Minecraft: Day 5-Surprises

Giant creepy spiders... while they have a more intimidating presence than the rest of the monsters, they at least have the decency of being too wide to pass through small doorways. Other than being a little shaken, I was left no worse for wear as I eliminated it. I took a few precautions to prevent any more invasions by filling every corner with light from my stockpile of torches. This didn't stop other animals from entering of course, but they provided an opportunity to practice my archery on the new bow I was able to make.

After my ritualistic sacrifice, I crafted as many spare pickaxes as I could carry, and then I returned to my mining operation way down in the earth's core. I mined...

And I mined...

And I mined...

And I mi-LAVA!!!!

I had to act fast to close off the hole the lava was pouring out of. Even with every cheat and mod available, lava was always lethal; it was also in a way valuable. Lava could be turned into obsidian, a material used to create a portal into the nether. The nether was a place of pure terror, with very few objects of value and very full of everything that could ever want to kill you. Carefully, I mined my way upward until I broke through into the small cave with the lava lake. my bucket of water came in handy once again, and the dangerous substance was instantly transformed into the harmless obsidian I needed.

It would have to wait until I found the diamonds necessary to make a pickax strong enough to mine the obsidian, but it was the first lava I'd found so far. The cavern beyond proved to be rather expansive, so I chose to return to my base and empty my inventory of valuables once more. I had somehow collected enough sulfur to craft my first block of TNT, of which I was very proud. I left it in the chest with my other belongings and headed back down into the caverns. And sure enough, there was my first taste of diamonds!

Ah, sweet, sweet diamond! The most coveted material Minecraft had to offer, and I had found it in Hardmode. I hadn't even died once yet! I was a conquerer! I was a survivor! I was- CREEPER!

Argh! Danger seemed to be around every corner in this place. Fortunately for me, the creeper had a fear of heights; this was probably not the best flaw for someone in the business of suicide bombing. Well, enough with danger, I'm heading back up for some fresh air. The diamond, gold, and lap- lapis- la... blue stuff I had collected needed to be stored somewhere safe befo- ZOMBIES!

Stop doing this to me! Seriously, this is getting old. It seems around every corner there's something waiting to kill me. Zombies are the easiest enemies to deal with, so they proved to be of little consequence. Man, I was good! I figured it was time to work on the first of my goals: building a house. I returned to the mining operation and dug my way to the surface; where I broke through was admittedly a good distance away from my spawn location, but the tunnel I had dug would provide a safe passage between my two bases.

I returned to my main shelter and gathered all the cobblestone I could carry. Cobblestone is considered a rudimentary, ugly building material, but aesthetics are not my concern right now; wood may be more popular, but I didn't want to live in a giant fire hazard. By the time I returned to my selected building site it was beginning to grow dark. But I figured I would at least be able to get a basic wall built before anything came after me. I really, really regret this choice. I had just finished the first layer of my shelter when from the darkness came the sound of my nemesis.

*TWANG*

The arrow seemed to have lodged directly in my skull, as my health took an instant beating. I spun to face the skeleton, waving my sword courageously I called out my challenge. I had survived assault by zombies, creepers, spiders, skeletons, and even trees; one little skeleton was no real threat to me!

*TWANG*

Despite my attempt to dodge the assault, it was a direct hit, and I realized I would not survive the next hit. My options flashed before me: I could run, but with his accuracy, the skeleton was unlikely to miss me; I could try to recover my health, but I had forgotten which of my pockets the hams were stuffed in; or I could keep charging, and hope to finish the creature off first, but it would take me four hits to kill him with the basic sword I had. When it comes to any type of game, I'm usually pretty cautious when I'm haven't attracted attention; but whenever it came to a showdown, I always chose to charge headlong. That was my choice here; like a scene from 300, I charged forward, ducking and weaving to make myself a more difficult target. Sword drawn, I screamed my battle cry and struck the skeleton directly across the chest.

