Minecraft's Magical Mashup: A Dazzling Dive into the D&D Dimension
Igniting Creativity and Adventure in the Ultimate Blocky Realm Fusion
Credit: Dungeons & Dragons DLC heading to Minecraft with 10-hour campaign by Matt Wales
Hi its me. Your local internet discourse soapbox person. When I’m not slinging caffein, or jumping on buildings you can find me comfortably perched in front of my computer monitor hunched over like an arthritic vulture.
Minecraft, for those of you who have heard its name uttered but have yet to gaze into the void, is a game… AHHH I’m trying my best to keep this brief. Minecraft is kind of a game but not really.
Games have long existed in human society as things surrounding competition like sports. Usually there is some way to win a game, and there is also a way to lose.
This was parroted by early arcade games which determined the value of your quarter by how long you could survive. As games evolved out of the arcade and started gaining influence more from movies, and simulations the need for specific “win” and “loss” scenarios slowly dissolved.
You probably remember (or don’t) arcade games having “lives”, early home console games also had “lives” but they were more vestigial. Since you own the game there really is no need to beat it in under an arbitrary number of lives. Eventually the idea of failing changed altogether.
This manifests in games like dark souls, where when you die you don’t lose, you are simply revived at your last bonfire with all the enemies respawned. The other side of the spectrum is a game like Minecraft which isn’t really about… anything.
Sure nowadays there is a “win” screen. For those of you again who are unfamiliar, in Minecraft circa ~2015 they added an update in which you kill a dragon and the credits roll. But that is far from the end of your experience.
As a matter of fact they even added content that you could only get to after you beat the game. So did you really beat it?
This “victory” screen served very little purpose in the games success, or players enjoyment of the game. Outside of, perhaps, giving speedrunners (people who attempt to complete a game as quickly as possible) a collective thing to do.
Minecraft is more about building, self expression, exploring, and colonizing. These are all the games greatest strengths. Its a simple enough concept that a child can hop onto the game’s easy mode and start expressing themselves within the simulation.
If you are looking for a more challenging experience you can also enable hostile monsters that require you to craft weapons and armor in order to defend yourself.
The unique thing about Minecraft is that the world the game takes place in is procedural (generated randomly based on a set of rules), so every house you make, every area you explore is going to be different in order to meet the needs of the current situation you are in.
Over the years the game has done a good job of attempting to add in additional complexity with different realms to explore, and increasingly more difficult gear to acquire without making the game itself that much more complicated.
Minecraft’s biggest strength, its lack of distinct objective, can also be seen as a weakness though.
The game suffers from a lack of direction that scares away all but the most creative players.
Sure… you could make the argument that since I started playing minecraft in the 7th grade and I am now 26 that it should be expected that there’s not much left for me to do in that game…………. GAH JUST HEAR ME OUT!
I am truly jealous of people who open minecraft and have some understanding of what they want to do. Like WaxFraud for example.
God I’m jealous of being able to do that. My issue with minecraft is that it’s overt fight against direction and complexity leaves me with the want to do none of it.
I do the same thing… EVERY TIME. I build a house, make a farm, then quit. The only immediate objectives the game gives you in survival are make shelter, and don’t starve. Once I’ve satisfied those I am totally lost.
Sure you can make a roller coaster, or build tons of other stuff. I have been playing this game since I was a child. I have built roller coasters, I have built computers in minecraft OK, I’ve built all the stuff I want to build already.
This is all starting to sound like a depressing metaphor for life…
WHICH IS WHY!!! (Nice segue) I’m very excited for the new Dungeons and Drag(queens)ons DLC for Minecraft. (Slay)
It’s got the infinite random world of Minecraft with stats, classes, bosses, npc’s, and apparently a 10 hour campaign. Minecraft is literally perfect for something like that.
Life, a world, objectives! I am getting giddy from just thinking about it. This genuinely solves all of my problems with Minecraft. I want to make a house in my favorite realm! I want to do quests for people hunting beasts! I want to fill my house with my prized trinkets from my adventures!
It’s coming out in the ‘spring’. I will literally have a server up for that, we’ll all play. It will be great!!!
Also play Minecraft with your kids parents out there, it will mean a lot to them.
I’ll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for listening.
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