Ask Notch (the developer of Minecraft) anything | Hacker News Reader

Ask Notch (the developer of Minecraft) anything

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36 pointsicey11 comments

Notch I am currrently writing a game called the Source and was wondering because when I was halfway through the book I discovered you're incredible game minecraft and noticed the crafting square which I already had in my game but was wondering if I could, Use it with you're permission and if you do allow me I will and have planned on tweaking it a little but what Im asking is "May I have you're permission to use you're idea of the crafting square in my game The Source?"

Will be more interesting with answers.

Genuine question (no disrespect intended): what do people find interesting about this game that so many are willing to spend $10 on it?

I tried the single player and don't see what the fuss is about, perhaps I'm missing something?

I'm a late joiner into the Minecraft obsession, having only downloaded it last week. I can honestly say it's one of the most fun games i've played in a long time. I'm not your average "gamer", but i'm a sucker for anything puzzle related, and Minecraft brings out the kid in me that loved Lego, Meccano, etc. It's just a simple, innocent little game that lets you go wild with your imagination and build all sorts of crazy contraptions and creations without needing to "dedicate" yourself to it as with most modern games. Very easy to pick up even if you don't play games often too.

I compare the feeling of playing this to that old DOS game "The Incredible Machine", but mixed in with some mining/resource-collection, crafting/construction, and the all-too-popular-lately retro 8-bit graphics.

The game mechanic is based around survival, and an open world. You are free to effect change as you wish, to suite your needs to survive in game. To survive you must gather limited resources just to live through the first night. As you progress into the game, you become more secure in your survival, so you can risk more to establish yourself more. Eventually the mechanic is that you've ended up with concrete changes upon the world you play in, can take pride in them, and then expand on them. Emergent gameplay, where non-scripted events happen, making your experience unique provides a great deal of re-playability. Additionally since Minecraft is under active development, I think a lot of people are looking at the game with an eye towards it's ultimate potential in their mind.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_world

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Shock_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_Fortress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_big_planet

Also http://www.youtube.com/user/davidr64yt#p/c/E005D335B57338D1 - A play through of the game from a first time users perspective

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS3s4iVijpA - Minecraft Calculator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6JqoE7MZEE - Minecraft 16bit adder using sand.

Awesome, thanks, the play-through by david was very helpful for getting an idea of what the game is about.

One thing about it for me: the first night I tried it, thought it wasn't all that great, and went to bed. The next morning I went at it again, and now I'm totally obsessed. It just took a little bit for it to click.

For me, the game is genius because it enables me to make it what I want: I'm the kind of guy that starts building a house, and then wants to make it bigger. And then wants better stuff. And then needs to explore. The 'do anything, no goal' side of it means I'm truly free to make my own goals.

Notch has said that eventually there will be a way to 'win', though. It _is_ still in alpha, after all...

Same here. I think a lot of the draw is that it's so easy to make little tweaks. I'll be wandering through my home cave structure, and think "oh, this room needs to be a little wider" or "I need an arch here" and within seconds it's done. Over time you can build out some really elaborate structures this way.

Of course, that's also the part that makes it hard to put down: you'll start off just adding a few torches for visibility and end up building a lighthouse or similar.

I am totally the same way in minecraft I'm just not content with my house Id have a big house go get wood cone back and go no not good enough and end up making my house bigger and bigger my first house took up a whole natural valley I kept getting lost and it was sorta funny

On the thrill of the single-player: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/9/20/

Myself, I'm enjoying the multi-player with friends. We just dig, explore and build, which has been a hoot. Though we're kind of itching to actually fend off monsters from our complex, once that gets implemented.

Sorry I'm late on this; my wife and I spent the last 3 days playing MineCraft.

Here's why it's so engaging: it successfully combines the ideas of LEGO, zombies, swords, model trains, spelunking, and electric circuits. It's like a 6 year old boy's idea of paradise. (I'm considerably older than that, but still interested in all of those things.)

It does take a little while to get started and get a stable base of operations up and running, but once you have one, you can do some really cool stuff.

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