I don’t really play video games much, for reasons I blog about a lot here, the main problem being available time.  But being a nerd that at least USED to play some video games, I still keep at least a half of an ear open for interesting games from time to time.  So I did in fact hear about Minecraft when it was becoming a major indy hit (over a million sales of the BETA version is a pretty good indicator that at least some folks think it’s fun).  I decided to give it a try the other night to see what the fuss was about.  Needless to say, it took very little time for me to introduce it to the boys and now we are all three pretty much hooked.  Then, Jordy’s boyfriend happened to see us playing and mentioned that he just started playing too.  There’s something about it, clearly.  It’s not for everyone, however.

I showed it to Nikki and she was a little put off by the (apparent) pointlessness of the game.  There’s no winning.  There are very few clear goals, except surviving.  Which I didn’t do all that well at first.  And I haven’t managed to actually eat anything yet, so the whole thing is still a bit touch and go.  However, there’s still something about the incredible sense of utter freedom in the game.  You want to build an enormous castle for no real reason?  Go ahead.  Want to dig to the bottom of the earth?  Go for it.  That’s kind of cool, but then I’m a huge nerd.

The whole reason I even mention this is I was catching up on XKCD and saw this one:

I can relate perfectly to both the truly fantastic wisdom teeth drugs, and the whole “organize the entire world” aspect of the game.  For the record, I grew my first tree underground the other day, so I am feeling pretty fricking good about myself right about now.  That will wear off quickly if Nikki catches me playing and starts making fun of me again.