Who's the Monster?

During those fifteen minutes of night-time, where any area not aglow with torch light are free for the dark-seeking monsters to roam, an interesting thought occurred to me.

During the daylight, I arm myself with a sword and torch light and aim to light up the many caves in the game. I do this to ward-off or, if I can, kill the zombies and skeletons inhabiting them. Are these actions any different than what the “monsters” attempt to do to me during the night?

Perhaps they see me as the light-seeking monster that comes out when the moon goes down? Perhaps they only wish to perform their nightly duties, just as I wish to perform mine in the day. They must scurry back to the safety of the dark when the sun begins to rise, just as I do when it sets. Perhaps they spend their nights gathering the resources they need to protect themselves during the day, and those that attack my fortress do so only as a brave act of distraction?

With this in mind, why is it that I set off on my adventure with a perceived sense of moral high-ground? Being the only human in a game filled with zombies and skeletons, it is I who is the freak. Maybe the little zombie children check under their wardrobe every day for the fear and fabled Human.

Playing with Fire

 Today the time came for me to build a more permanent light fixture in my log cabin. After all, those torches on the walls were beginning to look a little out-of-season. After many hours of gaming experience, I figured I had the adequate know-how to build a fireplace. Wrong.

Sure it looked pretty enough, with a dark stone border and fire guard, but what I hadn’t accounted for was the fire’s ability to spit. Pieces of my floor and walls were suddenly ablaze. I tried to delete the affected blocks but it was a futile effort. Very soon my whole cabin was on fire and I had to retreat outside to avoid losing health points. I watched in dismay as all my hard work blackened and I was left with only a few stone blocks, the only non-flammable components of the cabin.

I’ve since learned that a player’s first fireplace is seen as a sort of right of passage within the Minecraft community, with seemingly most players going through a similar experience.

The Loneliness of Minecraft

Minecraft is a game where you build stuff with blocks. At night, zombies roam the surface so unless you have built yourself a secure shelter, you are going to end up as monster munch.

I got a little carried away during my last session, which clocked nearly 4 straight hours, and ended up building a whole village on the face of a mountain. I achieved this by chiselling out several caves and building wooden balconies and connected the rooms using corridors deep within the mountain.

I kitted the rooms out with chairs, cupboards and paintings and even made the little beds face east so that they would look upon the rising sun in the morning. I built a social chamber, which had the biggest balcony of all, and placed chairs and tables around a decorative rug. I built a kitchen big enough to cater for all the inhabitants of the mountain-face village.

Then I realised that there were no inhabitants, I was the only villager. The game has no other human characters and your only form of social interaction comes in the form of a zombie or skeleton.

At the perfect moment the game’s soundtrack kicked in and I looked at the crudely pixelated skyline. I was left feeling sad and very alone. There were around ten beds in the village and yet no more than one would ever be occupied at a time.