Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Minecraft Makes Little Girls Cry.


I've been playing Minecraft a lot lately (when I'm not porting our newest game to Windows and iPad), and I will have several things to write about this truly fascinating game. For example, my nine year old daughter is addicted to it, and I thought her first experience with it was telling.

Here is a brief summary of my daughter's initial Minecraft session:

Starts game at spawn point.

Walks a long way from spawn point.

Builds most of a house.

Tries to make the roof of the house by placing a block of sand directly above her.

The block of sand falls onto her.

She suffocates.

She respawns at the start point.

She can't figure out where her house is.

She cries.

So what have we learned? First, that Minecraft is truly an educational game, punishing lack of foresight with an almost Eve-like intensity. It has much to teach about planning and forethought, and it delivers its lessons in the most painful way possible. Nothing educational can have value without the possibility of crushing failure.

Second, this would be a great bit of ad copy:

Minecraft - It makes little girls cry.

Third, after she went to bed, I logged in and spent a minute finding her house again. This made me a hero with a ludicrously small amount of effort. That justifies the twenty bucks spent on the game right there.

More to follow, once I figure out how to make a cake.

50 comments:

  1. Once she leaves Peaceful mode you'll probably have to change that to "Minecraft - It makes little girls curse like sailors. Seriously, fuck Creepers."

    Seriously, though, Minecraft is a great "gateway game" for non-gamers. Check out paulsoaresjr on youtube; it's fun for his whole family already.

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  2. When does she move on to Civilization V? ;-)

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  3. My 4-year-old lost his mine and underground garden, but fortunately just found a hilltop with a good view and started a new 'holiday house'.

    Don't know if we'll ever find the garden again.

    I'm no better. I was demoing the game to a friend, and managed to get completely lost for the best part of three hours.

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  4. I once lost my house so I had to build a 40 block tower made out of sand to find it.

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  5. I lost my house for an hour while hunting for sugar cane. I circumnavigated the entire island it was on, gave up, dug a mine deep enough to find redstone, and made a compass then and there.

    Also, the whole time, I felt very dumb.

    - Jeff Vogel

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  6. I built several buildings, a literal trail of learning, in Minecraft before accidentally dying and losing track of it.

    This was all before turning on monsters, which turned me on my head once again.

    Now I've downloaded a python script (Minecraft Overviewer - https://github.com/brownan/Minecraft-Overviewer) that renders me a custom Google Map of my Minecraft world, and have built a network of minecart tracks that lead to my various large buildings. I have very rarely become so very addicted to a game, even though it's a harsh mistress. :)

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  7. Here's my 8 yr old's experience.

    1) Build treehouse
    2) 11 yr old convinces her to build a lava lamp
    3) 8 yr old successfully builds lava lamp
    4) 8 yr old decides to expand house and removes the block below the lava block
    5) Treehouse and the rest of the forest burn down

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  10. That's really cool! I'm glad your daughter plays Minecraft. It's potentially addictive because the days ago by and I always find SOMETHING to do! I've never played a game quite like it. Having the ability to manipulate the ENTIRE WORLD is very unique, and it's whatever you want to make of it. It's such a good game!

    One she notices that the silt and sand flow like the real thing, she will not run into the same troubles. Despite having some "mining" experience under my belt, I play on Peaceful the majority of the time. I love to kill evil things, but being crept up on or peppered with arrows is so annoying.

    Good luck and happy gaming!!

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  13. A Similar event happened to my Daughter, we were building on a shared server ( no monsters ) night time came around and she lost track of her house. we had to sit together and wait as she sniffled and cried waiting for daylight and then we had to build a big tower so we could see if we could see it. She learnt a lesson about planning her houses near her spawn point and using torches to light its location. Thanks for bringing back a lovely memory

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  14. Don't let that bitch play Starcraft

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  15. Great theme, but comments are ruined by ad spammers. :(

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  16. My experience is that it makes *BIG* girls say that it's ugly as hell and they are not playing that under any circumstance. That was 3 out of 3 girls, and then I stopped asking.

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  17. i dont know why but no ever suggests leaving a trail of breadcrumb blocks from spawn. consider it.

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  18. My 3 year old girl loves Minecraft too. It doesn't usually make her cry, but sometimes we get complaints when her bigger brother is playing and she can't get a go :)

    I think it's awesome. It's exactly the kind of game I hoped somebody would make for my kids. I'm just glad it wasn't around when I was growing up because I'd have lost an eternity to it.

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  20. For the record for everyone who has spawn issues, build a house, punch some sheep for wool, and build a bed. (Make sure your house is well lit so monsters can't spawn in it at night) Sleeping in a bed resets your spawn point to the bed.

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