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Comment by hkmurakami | Hacker News Reader

Minecraft is one of the few modern examples of Gave Design triumphing over Graphics. That alone is enough to make me cheer wildly for every positive news I hear about Minecraft.

I want to thank Notch and the team for making/extending this game, and the players for making it popular. It brings me hope that this counterculture can grow stronger in the years to come.

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While the graphics are unremarkable. The aesthetic is largely consistent and pleasing. It's a good example of lending the design to the technical limitations (i.e a cube world) rather than trying to disguise it.

The result is a slightly cartoony throwback, interestingly they did experiment with smooth models and at one stage even a round sun/moon, but each time realised it wasn't a good fit. (See removed models here - http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mobs)

What's also remarkable is that Minecraft isn't entirely a new play concept - I always thought of it as infinitely scaling sandbox of Legos that allowed you to 'live' in the world you create. My first play of Minecraft triggered nostalgia of playing with a big box of random Lego bricks.

Notch knows how to execute and how to do it quickly. Watch any of his coding live streams and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I hope his new space MMO blows that genre out of the water as well.

Gave Design should be "Game Design".

I think it makes an interesting and appropriate typo :)

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