I played Minecraft

One of the most recognizable and popular games at the moment.

... So why am I doing this? What is there for me to review on a game that pretty much everyone knows? Well, one of the nice things about this game is that you can make your own goals and challenges. The end isn't the end.

For a brief recap, this is a survival game where everything is blocks and you can take most things and create new items and structures. The limits are height and depth, everything in the middle is your play ground. (A playground about the size of Neptune I might add.)

Recently I decided to do a Nether survival challenge. I don't have the mod that drops you right in the Nether so I jumped into creative made the portal, went through and destroyed it. After going back to survival I took a moment to assess my situation.

It wasn't great, but not that bad. I was dropped in the Nether Wastes. Ghasts were my biggest fear at that moment and when I heard one I ran for the nearest wall and started punching. And I kept punching until I had a tunnel that stretched long enough to no longer see the entrance. I soon started making windows out over the lava ocean, and would periodically check outside of my safety tunnel to check for livable biomes. Not exactly something you think of when it comes to the Nether.

Soon, in the distance, I found it. The blue/green of the Warped Forest. I turned my tunnel and began to punch my way to my new home.

In Minecraft there are tiers of tools you get. The first being Wooden tools. I got these easily enough in my little plot of land. But usually after that comes stone tools. There's a problem. In the Nether there's Netherak instead of stone, stone comes in the form of blackstone and is much harder to find than in the overworld. I had to make good use of my tools as I looked for stone. Killing any skeleton I could find for their bones to make bonemeal to grow the warped fungus to get wood to make more tools.

There's issues about wood found in the nether, but it's also a good thing. Warped and Crimson "wood" doesn't burn, so you can't use it as fuel, but it won't just burst into flames near (or in) the lava. It's a good thing until you have enough stone to make a furnace, but no fuel to use in it.

Another problem that became quickly a potentially game ending challenge was food. There's very little in the Nether that you can eat, and the best is dangerous to get. But I was lucky enough to find a small patch of normal mushrooms to make mushroom stew to live off of. But those don't grow quick enough to be sustainable. I had to venture out again and find something more reliable.

And here that meant Hoglins.

Hoglins are a new creature added in the 1.16 update. They're giant pigs, always hostile, and very strong. Strong enough to kill you unarmored in about two hits. Another creature added were the piglins. They're intelligent, and not always hostile. If you're wearing gold, they leave you alone unless you attack them.

There are a couple places these new creatures regularly and one is in the Crimson forest. I went exploring and found myself lucky in that my Warped forest was immediately next to a Crimson forest. Now, Piglins and Hoglins don't like the Warped forest and will actively turn away from it and things from it. Using this knowledge I made myself a semi safe warped bunker where I could run and hide with a little window to keep watch outside.

Another mechanic I took advantage of is that Piglins in the Crimson Forest will occasionally spawn in hunting parties to hunt Hoglins. I'd look for these and keep my distance, when they successfully killed a Hoglin I'd rush in take the porkchops (and leather if I could get it) and run for my life.

I was doing alright so far. I built myself a warped house, a couple soul campfires to cook with, and before long I was able to find an Island on the Lava ocean that actually connected to the bottom of the Nether so I could dig down and mine for black stone.

Now, tool tiers typically go: wood, stone, iron, gold, diamond, netherite (the newest tier added with 1.16.) There's no iron to farm in the Nether. Sometimes you can get iron nuggets by trading gold ingots to the Piglins, but that's no reliable source. But if you mine gold in the Nether, any nearby piglin will attack you.

I needed a gold farm.

I treked back to my fear tunnel and back to the Nether Wastes and built a small shack with a deep basement. From this shack I left a couple walls open and put up a fence gate.

Boom! Cheep gold farm. It also had the added bonus of occasionally giving me gold weapons and tools I could use. All I had to do to use it was open the gate, run out, attack a Zombie Piglin, and run back in, closing the gate behind me. (That last part is REALLY important) All the nearby Zombie Piglins would line up against my walls trying to attack me and be unable to get close enough to so I could attack with my sword. Once they stopped coming I could walk out and grab my spoils.

Once I had gold ingots (and armor so they didn't attack me) I could trade with the piglins and eventually got obsidian, flint, and iron enough to make a gate home. From there, this was basically normal Minecraft with my primary base being in the Nether rather than the overworld.

And there's just little things you can do to have a bit of fun.

In another world I finally found a Forrest Mansion, and after clearing it out and lighting it up, am in the process of turning it into a decent base for myself. There are a lot of things you can do in this game. I'm not exactly good at this game and get a lot of help from watching videos by Mumbo Jumbo, Grian, and Wattles.

I can understand why this game is so popular, not only now, but for so long. I remember when it was just a little flash thing on a website and you only had a couple kinds of blocks. And now it's this massive phenomenon, with conventions dedicated to it even.

I'm sure most everyone here knows Minecraft, and if you haven't played for a while, maybe pick it up and do some challenges. The Nether survival definitely gave me a new angle to look at and enjoy the game all over again.

Comments

[Leafy]

That Twilight pic is so beautiful.

Oh yes.