Bad news. The game crashed, and it deleted a quarter of my beloved castle.

Good news! I rebuilt most of it.

Bad news. There’s a section of moat which I can’t ever rebuild; every time I try, I reload the game and it’s gone.

Good news! Fuck moats.

One wall, at night

It’s a wall, with a rollercoaster track along the top. Woo!

The twins

La Cuntina and La Cockita, as seen from the top of my castle, at night. Fuck me, these photos be thrilling!

The Grand Tour

This is the sign at the start of the rollercoaster which starts at the top of the castle and goes along the walls. It’s not too bad, but all the dips in the wall make motion sickness a possibility. I like it.

Gone but not forgotten

This is the section of moat and land which can’t be remade. Stupid game crashing. Ah well.

Express elevator to Hell

This is the actual rollercoaster to the walls. It’s a bit nippy.

A room with a view!

This is one of the floors of the castle. Don’t know which one, they all look the same really. Stairs to the floor above on the left, and behind the stone wall in the centre is a massive ladder running through all the floors.

Battlements

This is another floor. Tried for a traditional castle wall thing with holes for shooting arrows from. Looks a bit shit. Ah well. Onwards!

Randy fuckers

The area in front of the shed, which is still spawning animals like mad. They must be rutting constantly. Dirty fuckers.

A motherfucking shed!

Yep, it actually is a motherfucking shed. It’s where I make things. And then kill all them animals with them things what I did made.

Woody's!

Woody’s! It’s where the trees live. I’ve upgraded this room, there’s two trees in here now. One of them is a bit of a short arse, the other one threatens to engulf the whole castle if I don’t chop the bastard down every now and again.

Next floor - DOOM

The mines of DOOM. I thought it would be really clever to have an entrance to the mines from within the castle walls. Then I thought it would be fun to switch the baddies back on, now that the castle is finished and all that. Walked down the stairs and a creeper blew the fuck out of this entrance. Amendments have been made. Zombies and creepers and them jumping fuck spiders can fuck right off. GET OUT OF MY CASTLE YOU BASEMENT-DWELLING CUNTS.

Castle Greyskull

Castle Greyskull! Even though it looks fuck all like a skull! This fact is rendered irrelevant in the face of my boundless enthusiasm for this motherfucking castle what I did made! Note the frozen piss popsicle sword in the bottom right corner what my character is carrying.

Corners!

The castle as seen from a corner somewhere. On the bottom left of the shot is the stupid fucking broken bastard moat bastard. Fuck it, imperfections add character. This ugly fuck of a castle has character. OFFICIAL.

Yet more castle

You know you love it. Look at the fucking thing. It is awesome. Made of win and genius. Castle Wolfenstein can fuck right off.

Ace in the Hole

What’s this? Why, would it be a secret entrance into the mines? That leads directly into my castle? Which will probably bite me in the arse at some point (or let things in which will bite me in the arse)? I think so! Still, it is a secret entrance. Quite well hidden.

Ahem

….apart from the fucking big stone column with torches on it which indicates exactly where it is. Look, at some point I’m gonna do something retarded and fall out the castle when it’s dark and things will try to kill me. It’s almost certain, because I’m stupid. When this happens, I’ll be glad there’s a brightly lit and well advertised secret tunnel into the mines (currently infested with all sorts of nasties) that will let me get back into the castle (and also let the nasties in too). It’s a foolproof plan that takes into account my stupidity in advance. This will work.

Yep, Easy it is

Speaking of which, let’s switch them zombie fucks back on (Easy difficulty, of course – anything higher and I’d die quicker than Vanessa Feltz’s willpower if she woke up trapped in a Cadbury’s warehouse) (for the record, “Cadbury’s warehouse” wasn’t meant as a euphemism, although it probably should be one by now).

Brave? Fuck no!

Do I dare go in there? Do I fuck. Save and Quit, cheers. Until next time!

Tags: Minecraft, PC

Minecraft (the paid-for, survival, proper game version) has several borrowed mechanisms at its core. There’s the resource gathering and management, which is in every game ever (although the implementation is probably closest to RTS games like Command & Conquer, Dune II, Warcraft 1 & 2 etc). Construction is taken from Lego (I’m sure there’s other games that let you build in this way, but I can’t think of any that I know). Crafting items is taken from RPGs from way back when to MMORPGS like WoW. There’s first person melee combat, and shooting with a bow and arrow, which a billion FPS games do. The day and night cycle has an element of RTS as well – prepare for attack in the day, fight the zombies at night. There’s the RPG staples of exploration; both for the overworld and the dungeons. There’s even an element of platforming when making huge structures, or navigating some of the trickier tunnels.

