The First Moments of Minecraft
On May 17, 2009, 04:24:07 AM, Markus Persson posted an alpha version of Minecraft to the Feedback forum on TIGSource.com. The image above was the screenshot, and there was a link to launch the in-browser Java applet. “The main inspiration for this game is Infiniminer, but it’s going to move in a more Dwarf Fortress way, gameplay wise. =)”.
You’ll often find articles that tell the “oral history” of something, with direct quotes from those involved telling the story of a band’s success, or a TV show’s creation. With Minecraft, to begin with, there was just Notch and the internet. Instead of an oral history, you have a messageboard history, as the game was rapidly updated and players commented.
When Notch posted that first Minecraft link, the game was only at version 0.0.11a. It took 7 minutes and 57 seconds for someone to post the first response: “Their animations pretty crazy,” said forum user Schtee. Over the next 24 hours, 4 pages of comments were posted. Looking through the full thread, it’s remarkable how quickly the game seemed to capture player’s imaginations.
We’ve quoted some of these comments below to try to tell the story of those first few moments with the game, including the first screenshot shared by a player, where the Minecraft name came from, and two game modes that were planned but never made the cut.
The Elder Strolls, Part 9: Groom and Gloom
There’s a spring in my step as I prepare to make my way to back to Riften to get married, because my future, once uncertain, now holds many treasures. A home to live in. The love of a wife whose name, I’m pretty sure, begins with a Y. The realization that I no longer have to interview NPCs and help them solve their problems. Best of all, I feel like I’ve cheated Skyrim, a world intent on throwing adventure in my path, by getting engaged without any bloodshed.
Marriage in Skyrim begins with deeds, the priest told me, and deeds in Skyrim generally involve killing people. Not murdering them, necessarily, but fighting them, scores of them, while completing a favor for your intended life-partner. My engagement, however, came about by simply buying a mammoth tusk and handing it to a woman. Take that, Game Filled With Adventure! I got a bride with zero casualties! Unless you count the mammoth, which I didn’t even kill. And, it’s not like I’m going to kill a lot of people on my way back to Riften, right?
Saturday Crapshoot: It Came From The Desert
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, the sleepy town of Lizard Breath has a serious case of ants in its pants… and its farms, mines, and airfield… and a pistol’s not gonna cut it.
Mother Nature is a nightmare, and her spawn nothing but hideous monsters. Nobody knows that better than B-Movie directors, or that the best way to appreciate their true horror is to zap them to Godzilla size. Them! Earth vs. The Spider. The Beginning of The End. Honey I Blew Up The Kid. The list goes on, with special effects ranging from advanced tricks with glass and cameras, to simply dumping some grasshoppers on a postcard and hoping the audience weren’t paying very much attention.
It Came From The Desert brought grammatically questionable horror to the desktop.
My strangest PC gaming problem yet: I’ve lost Games for Windows Live
The year is 2012, and yet somehow Games for Windows Live is still a thing. It’s a dark future, to be sure, but even so I never imagined I’d have a problem as weird as this: I need it. And I can’t get it. It’s hard to stay angry when you’re laughing.
I’m trying to play Batman: Arkham City on PC, an excellent game that was unfortunately developed in 1408 AD, the last time anyone alive didn’t know Games for Windows Live was universally hated. And it’s working – in fact, it’s working better than usual. It’s working without Games for Windows Live. That part of the game simply never starts – I’m not asked to log in, the Home key won’t summon it, the main menu option does nothing, and the game seems to function smoothly without it.
The Elder Strolls, Part 8: A Mammoth Decision
In the last entry, Nordrick was faced with a question we’ve all struggled with at one point in our lives: “Should I marry a filthy homeless man?” After a great amount of heated internal debate, hours upon hours of soul-searching, and the thoughtful splitting of many cords of wood, I have finally reached a decision. I’m not going to marry Angrenor Once-Honored.
It all boils down to this: deep inside his thick, ugly head, Nordrick has a dream: a place to call home. Angrenor Once-Honored can give me a lot: companionship, happiness, comfort, a variety of social diseases brought on by unprotected hobosex in an unsanitary public thoroughfare… but he can’t give me a home. And so, I have to turn my back on the one man to ever love me. I’m off to Whiterun.
Saturday Crapshoot: Private Eye
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, who’s in the mood for something… noirishing?
The inevitable sound of smoky jazz echoes down the dark Los Angeles street. Somewhere, a man falls to the ground with an ice-pick in his neck. A damsel puts the finishing touches to her look of mock distress. A crucial clue is picked up off the floor and torn up by a genre-savvy plotter. And in his dark, cramped office, Philip Marlowe waits to be told the lie that’ll pull him into the middle of it all.
Yep. It’s time to head back to the golden age of detectives and take a look at a game that – while no classic by any stretch – deserves better than to languish in its current obscurity.
The Elder Strolls, Part 7: Homeless Romantic
It’s a little weird to admit that, as a grown man, I have a genuine emotional attachment to a fake dog in a video game. And yet I do. I love my new dog, Jasper. I love him. He has bright, cheerful eyes and a big panting smile. He happily follows me everywhere I stroll. When I stop, he sits or lies down. He pitches in during combat, and helps me hunt large game like deer and elk (animals too large for me to kill with one shot from my bow), bounding after and finishing off the wounded beasts that would have otherwise escaped.
