Minecraft...

     If you haven't heard of Minecraft, you should.  It's a game that's stupidly simple to start, but so very complex at its root.  It takes me back to the days of playing with Legos scattered all over the damn floor.  With enough time and effort you can build whatever you like, but it really introduces a rare concept in video games: scarcity.  And not like, "you will run out of ammo if you can't find a guy with the same gun as you."  No, no.  If you want to build a 64 by 64 by 1 block wall, you need to go gather 4096 blocks.  Usually someone who tries it plays for a few minutes and gives up.  But then somewhere down the line they're reminded of it, and then it infests itself in their head.  "I'll give it another shot," they'll say.  But Minecraft is more than just a game.  It means something.  More after the jump.

     So it starts out like this... You're dropped in the middle of a randomly generated landscape with nothing on your person.  You are the only person on this infinite plane, and you have two objectives: build and survive.  "Survive?" you might say.  We'll get into that in a second.  Armed with only your fist, you must start collecting materials.  You have a few options, but punching trees will give you the all important wood you need.  Wood can be crafted to planks, planks into sticks, then into tools.  Tools are crucial, as they make gathering go faster, but also because you cannot collect some materials with low-grade tools. You build a cozy little shack out of some stone with some torches for light, and the sun goes down.

     Everything is engulfed in darkness.  All you can see in any direction is faint shadows of the surroundings you encountered in the light.  Then you hear the moaning.  You hear the hissing.  You hear the terrors that threaten your very existence.  You dodge one shadow after another, trying to make it back to your home.  "Surely I'll be safe in there," you muse.  But how can you be sure?  You finally make it to your home, and barricade the door as quickly as you can with whatever materials you have.  You've escaped, or so you thought.  You rest for a second, when you hear a loud hiss, and suddenly you're laying there, half dead, and there's a massive hole in the wall.  You try to gather as much material as you can to fix it while trying to figure out what in the hell just happened to you, and you fill every opening to the outside and wait.

     The hissing and moaning seems to be dissipating.  You break open a hole in a wall and gaze out.  You can see figures in the distance, bursting into flame before collapsing and fading from existence.  The daylight is your friend.  It protects you when you're not hiding yourself.  You've survived your first hellish night, and the game will never end.  You know what you must do to survive.  You must build.

Check it out here.