*TWANG*

My open mouth caught the speeding arrow, and I fell to the dead to the ground.

Taking a break tomorrow. Happy Valentines Day to all!

Minecraft: Day 4-Zombies!

Well, hello there little buddy! I'm not sure whether I'm lucky or unlucky, but I made my home right next to a rare dungeon. Dungeons, I had learned, housed chests with rare items, as well as the source of a potential zombie swarm. The ever-burning cage in the center continuously generated zombies until it was destroyed; this would be impossible with the zombies in the way. I could see a couple chests down in the corner, so remembering a trick a friend had taught me, I began to dig around to open the chests through the wall.

It was quite unnerving reaching through the hopping zombies to open the chest, but I succeeded without incident. The chests provided gunpowder, a pig-saddle, a loaf of bread, a bit of the electrical redstone, and most importantly a couple of buckets. Buckets were extremely handy, as nothing put out burning flesh faster than a bucket of water, and as this was Hardmode, it was one more precaution against failure. Now, to deal with the zombies: I could probably dig up underneath the zombie-cage to destroy it safely, but I chose rather to attempt to harvest the zombies. Creatures in Minecraft drop useful items when killed, and while zombies dropped the least useful resource of the monsters (feathers... zombies apparently are OCD about collecting feathers), if I could successfully build a trap to kill them, I would be better prepared if I came across a skeleton or spider dungeon. I dug my way under the dungeon, clearing the area out entirely, and digging a pit to trap the zombies. The buckets came in handy for completing my trap with a waterfall to drag the zombies into the pit and drown them. The last step was to knock out part of the dungeon floor, and run to safety.

Success! The trap wasn't exactly perfect, but it was still successful. This was a first for me, and I could now mine in peace without worrying about the zombie-hoard. One of the most important lessons I've learned playing Hardmode in video games was prioritizing defense. A complete set of armor (and sometimes a spare set) always comes before iron tools and sword. With that achieved, I headed back outside to hunt for more pork.

Of course pigs proved just as rare as that first day of hunting. In my search, I came across a pumpkin patch;

A flower patch;

And a creepy, creepy, creeper. The best I can tell from studying them is: they never sleep; they explode when you come near; they always seem to be in a perpetual state of panic. Putting all of this together and all of this together I've come to conclusion that sleep triggers their (and often my) demise, and that they suffer from narcolepsy.

There they are! Cursed pigs are so hard to find in this place.

I stocked up on as much ham as I could carry, then I rushed back to my home to take shelter for the night. I was beginning to wonder exactly what was so different about Minecraft's Hardmode; as of yet I was still alive, and I had a solid foothold on survival. I explored the rest of the small cave surrounding the zombie dungeon with no incident, and so I decided it was time to begin mining down into the earth. This proved to be perhaps the longest, most uneventful stretch of the game yet. After what felt like hours I finally found something worth mining.

Finally, some redstone! And how far down did I have to dig to find this?

I really wasn't sure if it was actually worth it. Sure, it was probably the safest way to find resources, but spelunking always seemed to go faster. Well, I turned back to mining, knowing it couldn't be too much longer before I broke through into-

Great... a small enclosed underwater lake at the earths core. Seriously, I could actually see bedrock under the water.

Frustrated, I turned and started mining through the right hand wall of the cave. Fortunately this proved to be far more fruitful than mining down.

Now that I actually had something to show for this, I headed back up to empty my inventory of valuables; nothing would be more frustrating than losing these diamonds in a creeper explosion. Strangely enough, there was a skeleton waiting for me in the main room of my base. It didn't prove too dangerous in the enclosed space, but it forced me to double-check for openings it might have come through. I couldn't find any weaknesses right off, so I turned my attention to another problem I had encountered on my first run of the game: wood shortage. Last time, I had tried growing a tree underground, and this had proved fatal. This time, I decided to plant trees on top of my shelter; I would have to leave safety to get more wood, but at least I could fix the problem with the tree shortage. When I first started up in this world, I had managed to collect two saplings when I cut down those trees; and now that I had a bit of bonemeal, it was only a few minutes of plant-grow-chop down to have a decent forest available.

