Games

OWNERSHIP is a big part of PC gaming.

There’s a degree of intimacy to a mouse and keyboard that lends itself far better to personal expression than carefully-controlled console releases.

That sense of ownership and expression is the reason why Minecraft (PC; RRP €14.95) has become a phenomenon. Unlike most games, Minecraft encourages you to create something, not just sit back and be entertained. The results have been amazing.

Made by just one man, Markus Persson, Minecraft is a combination of Lego and hide and seek. In the survival mode, players are dropped into a randomly-generated landscape where everything is made of cube blocks, with bloodthirsty enemies appearing at night. To ensure safety from the monsters, you must build a shelter by ‘mining’ the landscape for raw materials, before combining them to create tools, planks of wood, weapons and so on.

The only way to build a shelter, or any kind of shape or structure in Minecraft, is by placing the ubiquitous blocks on top of one another, stacking them carefully. As your character can only place blocks when he’s next to them, building anything takes serious consideration so as not to get trapped within your own structures.

The reason such a simple idea became huge is because gamers fell in love with the creativity under their control. Players started using Minecraft’s simple building blocks to create all manner of incredible structures and vistas.

Minecraft is a strange and work-like game. In the hands of someone creative, however, it becomes something wonderfully expressive. That’s why Minecraft, despite its retro stylings, is a glimpse into the future of gaming.