Minecraft Potential: Transforming Plaything Into Game

First: I haven't played Minecraft yet, aside from the stunted freebie survival mode. I hope to get an account soon; it looks awesome, and I've been watching X's Adventures in Minecraft almost nonstop for about three days now. Anyway, if I hold mistaken impressions, please correct me.

I open this discussion with the hope of brainstorming ways that Minecraft could be altered to meet the definition of "game" (apparently it doesn't right now).

It'd probably help to define terms first. I draw on the definitions offered in this essay:

• A game is a rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable.

According to the information I'm working with, Minecraft is similar to Sim City (in that you can create stuff) only it has monsters and other dangers; also similar to certain MMORPGs. The main thing to be said is that whatever goals there are, they are primarily created by the player, rather than by Minecraft itself. Aside from "stay alive" and "don't fall in the lava" the game is completely sandbox, which is in many ways a good thing; it's certainly part of what attracts me to it.

I definitely hope the crafting system continues to expand. It's awesome. I love how the recipes look like the thing you're making.

But let's talk about ways to update Minecraft to create some game games. Different game modes that have certain explicitly defined goals, where the achievement of the goal has some finality to it, some completion.

(I read somewhere (developer's blog?) that a Hardcore mode might crop up soon, in which dying means losing the entire world and starting from scratch. That's interesting enough. Has an appealing Tetris feel to it (Tetris has no win condition, only a lose condition that you try to stave off as long as possible), like the Survival mode in Left 4 Dead.)

My Ideas

Crafting Goal

It occurs to me that being dropped off naked on the shore of some unknown wilderness, and having to build everything from scratch, meets the scenario my dad has been dreaming up for years: How long would it take you to put together everything needed to send a message up into space via radio waves? Or perhaps make a spacecraft capable of bringing you home? Though perhaps that's too technical for the feel of this game... better leave out space travel.

Exploration Goal

Maybe you start out (visually, or through narrative or the character's thoughts) being abducted or transported from a familiar area to an unfamiliar one, and need to find a way to get back for some reason. E.g., a genie just kidnapped your princess and threw you to the other side of the world, and you have to safely get back to her equipped enough to rescue her.

I do think the sea would have to be a lot more dangerous than it currently is for this to be a workable goal. Otherwise it's like "hop a boat and go find the right area after hundreds of hours of searching" or whatever.

Underground Exploration Goal

Maybe the genie hid your girl underground? Hmm. I'm not sure what I'd come up with for an underground goal that isn't just gathering resources (and surviving long enough to return safely to the surface).

Time Limit Goal

Maybe you have a limited time before much bigger baddies drop by, and you have to avoid the little baddies and quickly gather resources and craft up stuff to survive the onslaught of bigger baddies when they come. Though this would seem to get recursive pretty fast.

Alt scenarios: It's not bigger baddies you're defending against, it's weather or planetary problems, such as rising water, famine, colder or hotter climates, or a meteor strike.

Civilization Goal

If the game were tweaked to allow NPC units who follow some basic commands with you in charge of them, maybe it's up to you to seek out safe harbor for them and get to transport them from a dying area to a place where they can repair civilization. This could also have a time limit (before the people back home just croak).

This could be just your family, or a small group of families, or perhaps something quite a bit larger. But the chief idea would be that you're in charge of building basic areas where they can live (or where they can construct their own buildings, now that you've cleared out the zombies, put up lights, set the foundations...).

Heck, perhaps you all retreated to an underground shelter to survive a planetary disaster, and have been in there for long enough for the world to regenerate... only the people left on the surface have turned into zombies and skeletons. And the shelter is running out of food or air or something, so they send out you and/or maybe a few others in different directions to try to locate a good place to move to. This might work well in multiplayer too.

Anyway. Any ideas you guys have are welcome! Don't be afraid to hack mine to pieces, either. Just throwing stuff on the table, here.

edited 26th Nov '10 2:06:54 PM by Kilyle

TLDR, or just no interest in the topic?

If you're thinking that I'm overthinking things: Yeah, I do that; I admit it. But in brainstorming it's often good to go way beyond what you think is reasonable, and then backtrack to figure out what thinks now appear reasonable that didn't at the time.

Also, Minecraft might be perfectly fine as just a plaything, or a "game" in the sense of the MMORPG environment, where goals are numerous and player-chosen and there's no ultimate end. But apparently Notch has tried multiple modes as concepts for the game, and I'd like to see what sort of modes we can come up with just by thinking it out a little