Minecraft: Introducing

If you haven't heard about it yet, there is this awesome indie game called Minecraft.

It seems to be sneaking up on the population and references to it are popping up everywhere.

Its grasp has drawn me in.  The premise of the game is...well there really isn't one.  You spawn in a generated blocky world that you are expected to survive in and build upon.

Yes, that fleshy coloured block is my hand.

At first the game is just about survival and discovery.  While my first day was bright and full of happy cows and frolicking pigs, the following night was grimmer.  Without giving too much away, I was fortunate to discovery how to put together a sword from some of the stone I harvested and craft a leather helmet from the cow I layed some smack on earlier.  Figuring out how to craft various items on my own was fun for a day or two, but I eventually started to just look up recipes online to move onto the more enticing aspect of the game - construction!

Once I had some basic survival equipment down, I started toying with the construction elements of the game.  I first built a two room cave to store all my materials and safely craft recipes without worrying about the dangers that lurk in the darkness.  Afterwards, I added aesthetic (and defensive!) touches to the entrance.

After toying around with the basic digging and construction aspects, I decided it was time for a big project.  I am now working on a Hanging Gardens-esque pyramid.  First, however, I have to mine enough material to build it.  That is a task in itself.  I'm working on obtaining stone currently, but I'll need to start getting plenty of sand too.

Current mining operation.

I've layed out the base layer for the gardens, so hopefully my math was correct, as it will be a bit of a pain to correct it after this.

If this game interests you, now is the time to check it out.  For the next couple of days (maybe less), it is free!  My guess is that the reference to Minecraft in Penny Arcade is the cause of the flood that made the game free this past weekend.  Penny Arcade has brought down servers (by accident of course) in the past.

I am also planning on putting up a Minecraft multiplayer server.  I'll post a link when it is up and running.