Minecraft upstages Portal 2 in arty game prize Who would have guessed that Minecraft is a work of cultural and artistic significance? Thank goodness we have the judges behind the inaugural GameCity Prize to tell us. The Prize was announced this weekend at GameCity, a Nottingham-hosted event that is apparently "Europe’s biggest annual videogame culture festival". Event and …
Really? Have you played it? In terms of technical achievement, I'd say it's right up there. How many games can you name that generate and maintain a (pragmatically) infinite world, while filling it with other creatures and lots of things to do?
How boring you find it, is of course purely a matter of opinion. But I don't think you can rightly say it's poorly made.
Extremely amateurish? You know absolutely nothing about games, and probably judge them based purely on graphics. Even then you fail to recognise that Minecraft is a stylised game, and its looks are intentional, with the game supporting visual skinning via texture packs.
Its an MMO in all but name, and contains within it a lot of sophistication at all levels, architectural, software, implementation and gameplay. Being the work of a single individual, to succeed so amazingly where so many have failed (often with massive budget backing) is even more impressive.
Notch found a niche and very successfully exploited it with a pretty well stable and impressive offering. You may not enjoy it, but you are a fool to think its mediocre on any level.
You have my condolences...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_u3hpYMySk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d0LfkIut2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GefwcBUioAE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jjWkzrwwe0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccoXQxvwjU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ut5ND3agI
http://abduzeedo.com/amazing-lego-art-nathan-sawaya
http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/07/15/beck-chat-115875-22414004/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/video/2011/oct/04/bill-bailey-bunker-lego-video
I hear the arguments about how it lets people explore their creativity and imaginations with friends on a regular basis but I just don’t see the appeal, I much prefer the real world for that, maybe you people should consider playing music in a band rather than sitting in your spare room stacking crates and playing fort.
As for the game being amateurish, the “infinite world” is randomly generated out of cubes and the AI is so nearly non existent that the so called creatures do little more than head straight for the character, oh yes, real genius in programming that.
Because musical talent is equal to all other forms of creativity? I'm a CG artist, but the only way I could get music out of, say, a guitar; would be to use it to prod the Play button on a hi-fi. So is it in some way 'better' for me to stop doing what I enjoy and go and do something I'm terrible at? Ahh, I see now: it's "cooler", isn't it?
And yes, the minecraft world may just be made of cubes, but they're hardly generated randomly. There are currently over a hundred different types of block, with more regularly added. Each block has its own rules about how it interacts with others, and where it is generated. The world is created according to a dizzying array of environmental rules. There are 13 different 'biomes', which have different rules for exactly what sorts of blocks appear in them, and how they are arranged. And there are more rules governing how and where the biomes are arranged in relation to eachother. Some blocks change over time, and grow. In a newly started game, there can be over 14 million blocks before the player even moves and explores the landscape. In a multiplayer game, this figure can run into the billions. It really isn't something you can sneer at for its simplicity unless you don't understand it at all.
As for the AI, yes it's basic rule-following based on where the player is, but that's about as good as it gets even in most 'Triple-A' FPS games.
"Can a game - any game, for that matter - be a work of artistic merit?"
Really now.
I would imagine this question could only have been asked in a meeting of slightly aged ladies sipping tea and discoursing about the artsyness of Rembrandt, the Royal Marriage and the moral turpitude of the young ones. In the 80s.
FRACKING STUPID QUESTION!!
Minecraft is an amazing gaming accomplishment. I'm not sure it's fair to rank it alongside Portal 2, though. They are both excellent games, but you get very different experiences out of them.
Also:
"a bleak satire on everyman's need to compensate for the unprepossessing nature of his organs of generation?"
That made me laugh out loud. Nicely put!
I wouldn't try and compare Portal 2 with Mincraft - they're both very different beasts. But for sheer creativity, give my Dwarf Fortress everytime. Yes, you can build mega-constructions but the important difference is 1) You don't have to do all the grunt work yourself - it's what your minions are for and 2) there's a lot more gore.
I prefer the hunting side of the game myself rather than the creative side of it.
I make myself some armor and weapons (bow for ranged attack, sword for up close) and then go hunting players. It's surprisingly difficult to track someone from a distance without losing them. Quite often I have to hang back - particularly in deserts until they head over a ridge (less they turn round and see me). Then I rush to the ridge, look over and .... they have gone. It's real tough figuring out the sense of space sometimes and which direction you have been heading. It's easy to accidentally get lost or to go in circles.
It pays to shadow other players rather than to just rush at them, because creative players (who inexplicably play on pvp servers and moan when they are killed by other players) often go into the middle of nowhere and build a base together. Finding these bases is near impossible given the maps are massive, and on some servers can be effectively infinite - growing as they are explored - so the only sure way of finding these places is to shadow players from eg spawn. Or sometimes in chat you read stuff like player A saying "hey where's your new base" and player B will say "come to spawn I will lead you there" and then the challenge is to shadow them without them seeing you.
On servers with other pvpers it's quite fun to lure them into a trap. Eg take your armor off, run around a lot near spawn, attract their attention, run off so they chase you - don't let them know you know - get far over a ridge, put your armor back on and crouch waiting for them to come over and strike. Or best if you have time actually construct a lava floor trap, get them to walk over it, hit the button, the floor slides away and see them fall into lava. haha.
On many servers there can be teams of pvpers roaming around and they are very hard. In the unfortunate case I bump into one of them I am literally playing the mouse in the hunt and that can be quite fun too to try and escape them. Escape can involve diving in to a cave system or even (rarely have the time) tunnel downwards as fast as possible and hope they can't find you.
Anyway there's more too it than the creative side of the game where people just play lego and make massive 3D Marios.
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