Revisiting Minecraft with my son

Image by Chickenonline from Pixabay

I will never forget my first night in Minecraft. It is one of the defining moments in video game history. The sheer terror of trying to find a source of light and a roof over your head before the sun sets was epic. I didn’t succeed at first so I just dug a 1x1 hole in the dirt and hid inside it so the monsters couldn’t spawn with me or hurt me. That was when the game was still in alpha version. A lot has happened since then. But the game is still just as epic today, as those first days back in 2010.

My oldest son got totally hooked on Minecraft instantly. It was love at first sight. He loves LEGO so it’s not that surprising. To see him learn the game mechanics has been even more epic then my first night. I cannot fathom how quickly he learns the game. And the best thing is that we can play together. At first, he only wanted to play creative mode and build stuff, because he found survival to be way too scary for him. Now he often asks me to play survival with him. And sometimes even mom joins in for some three player CO-OP action. Personally, I think survival mode in CO-OP is peak fun with regards to videogames. One crucial element is the hardcore factor. You always have skin in the game in this game. When you are down in the mines with your precious late game equipment, you are never overpowered and invulnerable. There is always the risk of falling into lava or a deep, dark crevasse should you encounter a creeper that pushes you over the edge with its blast. This means that you are on your toes constantly and play in a completely different way, much more immersed than any modern game where you just respawn without losing anything. In Minecraft, you can easily lose tens of hours of grinding just by encountering a creeper when you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. And this is exactly why I love this game so much. For a game to be truly immersive and enjoyable, there must be something painful at stake. I feel something similar when playing Flight Simulator 2020 and you are about to land a plane after a long flight. You cannot hit a key to replay if you mess up and crash. Then it is just over, and you must redo the whole flight. Wonderful! This also gets my pulse going in a similar way.

I think our CO-OP gaming sessions are very important quality father-son time and that he will remember them for a long time. We have found an activity that we are both completely immersed in, and we have a ton of fun. Me and my wife also has a ton of fun, and we sometimes pick up the controllers together after the kids are asleep, to keep building our huge base. One time we discovered that our son had found our stash of iron ingots and crafted a ton of iron bars from every single one. That was 1-2 evenings of mining gone in a second. Hilarious in hindsight. After this little predicament we built a super-secret storage room where we hide all the diamonds and super-rare stuff.

This vacation will without a doubt contain many Minecraft sessions together with the kids. It is almost as if I subconsciously wish for rainy weather so we have an excuse to stay inside…