I don't know if it's the beginning of summer or it's just me being burned out from working, but I played hookie from all my usual projects during the week to cruise over to Mark's place and play Minecraft. I feel like I just want the whole summer off to play games and eat picnic food. Anyhow, here's a recount of what's gone on in Minecraft for me all week and weekend.
Since finishing the achievements in Minecraft the week before, I thought to try and repeat the ultimate achievement of building a Beacon from scratch. Mark was up for it, so we tried many seeds (randomly generated worlds) during the week to do it. Various things got in the way to make us restart with new worlds because sometimes the world is flawed in some way. Like sometimes the Stronghold doesn't have a library, or the Nether doesn't have a Fortress; or if it does, it's small and uninteresting. And sometimes there isn't a village. Well, on Sunday we played a new world and got into the Nether and couldn't find the Fortress. At quarter to 11pm, when we usually stop for the night, we were all resigned to having to start a new world when I decided at the last minute to drop all my gear and enter the Nether defenseless. It's suicidal, I know, but I had nothing to lose, and I figured I would dash around avoiding enemies and see what I could see.
Well, I dodged the exploding missiles of the Gasts, dashed around several Wither Skeletons, and outran many Magma Cubes. I ran randomly about and suddenly I saw it, The Fortress. Hot damn, I said, and ran back to the Nether Portal. I dodged a few more Wither Skeletons like a running back but then got bombarded by missiles from Gasts that lit the field in front of the Nether Portals with fire. I just ran through them, catching on fire, and entered the Portal. The Portal takes a few seconds to activate once you're in there, and so I waited. I yelled to Mark that I found the Fortress and then I got dashed to pieces. A Gast had blown me up before I could get through. But I had found the Fortress in the eleventh hour, and tomorrow we'll be able to stay in this world and hunt some Blazes for their blaze powder.
What I love doing most in Minecraft is planning how to get to an objective and do it as quickly as possible. In this case it is building a beacon and there are many steps to take along that road. Here's a bit of my plan:
1. Get 3 diamonds for a diamond pixaxe (needed to mine obsidian to build Nether portal)
2. Enter The Nether, find the Fortress and get Blaze rod (used to create Eyes of Endor)
3. Use Eyes of Endor to find the Stronghold and its library
4. Use library books to make the best Enchantment room and make a Loot III or IV boosted sword.
5. Hunt Wither Skeletons for their skulls in The Nether with said sword.
6. Summon WIther boss and fight it for its Nether Star.
7. Build Beacon with Nether Star.
So all week, in our various seed worlds, we've managed to build the enchantment room or find the Fortress but not both. This time may be different, but we'll see. I'm tentatively thinking if we can't do it on Monday, I'm going to be done with Minecraft for a while. Odin Sphere is out on Tuesday and I want to play that badly, not to mention all the other unfinished games I've got.
I really liked Odin Sphere. I might get the remake on PS3 at some point.
I love the art style of the Vanillaware games. I've played precious little of them so far even though I've aquired a lot of them. I don't get much solo gaming time in these days. It's mostly stuff Mark and I play together. I'm making an effort to find the time though. I can't let these games gather dust forever.
Dragon's Crown is a good multiplayer Vanillaware game. Too bad Odin Sphere isn't.
I have Dragon's Crown on Vita. Still need to play it.
Magma cubes, huh? Sounds a little bit slightly dangerous.
I wish I could reseed this damn world. It's a little imperfect too. :p
i keep wondering if someone, someday will create the entire world virtually and then let you scramble it to create alternate versions. No Man's sky is generating whole worlds in space, but what about doing the Assassin's Creed treatment on this world completely. Is it possible?
anything's possible. I've been reading about Hearts of Iron 3, which is a WW2 strategy game, and it's so open ended you can have completely strange outcomes to the war: like the U.S. invading Russia after Berlin falls, Japan invading America, etc. I think that's what's cool about video games is we get to experiment with a more rubbery reality.
"I feel like I just want the whole summer off to play games and eat picnic food."
You and me both.
I'm doing it in the margins. I still have to work, but I'm wondering how to actually escape work for a while.