I love telling stories and stories have characters, my Minecraft Chronicles shall center on my desire to find a village.  And you're going to hear about it!

The more I work hard to find that village, the more interesting things will be, right? 

Here's hoping.  For you guys' sake.

Maslow and Minecraft.

Vicodin is still running through my system, so forgive me if this is less interesting than normal. 

Minecraft 1.0 came out this weekend.  I guess that’s a pretty big deal.  I’ve been playing it off and on for a few months now.  I bought it with the big Adventure update a few versions back, anxious to find a town.  There, I would build a castle and I, as the benevolent king, would protect the town from the nasties that would seek to destroy it in the darkness of night. 

My first few in-game days were not so hot.  I couldn’t find coal for about five in-game days, so I was stuck digging in the dark.  When I finally got my feet under me and found a cavern to base my explorations out of, I ended up having to start from scratch when I died by lava a few times.  (I finally figured out to leave a couple of basic necessities in my home base…)  After that, I couldn’t seem to find any iron deposits for the life of me.  It seemed like most of my shafts ended up finding either a) redstone or b) absolutely nothing.  It was mildly frustrating. 

And yet, I’ve been able to eek out a living on this strange world.  In my early explorations, it seemed as though I was on an island in the middle of a vast ocean.  I told myself that couldn’t be.  Maybe I just hadn’t found the right corner that connected me to another big hunk of land.  Surely, there was a town just over that ridge where I could set up a more permanent base.  Eventually, I discovered that you can build maps, and so my explorations began in earnest.  Guess what?  I was on an island in the middle of a vast ocean.  Only the furthest edges of my map bore anything other than blue. 

Since that terrible discovery, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do.  My whole point in playing this game was to find a town.  What now?  I guess I should go find one, right?

It’s more difficult than it sounds, though.  The nearest continent is about a game-day away – and that’s with a shortcut created by some powered minecarts.  It takes an enormous amount of resources for me to get off my island, let alone set up shop at a new location. 

My whole situation has reminded me of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Almost the entire game so far, I’ve been stuck on the physiological and safety needs.  I barely have enough food to keep my health up.  If I’m not careful, nighttime is still a very scary time for me.  My little hovel has been nearly blown to smithereens by creepers four of five times now.  How can I expect to be able to explore and create if I’m still trying to survive? 

Hopefully someday I’ll find that rich source of iron that will allow me to experiment with minecart tricks.  Maybe I’ll find a huge trove of diamond or a magical, flying pony or something.  But until then, I’ll just keep working, trying to find that village out there.