Minecraft
Jesse and I have been playing the still-in-alpha sandbox/building game Minecraft lately. Minecraft is incredibly addictive. I love it because it’s a bootstrapping game. By that I mean you start with the bare basics (your fists and some trees) and from them create something that can then be used to create something better, which in turn can be used to create something still better, etc. It’s like the three-age system compressed down into a survival/building game. The other part of it that’s addicting is that you’re free to build almost anything you can imagine, and I’ve seen some amazing creations.
UPDATE: Our latest creation (Jesse, B, and I).
Jesse and I have been dedicating all of our spare time to it, and recently got Matty B. doing the same. We both started playing single player but after a while wanted some company, so we took the logical step–multiplayer. There’s a major problem with multiplayer in Minecraft however, besides alpha software bugs, and that problem is griefers. Griefers are A-hole sociopaths that derive pleasure from harassing other players, or in the case of Minecraft, demolishing other players’ painstakingly build creations on public servers. We tried creating a cool cave underground and hiding the entrance, but that eventually got discovered, and really who wants to live in fear of someone ruining their hours of work? We decided to just start our own server and prevent anyone else from editing on it except people we know and trust. If you’re someone I know well and want to use our server you’re very welcome, the map is infinitely big (okay, not mathematically so, but it’s as good as) so as long as you don’t harm our creations and agree with our rules, we love the company. I’ll just have to give you build permissions, and you’ll need the full Alpha (paid) version of the game since we run an alpha server.
Something funny happened on Reddit 3 days ago. In this posttalks about how, since Gabe from Penny Arcade has recently started playing Minecraft, we’ll soon see a comic about it. Also, the comments mention that this isn’t good because the influx of new users will surely take down the Minecraft web server.
Lo and behold, the next day we indeed get a Minecraft comic (he’s going to make a huge wang, isn’t he?), and shortly thereafter, the server died:
This is a temporary page.
Minecraft got way too popular for this humble server. I’ve had to disable everything fancy to even get it to run. It went down on Saturday, September 18.
It will probably go back to normal on Monday, September 20.
I’m glad Minecraft is getting so popular, and I don’t mind the downtime, since it means the game will only get much better due to having more players/revenue. It really is a fantastic game, and the retro graphics give it a great nostalgic vibe. If you want better graphics, check out the painterly pack.
If you want to know more about game-play in Minecraft, go here and scroll down to the bottom to “Day 1″. It’s hilarious and gives you a great insight into what the game is like. Also, Minecraft is currently free to play while the server is being updated (it’s up now so you can download, but he’s working on improving it), so go give it a try!
Jesse, and 
B are discussing. 
Luke is discussing. 
Bloggy, 
Ginnie Chung and one other person are discussing. 
B 9:54 pm on 7/9/2007 Permalink
oh thats just awesome
man that game is gonna freak me out
like that video where they get overwhelmed cuz they damn fast and there are so many
i think you are right and they should allow more people to play in the game, even if they only allow 4 survivors it would be nice to allow as many infected as they can then
i emailed them and told them that haha
B 9:59 pm on 7/9/2007 Permalink
this work? grarararararar
euicho 2:51 pm on 7/10/2007 Permalink
Yeah it looks pretty intense! Lol is the posting function doing weird stuff? I upgraded wordpress so it may have a few bugs.
Jesse 11:28 pm on 7/11/2007 Permalink
I’ve been watching this game for awhile, looks good. It releasing for 360 and PC at the same time so it should be fun for all.
euicho 11:36 am on 7/18/2007 Permalink
Why was I not made aware of this sooner Jesse? I really love zombie survival games, though Stubbs the Zombie was a fun twist on the Zombie genre.