Hey everyone,
I'm sure a lot of you have heard about this game called Minecraft, and may or may not have cared enough to find out what it's all about. Minecraft is a game where you mine resources, and use them to craft things. There are no objectives, no quests, or anything else to direct your activity aside from your own whim. When I first started to hear about the game, I couldn't have been less interested. I felt like without any clear reason behind what you're doing, there was no reason to be doing it in the first place. How wrong I was...
Make custom skins simply by editing the png texture and uploading it to minecraft.net
This game is a near-perfect implementation of emergent gameplay. You're left to decide what to do next: "I'm going to build a house" turns into "I'm going to dig a mine next to my house and find some iron" turns into "I just fell into a naturally existing cave system, I should build/place some torches and check this place out". The best analogy I can make is that it's like playing with digital legos, with an entire world constructed out of blocks that can be mined/collected/placed wherever you'd like. The crafting system allows you to arrange these resources into different combinations to create tools, decorations, and other items to help make the world your own.
So I definitely sound like a salesman right now, but that's the reason why this game has been coming up more and more recently - it sounds mediocre until you hop into the world, punch your first tree for some wood and build a pickaxe. At that point you're either hooked or you're not... but most likely you are.
My tower of fun... all this and more can be yours if you become addicted to Minecraft!
Anyway, here's a thread for people to post stuff they've done in the game, or to hook up to get some multiplayer games going. If you have the full client ($13 one-time, free updates for life!) send me a PM and I'll respond with the boston8bit.com server details. Cheers!