Minecraft.

www.minecraft.net

This game was made by one guy.

It costs around fourteen bucks.

It has 8-bit graphics.

There is no story.

There are no quests.

There are no bosses.

There are no spells.

There are no skill points.

There is almost no music.

And I can't stop playing it.

Let me try to explain. Minecraft dumps you on the shore of a randomly-generated 8-bit 3D world made entirely of cubes. There are trees made of cubes, mountains made of cubes, sand, water, lava, grass, snow, and precious metals like iron, gold and diamond.

"It is morning, I can tell by the giant square sun low in the sky. I have nothing, no weapons, armor or tools, not even a tutorial. What am I supposed to do?

"Hmm, I know I would feel a lot better if I had a weapon. How do these games usually start? I seem to be able to dig up blocks of sand and dirt with my bare hands and keep them, lets try it on that tree.

"Ahh now that I have some wood, what do I do? There's a crafting pane! Putting the wood in makes wood planks! Making a pole shape with the planks makes a pole, or a handle. Putting the planks in a square shape makes a work bench! Hmm what if I use the pole as a handle and put the wood planks in a sword shape


"Bang! Wooden sword! What else can I make? It would be nice to get some better materials, wood is pretty weak. What about a pick axe shape?

"Pow! Pick axe! Now I can get some stone. Let's make a stone sword, how 'bout some stone armor! Stone pick axe seems to work much faster and last longer, I think I'm getting the hang of this.

"Ok it's starting to get dark, how am I going to see in this dark? I got some coal while picking the stone, ah I can make torches, good deal. What are those noises?"

Gurgling...

Moaning...

Whispering...

Footsteps...

"Oww an arrow wtf? A skeleton! AHH he is killing my ass! SWORD QUICK AHHH! Ok I'm dead... ugh I dropped all of my stuff and I'm back where I started, and it's still night!

Day 2

"Ok, after a night of repeatedly dying at the hands of zombies and skeletons I've learned a valuable lesson: if I'm going to survive, I need to get a shelter built pronto. I light my new house with torches, make a door, some glass windows using the stove I built and some sand and now I'm pretty well protected. Whew!

"During the day I find a cave. Let's follow this down, I'm going to need a lot of torches. It gets dark fast, I can hear monsters in the dark. Delving deep into the earth I come across precious metals, endless passageways, lava, and even a dungeon full of enemies and treasure! This world is huge! It's scary and full of discovery! I feel like a kid again! Like I'm in my fort keeping the monsters at bay!

"My shelter becomes a house. My house becomes a becomes a castle. I build an elaborate mine cart system. I have switches that control far away devices, huge traps that kill the monsters for me and collect their loot. I grow crops, decorate my citadel with bookshelves and colorful paintings, and craft diamond weapons to slay my enemies. I even build a magical gateway that takes me to a terrifying nexus world!



"How long have I been playing this?

There is no story.

There are no quests.

I am alone.

This is incredible."