Adventures in Minecraft
stargrace 
In a gaming age where everyone wants the best and most amazing graphics it came as a huge personal surprise to me when I fell in love with Minecraft. It captured my heart more then any other game I’ve played lately, and I stayed up far too late holed up in my cave, avoiding zombies (and those Creepers.. damn those creepers). For those who may not be familiar with this title at all:
Minecraft is a sandbox game which allows players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. It is currently in development by Markus Persson, aka “Notch”. The gameplay is inspired by Dwarf Fortress, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Dungeon Keeper, and especially Infiniminer.[1][2] The game has two variants, Alpha and Classic, both with single- and multiplayer options. Classic includes only the building aspects of the game with unlimited blocks, while Alpha includes monsters and a much greater variety of crafting available, as well as requiring players to mine their own blocks. Alpha is currently the latest release of Minecraft, and will move into beta sometime in September 2010. Minecraft was developed for about a week before its public release on May 16, 2009 on the TIGSource forums, where it gained a considerable level of popularity. It has been continually updated since then. (-Wiki)
I first heard about the game on twitter, and then in more depth from Ark and his amazing videos. Very worth checking out if you’re skeptical about this game. I’ve been playing on survival mode, and spent far too many hours in game already. You’re basically dumped out in a world in the middle of no where, with no tools. You have a certain amount of time to get yourself situated before nightfall. At night – THEY – come. Zombies, skeletons, creepers, spiders. Where ever there is no light, THEY will come. THEY hurt. Badly. I spent a few attempts trying to get a world that I enjoyed. The first few had too much water for my liking. Eventually I found a good fit. I dug myself a little hole as quickly as I could – and could not find any coal. No coal means no torches means no light means ZOMBIES at night.
I spent my first night shaking in my little tiny cave with no door, I left one square open so I could tell when it was daylight. I heard all of THEM outside, groaning and drooling and scraping the walls of my tiny little enclosure. When the sun came up I tentatively stepped outside only to have a creeper (which does not vanish with the sun unlike skeletons and zombies) drop onto my head and blow the walls of my little cave into bits.
Ouch.
I managed to find my way back to my home (it helps that my spawn point is not too far away and it’s at the top of the largest mountain around) and this time spent the day searching for coal. Rewarded – I realized I had no tools to HARVEST this coal. Dang it! Back to the cave because it was starting to get dark out.
Eventually I got the cave set up the way I wanted. I created some paintings, some storage chests. I have a lot of supplies stashed away for when I lose what I’ve found. I’ve spent more time customizing my cave then anything else right now – but that’s how I like to play. I’ve created a pen and fenced in farm animals from outside, sheep for wool and pigs for bacon. Cows which I can apparently milk, if I had a bucket. Exploring has been done steadily but slowly, being secondary for me to the creating aspect of the game. I love how creative I can be.
If you haven’t checked out the game yet, I highly recommend it. Of course if you’re completely hung up on graphics you may not enjoy this game at all but personally this is one sandbox I’m glad I dove into.