My housemate showed me Minecraft the other day.
I watched some gameplay on youtube, then experimented myself with the web-based version. The most striking thing about Minecraft is both it's similarity and inferiority to LOVE, the MMO made by a man called Eskil Steenberg. The key factors to the success of Minecraft seem to be it's adaptability and it's accessibility. Namely:- It's free (the Classic version is, anyway)
- it has the potential for amazing player created content and
- it's easy (EDIT: Easier) to play and share that content with your friends.
LOVE is none of those things.
Complicated, convoluted, awkward and occasionally downright crippled. But LOVE demonstrates an ongoing patchwork production that pushes and probes it's own capabilities within a virtual environment, continually growing and changing of it's own algorithmic accord. There is an evolution to LOVE that demonstrates both reflection and ingenuity of both social and mechanical consequence. Having spent time with LOVE I can't help but feel Minecraft is a poor substitute. If anything, the success of Minecraft makes me disappointed that Eskil was shortsighted enough with his design choices to prevent his own success - obscuring his own game and allowing it to be beaten at the post by a free, simplified competitor.Maybe i'm being too shallow here. The concept of competitiveness does not immediately spring to mind when playing LOVE so I should probably refrain from applying it as a critical device. Perhaps that's the charm of LOVE in itself. It remains untouched by the hordes of farmville players, the plagues of transformice and minecraft crusaders that could unwittingly overwhelm it's temperamental and fragile design. LOVE does not need the mainstream, nor does it deserve it. Perhaps levels of narcissism should be tolerated to prevent the casual from becoming casualties.
Fuck, I need to start playing that game again.
I'm excited for the new Atlus game, Catherine.
It's an abstract kind of excitement. There is currently no outward indication of it's existence, it is merely an underlying understanding that excitement is taking place, somewhere, as a constant state. This will continue until further notice. Or until the damn game gets released.
Thanks For Reading
Love Sweep
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