I was starting to feel comfortable in this world. As bleak as it was, I had managed to beat the odds, surviving long past where I should have. I had little difficulty eliminating the threats that I encountered, I had resolved most of my resource shortage issues, and I had a friendly spider move into my house while I was out. Wait a minute...

Oh dear.

More tomorrow!

MInecraft: Day 3-Starting From Scratch

I did it... I made perhaps the worst mistake I could have made:

The entire focus of this blog was on the hardest setting available to video games, and I only just noticed it was set to normal. I was curled up in that dark corner of the cave sobbing to myself, and the difficulty was set to normal. Of course I realized I would have to change it to hard, but that also meant I would have to start over entirely with a brand new world so I could experience that first terrifying night as I was supposed to.

I had to double-check to make sure there wasn't an 'extreme' setting so I wouldn't have to go through this again. Then I did what was necessary and deleted that first, beautiful world and started a new one in its place. This new world was like a bleak wilderness; no forests, no giant mountainous formations, no floating bits of land, no forgiveness.

This was the best view available; every other direction was even more empty. And to top things off, the first sound I heard was the growl of a zombie. I wasted no time, setting off toward this closest tree I could see in the distance, gathering enough wood to survive, and looking for the nearest source of coal. Normally there are cliffs, exposed rock and other amazing formations that have coal sitting right in arms' reach; however, there was nothing for me. Every hill that gave a glimpse of stone was just as bleak as the surrounding wasteland. Time was beginning to run out as the sun started to descend in the sky. I had no choice but to look for the necessary coal in the last place I ever wanted to go this early in the game:

The growls of zombies still filled the air as I peered cautiously into the dark abyss; sure enough, a small patch of coal was just visible in the receding light, as though placed as bait meant to lure me in by the ungodly creatures that hunted me. Desperate, I approached the coal, checking every shadow for sudden movement. I could barely see, but I could still hear things: things wanting my tasty, tasty brains as an entrée. I reached the coal, quickly mined some of it, and then dashed out as fast as my pixelated legs would carry me. Once back into sunlight, I realized how very little I had left, and it became a race against time to find a "safe" place to bury myself for the night. I found a small, steep hill and dug straight into the side, closing the entrance off behind me.

I was safe. I would survive my first night in the Minecraft's Hardmode. The number of monsters had multiplied, and resources were extremely scarce, but I had found all the necessary ingredients for survival: wood for a workbench and tools, coal for torches, a shelter, foo- oh dear. I hadn't seen a single pig all day. I had no idea what to expect from the enemies I would encounter, but without food I was doomed. It was night time, so hunting for them was out of the question, so I would have to play it safe. I had to be extremely careful widening out my base, as the zombie groaning made it very clear that there was a hunting party in a cave very close to me. Miraculously, clearing out my hovel yielded some iron and a bit more coal, but also lead to the discovery of the cave of zombies.

I couldn't see any of them, so I very carefully widened the hole, keeping it strategically shaped so the zombies couldn't enter my safe haven. I still couldn't see them, but least for the moment I could work on something else without worrying about running into them. Just a little more mining yielded exactly enough iron to craft a chestplate, and as the sun rose I felt a little of the edge wear off. I had made a solid start, survived my first night, and could see just one skeleton bold enough to stay in open sunlight.

Yes, you think you are so smart staying in the water so you don't burst into flames. Don't you worry buddy, your time is coming. For now though, I turned to the task of gathering as much pig-meat as possible while the sun was up. As I expected, pigs were extremely scarce. In the entire day I only found a few pigs, and of those only two yielded anything edible. But it would have to be enough for now; with nightfall I needed to focus on finding the zombies that continuously haunted my home and eliminate them. Back in my base, I examined the cave beyond the little hole in the wall, and very carefully started placing torches to light the area. Nothing jumped out to bite me immediately, so I broke through my barrier into the world beyond. I stumbled across the zombies a lot sooner than I thought. More to come!

