2. Building Your First Minecraft Hovel - Minecraft
MojangMinecraft. How to explain Minecraft? In it's simplest terms, it is lego for children and adults. You can mine, punching away lego blocks of dirt and stone, and you can craft - creating tools, torches, furnaces and a home. But you know that, because Minecraft is the third best selling game of all time. It is a baffling world to enter, where trees do not fall when you punch out their roots, and there are strange creatures that hiss behind you and then you are dead. Left to start again with zero instructions. There is a sense, when first starting out in Minecraft, that the game is impossible, or broken, or unfinished. But then you get it... Something clicks, and suddenly you realise that you have grown, you have looked nature in the eye and nature backed down. You have conquered the wilds. You have a hovel! A simple wooden shack, often without a door but it is yours, and it is safe from the terrors of the night that haunt mankind. You progress, some coal and the realisation that you can mine it, suddenly a torch to light your home so you don't have to stand in the darkness - waiting and praying that you will survive to see the sun again. Then a sword, you can defend yourself. Some iron leads to some armour. You are not only surviving, you are flourishing! Then it is eight in the morning somehow, and you haven't slept or showered and you need to leave for work right now or you'll be late, but just one more block, just finish that stairway to the second floor of your hovel. Just replant some seeds in your garden and when you come home you will have food and can stop starving to death. Then you realise your wife is asking why you didn't go to work today, and you find out that it is Thursday, and not the Wednesday you thought. That is Mnecraft. It holds a special addictive nature. It has mastered the feeling of perseverance, leading to success, leading to a new discovery, leading to more success. This is a game that makes you feel fulfilled, and intelligent, and the survivor you always knew you were. It really is a game every single person should play, until they have the "click" moment where it all makes sense. There is a reason this game is third best selling of all time. We would love to tell you that reason, but we just have to go... place.... just a block... just a... back in a second... yeah... Minecraft... s'good.