Game Atoms - Minecraft

Hello again internet folks, I realized in my Terraria blog that I mentioned this game quite a bit, and I just assumed you were aware of the giant. I am infatuated with this game so much; that I always assume everyone has heard about it and have some sort of opinion around it. Almost everyone has, but I’ll assume otherwise while writing this Dekonstruct piece. Basically I’m going to cut it down into its primary aspects and show you the cored of the game. There have been so many rip-offs of Mojangs: Minecraft that I feel everyone has been trying to Dekonstruct it recently.

Though that phase seems to be passing through; let’s see if I can give the stragglers some help.

It’s to be noted I’ll be discussing PC Survival Minecraft up to 1.7.2, and not the console or Xbox versions.

Players

The player in this wonderfully cubed world is a relatively faceless character.  Though when damaged he produces relatively male sounds, he can be interpreted however the user wishes to. This is excellent to draw out the players feel that they’re in the environment, causing immersion.

The game is played in first person, which also helps the player character be perceived as genderless.

However all this in mind, you are able to alter the texture of your character, allowing you to imprint whatever image you care to. Though this feature appears simple, and indeed it is, it gives such a representation of self I’d note it as required to the game style.

What the play can do is defined by the item in their hand. They have a nine-slot action bar where they can place tools, building blocks, or items. In their inventory there are head, chest, leg and feet armour slots, along with a four by nine backpack to keep further supplies.  The player needs to mine resources and craft tools to progress anywhere within the game.

Objectives

To define objective is difficult in a game like Minecraft, as there isn’t a story. The physical objects exist only in their achievement system, which you can only do and get sequentially.  This gives the illusion of a vague quest-line, as the achievements range through all of the features you can do in the game. Though to complete all these could take two to three hours with a little rush, I stress that they are the just the skin that this game has to offer.

Exploration is what you as a player will be doing the majority of your time. As the game world is algorithmically generated, you will never see the same randomly-generated world twice. Though the world itself has what most would consider a childish graphics, this doesn’t take away to some of the beauty you can see while exploring the world.

Not only would you explore for enjoyment, you need to explore to gather resources to build a house on that o’so pretty mountain you just found.

To do so, you need to explore the cave systems. These systems contain monsters, dungeons, underground ravines, abandoned mineshafts, and mysterious strong holds. The underground is far more dangerous than the surface.

Besides the achievement system and the pure exploration objectives, I’d argue the important objectives in this game is what you the user set out for. This is why people don’t like this game. Due to the lack of objectives set out by Mojang, you have to substitute “Alright, now I’m going to mine a bunch of stone to make a house” As a meaningful objective.  Though a few people don’t enjoy this, you can figuratively create anything you can design within the game space, allowing for high amount of creativity.

Rules

There are a few key rules within the game, yet most of them are due to technology restriction. Mojang tries not to impede too many rules to let the open world, “I can do anything” feeling runs rampant.  One of the more clear rules is the building height limit of 256 units, restricting the user’s creations.  Technically the width and length units are also limited, though generation will run infinitely if you can walk that far.

Resources

Resources is almost the name of the game in Survival Minecraft, and thusly they are plentiful and figuratively without number. There are a large range of blocks to build with, each with a unique method of acquiring and function. There are tools and materials to collect that essentially allow the further acquisition of more blocks and materials.

There are four RPG-esk player-exclusive resources that they should keep tabs on:

Health – represented by 10 hearts consisting of 20 units.  Health, as in most games, keeps you alive. It can be taken away from you via falling, suffocating, and being dealt damage by enemy players or enemy NPCs. It is regenerated by having high enough hunger to passively regenerate it, or by the creation of curatives.

Hunger –represented by 10 haunches of meat consisting of 20 units. Hunger is a constant depleting resource that is used when the player is moving, jumping, attacking, getting hit, or regenerating health. Depending on the amount of hunger you have allows you to do certain things: 16 units and above allows you to regenerate health, 6 units above allow you to sprint, and 0 units causing you to slowly take damage. The amount of damage you take from starving depending on the difficulty

Armour – represented by 10 gray tunics consisting of 20 units (You can see a pattern). Armour is a static that totals the amount of defence your equipped armour. Your armour mitigates damage you take, and can be enchanted for other benefits

Experience – this is not shown to you in a unit of 10 and 20, but is represented by an experience bar. You acquire experience through a variety of different exploration means, and the levels can be spent on enchanting your armour and tools.

Game State

The game state is represented by 16x16x256 width x length x height connected chunks. These chunks are what gets procedurally generated upon exploration, and follows an algorithm with the definer being a world “seed”. These chunks and all of the player’s alterations are saved, as well as the player’s inventory themselves.

Information

Total – The achievements they can do next, their inventory, and the world they see before them. There isn’t much total information the player has, as even how to craft things aren’t shown to you in game.

Privileged – the player has privileged information over the locked achievements, as they are grayed out to be seen, but not shown what they are.

Hidden – Almost everything in this game is hidden information. None of the crafting recipes are given to the player, and all have to be memorized or by using an external wiki. How to get specific resources is also hidden, as they are found through exploration.

Player Interaction

Player interaction can vary. In survival multiplayer, you can build and collect resources together, allowing a faster progression to personal goals. Or you can VS each other in combat for one-another’s loot.

A third option which is common amongst public servers is “griefing” which is to harm or annoy other players without their consent. This ranges from stealing their chests filled with resources, or by burning down their house.

Theme

The theme of the game is more personally interpret however as I see it, it’s a game about building and exploring your own imagination while trying to stay alive.

Final Thoughts

I know I say this about almost every game I talk about, but this seriously is one of my all-time favourite games. I have built so many structures, slain so many creepers, and mined so much cobble I don’t know how I have time to play all the other magnificent games out there.

And I still plan to dig one more block.

Until next time,

Jordon