Welcome to the world of minecraft

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Perfect fit with the Inception music, because Minecraft feels suspiciously like Limbo. In fact, I'd wager this ends in Tycho entering Gabe's world to tell him it isn't real, and he has to leave.

Meanwhile Minecraft has drawn me in in a way that I never thought a game that makes Duke Nukem look modern could.


[clicky for full size]

Sure, I like my Roguelikes, but with them, it's ALL imagination. When there is already a 3D world for you to look at, I thought it would be distracting. I found that it never really had anything to do with the graphics or lack thereof, because the amount of fun is dictated 100% by the gameplay.

If the game is fun, engaging, and challenging, it doesn't matter that it looks like you made it out of legos.

When you die, and have to make it from your spawn point to your shelter in the dark, you feel afraid.
When you are busying yourself with some task, and you hear the hissing of a creeper behind you, you jump in your chair.
When you dig deeply into the world, busied with your task, and a creepy measure of music plays, the hairs on your arms stand up, and you take a break from the depths and return to the sunlight.
When you stand at the foot of an astonishing randomly generated land feature, you stare.
When your mine breaks into a dark underground cavern, lit only by a small magma pool, you feel the exhilaration of discovery, and the cautious excitement of exploration.

In spite of this game's hilarious graphics, it is tremendously immersive, and that is no small feat when your avatar looks like a stack of ABC blocks.

Could this game's unprecedented popularity herald a return to games that are truly fun, instead of 5 hour $50 polygon eyefucks?

The world is not ready.

But you might be.

PS: as of today, minecraft is free to play, the incredible popularity basically DDoS'ed his server, so he turned off the paid registration. Play now, pay later.