The “greater than the sum of its parts” cliche is usually trotted out right about now, but I don’t necessarily agree. There’s some games which are awesome purely because they do mix genres. Games like Bishi Bashi Special, a PS1 compendium of minigames with mental themes. Bishi Bashi Special was a classic because it added character; the graphics and sound effects were utterly charming, and hugely enlivened the sometimes boring minigames. For a more recent example, Rayman Raving Rabbids and its sequel on the Wii pulled off the same trick; simple and tedious minigames with awesome characters and humour.

Minecraft isn’t good because it steals from the best (another cliche). It isn’t good because of the breadth of theft from other games. It does have a character of its own, but it’s not as flamboyant as Bishi Bashi Special or Rayman Raving Rabbids, or any other game where you remember the sight of a bodybuilder trying to jump a pogo stick up to a kebab over the gameplay. Minecraft is good because it blends the systems and concepts it has stolen so throroughly. They’re all tied to one another; resources can be turned into tools to gather more resources, or used to construct defensive buildings, which can then be made aesthetically pleasing by using other resources, but then you get the zombies, so you use resources to craft offensive items like swords and bows, but these things break over time, so you spend more resources making items that let you get more resources…. It’s rare that a game features so many integral systems and integrates them with each other with such finesse.

And the stunning thing about all this is that it is very, very simple. The interface is kept to a minimum. Other than the usual W, A, S, D and space keys, you use I to open your inventory. Right click to create, left click to destroy. That’s it. The onscreen HUD displays two things – your health and your item slots. The graphics look like they were made by a 5 year old using MS Paint 3D Edition. The sound is sparse; effects for the wildlife and zombies, and the occasional fade in and out of some lovely incidental music. (Another note on the sound effects – they play a pivotal role when you realise that there may be good things in the dungeons. You quickly switch from turning away at the sound of zombies to digging straight for them. One of the few games that I play without putting my MP3s on, and most of the time the game is silent, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.)

Yet another cliche – sometimes, less is more. If the game had “realistic” 3D graphics, it’d be boring. It’d be Populous recreated in Second Life; utterly charmless. If it had a full on combat system, with blocks and combos and headshots, it would betray the easy-going nature of the day time game. You’d just hole up all night and wait for morning. If it turned the construction into a Ramparts-like puzzle mode, or specified rules for construction (“dirt blocks have to be placed adjacent to a stone block” etc), then the stress would take the sheer fun away from the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want.

I was going to add one last cliche – “Minecraft is what it is”, but that wouldn’t be true either, because it’s still at the alpha stage. Things are still being added, and changed, and removed. It’s still growing and evolving, and yet it’s still got the same feel. Christ, Notch has added minecarts, AKA rollercoasters, and the game is still kinda spooky and semi-serious when nighttime falls and you have to defend your creation.

Ultimately, Minecraft is Marmite (last cliche, I promise). You either love it or you hate it. You either love the fact that it doesn’t hold your hand, and rise to the challenge, and then get stuck into creation, and love learning how to build things properly; or you hate it because you can’t work out how to get some wood, or you can’t make a pickaxe, or you keep cocking up your house, or THEM FUCKING BASTARD ZOMBIE CUNTS WILL DIE!

Get past the computer game tropes (get resources, upgrade them, destroy things) and you get to the gameplay of the more traditional variety – making things. You know, like you used to with Lego. Everyone loves Lego.

Tags: Minecraft, PC

I forgot to post this! Je suis une idiote.

http://www.minecraft.net/play.jsp?ip=87.254.83.149&port=25565

That be my server. It isn’t on all the time, but I’ll be on there when it is running. From now on. Woot!

This is also a reminder for me to see what Tom wrote in the water, cos he did amusing stuff last night and I haven’t seen it yet. Good work, Tom

Tags: Minecraft, PC

Last time round, I said I was going to show you the mining part.

One thing about Minecraft – just playing around in it gives you ideas on what to do next. I loaded it up with the intention of doing screenshots of the caves, but then I thought that my house was looking a bit tatty. So I spruced it up a bit.

La Cuntina (revised)

Note the glass roof and all the torches? My house is now officially bad ass. But! Why settle for one house when you can have two? Introducing La Cockita!

