Yes, there’s already a current thread, but that one’s turning out to be more about gameplay mechanics and general strategies instead of your own personal stories about playing the game, which is what I want to share. So here, I’ll start one.
Got the game earlier this week; to say that I’m blown away is an understatement. Yeah, the graphics may look crappy but in essence that’s part of its je ne sais quoi, and undisputable proof that gameplay trumps pretty graphics every time. As they say, simplicity is everything.
First Game: Started on a nearly featureless plain, with lots of sand and dirt but with no visible mountains and virtually NO trees. Having read reviews & watching YouTube videos, I knew how critical it is to find wood & shelter immediately, so this was a Very Bad Thing. :rolleyes: I ran several miles in aimless direction, chopping down only 2 or 3 trees (there weren’t any more!) and it was nearly dark when I finally located a tiny mountainside cubby hole where I could build a dirt wall and wait out the night.
I can’t describe how creepy & terrifying that night was, cowering in darkness as zombies & spiders clawed at the walls of my hastily built fort. Did I mention already how much I love this game??
Dawn approached, and the monsters were still there, so I got bold and chose to attack them with my newly crafted stone sword. Oops. Killed the spider, but the zombie mercilessly pwn3d me. Game Over – Respawn? HELL no…
Second Game: Snow world. Instant reload (mainly to preserve my FPS, those snowflakes don’t help the lag!)
Third Game: Started in a deep sand pit with tall, natural walls and a small cave no more than five steps away. Can you say lucky?? Chopped a few trees, but mainly spent the scant daylight hours piling dirt on the walls to strengthen my fortifications. Holed up in the cave at night, but I swear I did not hear a single monster that night, or the several following nights. (Based on the many Let’s Plays I’ve watched, I’m incredibly fortunate to have my spawn point right on my doorstep – very lucky!)
Now, I knew the next step was to dig for coal (and iron, but that’s less necessary.) Without coal, you can’t make torches, the game’s only real light source. Well, I dug and dug but couldn’t find coal ANYWHERE – found some iron, and lots of sand of course, but NO coal. I was getting a little freaked out because my starting cave was getting large but I couldn’t dig too deep, for fear of monsters spawning in the darkness. My few ventures into daylight yielded nothing promising, either. I did discover that forges give off ample light while cooking, so my first 4-5 days were spent exploring & chopping wood in daylight, while I cooked sand into glass and kept digging in my cave all night long. Found more iron (LOTS of iron!) and even the entrance to a deep, natural cavern beneath my own cave (with ominous growls from the darkness below…)
You can’t imagine my relief when, on the fifth day, I finally struck coal. Not much, but enough to craft a few torches, so the nights were no longer spent in utter blackness. What a difference coal makes – now I could venture out at night, placing torches to light my way, keeping monsters at bay and easily dispatching the ones that attacked anyway. In fact, it was time at last to investigate that monster cave I’d sealed up several night ago…
Well, that’s the saga of how my first Minecraft experience began. How 'bout you?