Indie Game Quick Look - Minecraft *Ver. Alpha* for PC
By dandead 1 Comments
Game's Website where you can play the basic game for FREE! http://www.minecraft.net
Recently I have been playing some Minecraft on the PC though my web browser. Minecraft is an interesting game because it combines games like Blockland with those weird mining games that you see about every once in awhile. Before I start I must stress that Minecraft is in fact in "ALPHA" which means the game is nowhere near completion so there are bound to be bugs and other such craziness. With that said I am looking at the version that at the moment costs 9.99 EUROS but from what I have played so far it's a great distraction and a surprisingly addictive game.
When you first start of the game in single player (there is a multiplayer mode but I will get in to that later!) you are dumped in to a randomly generated world which stretches on for a long as your computer has hard drive. The main objective is to survive but ultimate it's a free form open world adventure where the player can do what ever they want from building massive structures to exploring massive caves and defeating monsters with weapons you crafted yourself.
Unlike a lot of building games you don't start off with anything. You have to scour the land and grab resources from the land in any way you see if. It's entirely possible to punch (yes PUNCH!) down a tree and use the wood to make planks which in turn you can use to build structures or tools for your character to use like crafting stations (which allow you to build bigger things), mining and farming tools, touches to light up dark areas and so on. If you combine more than one resources at a crafting station you can create a while slew of different things hence the name of the game. Check out the Minecraft Wiki for more details as the game has a crazy amount of stuff you can build allowing the player to create a whole bunch a crazy contraptions.
While the game has a very leisurely pace during the day in the evening is where the monster come out. From experience what I generaly tend to do on my first day in Minecraft is build a makeshift shelter quickly so I have somewhere to hide out during night time so the monsters don't sneak up and kill me before I have any time to react. This is what I consider to be on the few disappointing bits of the game. At the begging of the game there is some massive down time at night time if you can't find coal to go with your wood to make torches because you can't see anything and the day/night cycle is realistic enough that you have to wait for some time for sun to light the world again making the world to be safe from the monster menace once more, it also helps that you can see what you are building too.
So yeah providing you can put up with the long down times at the begging you can get a lot of enjoyment from this game. And while it's pretty fun to play this game on your own the game is even more fun to play with friends. I found while playing with some friends on a private server that the game becomes much more fun to play and yes playing on a private server is a very important note because this game does suffer from griefers which can potently ruin anyone's fun of this game since they will just destroy your creations or just do their best to annoy you. With friends though you can get a lot more stuff done much quicker. Me and my friends made a massive sand castle, complete with a moat when we last played so if you have friends or like minded people that are willing to play with you then Minecraft will excel in co-operative larks.
Overall I would strongly suggest checking out the demo of Minecraft as it's a fun and relaxing game, a nice game to chill out too while listening to the Bombcast for example. I can't say at the moment how far the developer intends to take this game but from what I have played so fair it's worth the 9.99 Euro's I paid for the game and it's only looking to get better as the developer puts more time and effort in to the game so for an Alpha product consider me very impressed!