As we continue through the top 5 of our countdown, we come to the game that we posted more about than any other game in the past year. Unquestionably the biggest indie hit of 2010, and it spent the majority of that year in alpha. This is Minecraft…
Matt:
We like Minecraft a lot. After spending countless hours in the free creative mode building up a world full of skyscrapers, hedge mazes and lava monsters, we knew this game had serious potential. With the promise of free updates forever, Paul and I purchased the game and discovered the real game – survival multiplayer. We got so into it that we went and started renting our own server from Multiplay, which allows you to store a permanent world for you and up to 8 friends to join simultaneously and start to build your own little empire in an infinitely huge world map.
As the name suggests, your main objectives in the game is to mine for materials, then craft things with them. Such a simple premise makes the game easily accessible to anyone, and the charmingly simple art style has become iconic across the gaming world already. After a few months of exploring, building and mining, we have developed networks of tunnels with mine carts and storage boxes, along with armouries full of weapons and valuable gold. Sometimes we hunt spiders for their silk (used to make bow’s), other times we sail out to sea in little row boats in the hope of discovering new lands to explore, and sometimes we spend hours carrying buckets of lava up from the depths to dump in the sea in a carefully constructed container, hoping to make a portal to HELL. Sadly, this didn’t work…
To date, the game has sold nearly a million copies, something even big game publishers dream of. The fact the game was mostly created by a single man is incredible. Markus “Notch” Persson has formed his own new company and hired several employees after the success of Minecraft, and I hope they continue to grow and truly can’t wait to see what Notch comes up with next. But for now, I have an empire of my own to build…
Paul:
A short, blocky man wakes up in the middle of nowhere, with no signs of civilized life, no tools or weapons, and nowhere to go. The man, sensing danger may be around every corner and over every hill, decides he needs to build things, lots of things, infinite amounts of things, on the infinite amount of land that disappears into the horizon of every direction. Where will he go? What will he build? How will he survive? Well, first of all, he will punch a tree to bits (with his bare hands), craft the wood, and make some wooden tools. Then he will dig some rock with his wooden tools, craft the rock, and make some stone tools. Then he will dig deep into the deadliest depths of the nearest cave to find iron ore, craft the iron ore, and make some iron tools, all the while keeping his eyes peeled for the monsters that lurk deep within. But the caves are by no means a place to stay safe. The block headed man needs a home, a base, to shelter him from the harshness of the wilds and the darkness of the tunnels below, from zombies, skeletons, giant spiders, and the deadliest of all.. the fabled Creeper; one wrong move around this monstrosity of a creation, and our hero can kiss his home goodbye, after which he can likely kiss his own arse goodbye, too. With water, lava, gold and diamond, pigs, cows and ducks, there’s just so much to do and so much to see, blocky simply needs to reach for the sky. Building blocks higher, higher and higher, to build a lava tower, or perhaps a waterfall, maybe a sky scraping roller-coaster, or how about a suicide jump into the sea. The higher he goes, the safer he is from the monsters, but the lower he goes, the deeper and darker into the caves he gets, the more riches and spoils of combat there are to be found. But the best thing of all? Blockheads friends can all join him, and together they can explore the infinite lands of Minecraft.
Minecraft is awesome.