Monthly Archives: November 2016

View post →

I really, really like Minecraft.  To explain how much I like it, I have to tell you what computer games were like in the twentieth century, when I first started playing them.  Every game came with a medium-sized booklet.  You had to read this booklet from cover to cover before you could even think of playing the game.  Every game had six levels.  All of them were pretty much the same.  At the end of every level you had to blow up/beat up/zap-with-spine-melting-death-ray the End of Level Guardian – essentially a bigger, fatter version of the monsters you’d spent the last fifteen minutes destroying according to the ridiculously complicated instructions.  And then you finished, and that was that – you saved up for another game.

Imagine growing up on games like that, and then stumbling across your kids playing Minecraft in your late thirties.  There’s no levels!  No instruction booklet!  No End of Level Guardian!  You can just… do stuff!  Sure, if the stuff you like is attacking baddies, you can get on with that.  But you can also build a castle.  Or mine for diamonds.  Or set up a sheep farm and dye all the sheep pink.  It’s not like playing a game, it’s like being king of a huge park filled with an unlimited Lego set.  And no instructions.  And I love it.

View post →