La Cockita

Bit smaller than the other house (I was aiming for some kind of amusing reference to genitalia size, but I’m now too tired to remember what I was gonna type). I’ve also added sand at the front so it all looks “pimp”.

You fucking knows it.

Ever wanted to see some cows next to one of my amazingly quick-growing trees? You’re in luck!

Cows, tree, house, and.....

Hold on! What’s that monstrosity in the background? It looks awfully like the beginnings of a fucking castle! (LOL it’s huge)

Approximately the size of one Xbox

The secret entrance is on the left, just underneath all the torches and the sign.

Secret entrance

Fucking creeper proof. I think. Well, kind of. Anyway, let’s go through the keyhole! (not like surgery, that’s different)

Yep, it's boring as fuck

The stone on the ground shows where the main inside walls are going to go. I’m intending to tier the floors as I build upwards, and make them go in a bit to make room for the rollercoaster which is going round the outside. Oh yeah, my castle has a rollercoaster! Well, it will eventually.

The shed

The area at the top of the screenshot is called the shed. It’s where I make stuff and store stuff. The grassy area at the bottom is there cos I can’t work out what to do with it yet.

Even more shed

Innit nice? All it needs is a portable TV, a PlayStation and a kettle, and I’ll never have to leave.

The Treehouse!

OK, so it’s not a proper treehouse, but it is a house with a tree in it. Wood on tap! Lovely jubbly.

Wood

See? Wood.

The mine!

The treehouse also conceals the entrance to the mine tunnels. I’ll never have to leave the castle again!

Fire, water and wood

OK, enough about that. Back outside and onto the outside castle walls. I’ve stuck torches all round the outside, and on the left you can see the rollercoaster tracks that go around the top of the walls. I’ve tested it as it is now and it’s shit. When the whole thing is done properly, this will be slightly more awesome. Oh, and see the water to the right of the torches? That’s my moat. Did I tell you I have a moat? I have a moat. With a boat.

Gazza has been looking for you

Look at that motherfucking moat! It was an absolute ballache doing the moat. The water bucket is mental. I had to fill it one block at a time in the end, so that there weren’t too many mental currents in the water. Boats are flimsy as fuck, and when they get wrecked they only give you half the materials back. Shouldn’t be too bad cos I’ve got wood in my house now, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.

See? Xbox sized

Here’s what the whole thing looks like up to now. Nowhere near finished, and I’m still trying to think of what to do with all the space. I’m thinking some kind of water feature will be required. A classy one. Maybe with some sand and stone in there, zen garden style.

Prince Adam can fuck right off

And what is this castle of awesome called, you probably didn’t ask? It would have to be known as Castle Greyskull. Cos it’s grey and it’s a castle and thinking about how to build this fucker has hurt my skull and its contents.

Shiny!

Darkness descends. Or appears. One of the two. Here’s a shot of the two houses in the dark. They be shiny, what with all the torches and glass.

Mooning

This is what the castle will look like to the zombies that will spawn at nighttime. And this is about as much as they’ll ever see of it, cos it is impenetrable. I think. I will find out!

DIE!

Remember that grassy bit in front of the shed? The bit I said I didn’t know what to do with? One of the side effects of having large patches of grass within your house-type area is that animals spawn there. I haven’t worked out exactly why yet, but for some reason the game doesn’t just spawn the occasional pig. Every morning, there’s a fucking menagerie inside my house. The chicken above spent two days being annoying as fuck in the entrance tunnel to the castle. After trying to sneak past the bastard for the twelfth time, it dawned on me that I can kill it. So I did. Then I slaughtered all the animals in my castle. Haha! Take that you furry fucks! Next morning? Even more animals, of all types. Fuck it. At least I got bacon on tap too. Fucking love bacon.

DIE AS WELL!

Cows. Bastards keep mooing all night. Hate them.

So there you go. I took these screenshots a couple of hours ago, and I’ve made tons of changes since then. The castle is actually starting to look like a proper castle now. It has two floors! Only one ceiling, but two floors! I’ll post new pics again soon if I can be arsed again. Thank you for reading.

Tags: Minecraft, PC

I was going to do a big thing on Minecraft, about how it’s definitely a game, but it also encourages creativity within the game space like nothing I’ve ever seen, and I was going to add all sorts of buzz words that I would make up to sound like I know what I’m talking about (did you notice the use of “game space” earlier? I have no fucking clue what that means, I cribbed it from Edge magazine I think). However, I’m not going to do that. It’s too boring. What I will do is show you what I’ve made up to now.

