You’re alone in the forest and night is closing in. You’ve wandered too far from your home, your sword’s blade is pitted and scarred, and you have only a few arrows left for your bow…
But you’re tough. You know these lands, and that battered blade has put more skeletons and zombies back in the ground than you can count. Those hours you spent in the depths digging up diamonds will not go to waste now. You break into a sprint, dashing madly through the trees. Above you in the leaves, you hear the familiar slurping hiss of a spider – but you’re faster, and the spider crashes to the ground behind you.
Almost there. Light shines in the distance, comforting torches keeping the creatures of the night at bay. Your jaw clenches in fierce determination. You will make it back! Then you hear it – from your right, that awful, sibilant “Hssssss!” Eyes glowing in the darkness, its body swells for a brief instant. Then a flash of light, a concussive BANG, and the ground becomes a cratered mess.
But you’re alive. Your armor is smashed, you’re weak and wounded, but you’re alive. And home is only a few more steps away…
The above tale is a familiar one to most Minecraft players, and could easily describe an average night in the wild. We’ve all had those tense moments, where perseverance (and occasionally a bit of dumb luck) save us from certain doom. Or perhaps you were unlucky this time and got careless – maybe you didn’t survive, and a belligerent zombie is now walking around in your stolen armor. The stories may be familiar but they are all unique. This is the true heart of Minecraft, a world open to every possibility where our experience is defined only by the choices we make.
This is the Personal Narrative – the story we create for ourselves as we play. It’s the point where the game ceases to be Mojang’s and becomes ours. The things we’ve built, the places we’ve explored, the fights we’ve won (and lost), all become threads in the tapestry of our progress. It gives us purpose and direction, and while days spent batting away at monsters in a grinder may not make for the most compelling tale, the hours of toil we put into the grinder’s construction and the XP we used to forge that master-level diamond sword are the goals and accomplishments that are uniquely ours. In Minecraft, we shape the earth with our tools, but it is our decisions that shape the world.
So choose wisely, adventurer – and bring some extra torches at night…
Leave a Reply