My warm feelings for Jasper help me overlook his main flaw, which is his incessant, endless barking. They also explain the sudden bolt of terror and sadness I feel when, while crossing a river, Jasper gets trapped in the current and sucked over a waterfall.
Saturday Crapshoot: Superhero League of Hoboken
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, crime meets its match in the streets of New Jersey! Bad guys, meet the world’s baddest team of superheroes! No, wait. Worst. I meant worst.
When evil rears its ugly head, the cry for justice echoes throughout the post-apocalyptic streets! Which brave, valiant, daring, fearless, hardy, indomitable, unabashed, valourous, thesaurus-owning heroes will arrive to save the day? The Superhero League of Hoboken, of course. And if you need to see inside pizza boxes, tread water really well and make robots rust a little faster, then citizen, relax!
(But if you know how to make a mini-Batsignal with a torch, definitely try that first.)
The Elder Strolls, Part 6: A Wolf Pack of One
I don’t care for Riften. Well, that statement isn’t really fair. I hate Riften. I hate Riften, and I wish it would burn to the ground, and I wish everyone who lives here would also burn the the ground, and I wish a bunch of giants would come and push dirt and rocks over the ashes, and I wish that whenever anyone asked about the giant dirty rock pile that smells like burnt dead bodies that sits where Riften used to be, the giants would shrug as if they didn’t know.
That’s my wish for Riften.
Saturday Crapshoot: Les Miserables
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week… do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men? It is the music of a people who have… learned the Hadouken?
Les Misérables is one of the most beloved musicals of all time; a tragic, beautiful piece of work that fills your veins with fire and soaks your cheeks with the softest of tears. From Broadway to London, it’s touched the hearts of millions with its humanity, passion, and unforgettable musical numbers.
So obviously, someone in Japan turned it into a beat-em-up.
The Elder Strolls, Part 5: Spring Break
I’ve settled into a comfy routine during my past week in Skyrim. I spend time by my new riverside shack, hunting, fishing, gathering alchemy ingredients, and chopping wood at a nearby mill. Every other day I make the walk to Windhelm to mix potions and craft armor to sell to vendors. I even run (well, walk) into a giant who is doing some strolling of his own near my house, and to my delight he doesn’t try to kill me or ask me to do something for him. In my mind, he’s the perfect NPC: completely indifferent to my existence. I’ve named him Andre.
This morning, however, on my way back from spending the night in Windhelm, something is nagging at me. I’ve spent my morning walk trying to figure out what do to next, but I’m drawing a blank. Where do I go from here? What’s on my to-do list? And then, as my shack comes into view, I suddenly realize why I’m having so much trouble planning my next move: I may not actually have a next move.
Saturday Crapshoot: Pyst
Myst, as everyone who ignores people who are wrong can tell you, is a festering boil upon the gaming industry, found just off to the side of adventuring’s anus, on the itchiest part of point and click’s clammiest buttock. It landed in 1993, with its pretty graphics instantly bedazzling all who gazed upon it, especially those who found a copy stuffed with their first CD drive or nestled in the packaging of their printer for reasons that still escape all comprehension. To this day, it has armies of admirers. Unrelated, there are millions of people whose idea of a good time is watching obese members of the opposite sex bathing in porridge to the tunes of Barry Manilow. Probably. In conclusion, Myst is rubbish.
But did you ever wonder what happened to scenic Myst Island after some four million players had tramped across it? Of course not. But if you had, Pyst might just have been your answer…
Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Three-Way!
In this recurring video segment, three editors go head-to-head-to-head as they take on the same section of the same game with dramatically different strategies and play styles. Once they’ve put their methods to the test, the editors reconvene to survey their colleagues’ trials and exercise their inalienable right to copious wisecrackin’.
In this edition, Evan, Logan, and Dan “Former Reviews Editor” Stapleton attack Deus Ex: Human Revolution as a stealthy vent-crawler, a persuasive chatterbox, and a gun-slinging murder machine, respectively. Check out the introduction above, and watch the team’s attempts in the videos that follow!
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – PC Gamer’s game of the year
We didn’t see this coming. Stupid, I know. But when we got our hands on an early build of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I was certain it would be the game of 2011. Skyrim would be great, but it would just be Oblivion with a bit more snow. So now that it’s here, why does it feel like so much more than that?
The Elder Strolls, Part 4: Nordrick the Envious
As the new guy in Windhelm, I’m doing my best to fit in with the local NPCs. I walk around the city, wearing regular clothing instead of armor. I hang around in the tavern, eating and drinking. I sleep in a rented bed every night. I make small-talk, or at least listen to the small-talk of others. Overall, I feel like I’m blending in well: if a real adventurer arrived in Windhelm, I’m confident he or she would be convinced I was just another local living a routine life. Nordrick the Bland, they’d call me.
And yet, a very un-NPC-like emotion has reared its ugly head inside Nordrick’s even uglier head. I may walk, sleep, eat, and drink like an NPC, but when it comes to my professional life, I’m definitely falling short. While spending time with the locals, and seeing what they do for a living, I’ve come to an unexpected conclusion: I’m insanely jealous.