My house

This is my house. I made this. I dug up the stone for the frame over the top, I grew the trees that gave me the wood I used for the torches and the sign and the front door, and I gathered the sand which I turned into glass to make the windows.

La Cuntina

This is the sign outside my house. I’ve called it “La Cuntina”.

Front door

Here’s the front door. You can see the torches in my house through the windows.

Forest

Here’s the little foresty thing I’ve made next to my house. I plant the trees, they grow, and then I cut them fuckers down to get wood. And then I replant them so they’re all renewable and shit.

Frame

This is the big frame above my house. I made this so I could find my house from miles away. Eventually I’m going to make this much bigger so I can get a flaming cock and balls over the house. Won’t ever lose it again!

Cow ass

This is a cows ass. The cow is splashing in the water outside my house. For some reason, its back right hoof appears to be farting; note the water bubble.

Cow face

This is the front of the same cow. Pretty soon, I will kill it and take its skin to make armour with. Or lotion.

Sheep

This is a sheep. If you hit them, they drop wool. I don’t know what to do with wool yet. I have tons of it though, cos I like to hit sheep.

Sheep and pig

This is the same sheep mid-bounce, and a pig. Pigs drop pork chops, which you can cook and eat. I like pig.

Flowers

Flowers! I’ve got some, but I don’t know what they are for. I may be allergic to them. I’m keeping the fuck away from the polleny bastards.

Forest 2

Another shot of my forest. I’m so proud of it. When I went googling to find out how to make trees work, I read that you have to make sure they have lots of light, so I stuck torches next to them. It has since dawned on me that this may apply to trees being grown underground; the ones on the surface get sun every day. Fuck it, when do trees die from too much light? The torches stay.

Inside looking out

The view from inside my house. There’s stairs and everything. Trouble is, it’s always been kinda slapped together, and amended as and when I’ve needed more space. I really need to rebuild it properly and make it look proper awesome. And I want a beach right outside the front door. I will do this eventually.

Inside house

This is what is inside my house. On the far left is a furnace, which can smelt iron ore into iron bars, it can also smelt sand into glass, and it can smelt pork chops into cooked pork chops. I never clean it, so I’m probably eating glazed pork chops. Fuck it, pig be tasty! In the middle is my big chest of goodies, and on the right is my workbench for making stuff. Now you’ve seen some of the crafts, let’s look at the mines (before they terrify me again).

Jacobs Ladder

A ladder. Wherever can it lead?

Stairs

A staircase. Indiana Jones, if he was here, would be shitting a brick right about now. Into a lead-lined refridgerator, too.

Tunnel

A tunnel. I started to go down here to take some screenshots, but I heard the zombies moaning, and they can fuck me up good cos I’ve not got the hang of the combat yet. And, I’m a big pussy. So I run back upstairs to have a nosey round outside.

Sunshine

Sun is shining, weather is sweet yeah? Notice the wildlife messing about in the sea. The dumb bastards haven’t heard of the nutter with the stone block that kills all the animals yet. Why? COS I EAT ALL THE WITNESSES.

Sunset

Oh fuck. Sun is going down. Once this happens, the zombies and the spiders and the skeletons with bows and arrows come out and start fucking everything up. They be crazy! Best to get back indoors and laugh at the fools from the other side of the windows. NB: one of the enemies is called a creeper, and it looks like a rancid green cock and balls, and it has a smiley face, and it blows up next to you. This is awesome.

Dark house

Ah, it turns out I am a hero after all! I hang around to take a couple more screenshots. Here’s the front of the house when darkness is falling. Zombies don’t like light, so they tend to avoid the front of the house. And due to the massive torch-covered frame that goes right around the top of the house, they tend to avoid the whole thing altogether really. Every now and again, I sneak outside to make sure they’re not fucking with my trees (which are also lit by torches) just in case. I don’t want zombie wood.

Moon

I am de moon, de real moon! It’s the moon. And some stars. My bravery has officially run out, cos now I can hear the spiders and the zombies in the distance. Fuck this shit, I’m going back to the house for glass-glazed and iron-filing-coated pork chops.

Safe

Haha! Fuck you, zombie horde! I’m safely locked indoors, cooking some pig ass. Next time, I’m going to find some zombies and skeletons and spiders and rancid walking bollocks and take screenshots of them, just before they kill my ass. Fun!

Tags: Minecraft, PC