*update*

Hey everybody, I'm not Jeremy (its Alan). I also will be contributing to this blog. Though I'm not sure what yet...but something, to be sure (maybe).

So, we here at hardmode are in the business of entertaining you through our failures! Isn't that awesome?! Isn't it..?

                                                              "Why? Why did I let Jeremy talk me into this?"


But thats not all we plan to do. We also plan to review games, and...uh...do other stuff...oh yeah, walk throughs, faqs....stuff like that. Basically, we want to give you an honest, helpful look at the games we all play.

                            Videogames. We play all of them, so you don't have to play the bad ones. You're welcome.




Just wanted to post an update today, since Jeremy is busy (or so he says...). Stay tuned for my next post where I do something productive (don't get your hopes up)!


                   

                         

Minecraft: Day 2

Day two:

I respawned not far from my shelter to find zombies swarming all over the place. Losing everything and being sent back to the spawn point is bad enough, but when it is nighttime, it can be excruciatingly difficult getting back.

I had to bait the zombies, draw them away, then circle back around to my shelter, knowing that my fists would prove futile if they came too close. Ducking inside, I checked my chest hoping for something to fill my empty inventory, but all I had was dirt and cobblestone. I had to fight those first urges to load up InvEdi, but I swore I'd stick with it, and stick with it I shall. My corpse and loot were just a short walk away, and it wasn't like I had anything else to lose, so I trudged back down, peeked around the corner for creepers, dashed to my loot, then ran back to my shelter for dear life.

That was all a very brief, terrifying experience, but I had successfully recovered all of my lost items, and there didn't seem to be any more creatures in sight.

So that's where that creeper came from. Well, I'll just avoid going that way for now. So what's over he- OOOH! Gold!

Argh! I need an iron pickaxe to mine gold. Ah well, it's not too far, so I'll just mark it with a torch and come back later.

After a bit more exploring I found a few more veins of iron, which after mining I decided to prioritize my next piece of armor: boots.

My confidence was building again as the only creature I had to fight was a spider that wandered too near. Cave after cave yielded iron and coal enough to complete my armor set with helmet and pants, and so with ham in hand I cautiously approached the area the creeper had appeared. As soon as I stepped through I was amazed by the size of the natural cavern. I could hear the moans of zombies off in the distance, and several waterfalls disappeared down steep shafts into the darkness. There was even a small lava-fall across the way, setting the scene beautifully, and like an overconfident noob, I decided to reach all the way up my keyboard to take a screenshot.

Do you see that? It's a beautiful sight isn't it? Do you see that dark pit in the lower left corner? Yes, and it sucked.

The very EXACT second my finger touched the button to take that picture there was a loud and very terrifying *TWANG!* and I found myself plummeting down into that pit with an arrow in my back. I was panicking, but I acted quickly; remembering there was a waterfall close by, I broke my fall in the water, fighting off a zombie with a torch as I drifted down in the darkness. My feet finally hit solid ground and I tucked myself in a convenient corner behind the waterfall and started clicking frantically into the darkness until I managed to slap a torch down.

I had somehow managed to choke down one of my precious pork chops during my panicked descent, and with no real idea where I was, I cautiously set out, knowing that at any moment another creature could appear to finish the job the zombie and skeleton had started. And boy did they try. What followed I can only explain by saying I am completely traumatized by it all. Every noise, every growl, every clunk of bone against stone had me spinning in circles trying to find and kill whatever made the noise before it killed me. I climbed up and up, fighting zombies and skeletons all the while praying that I didn't come across a creeper. My very short second life flashed before my eyes at one point when an arrow hit me and the only creature I saw was a zombie, AND I had already used the last of my pork chops. But my frantic, tear-filled flight finally found myself in an area lit by the same lava flow I where had taken that foolish, foolish screenshot. Dashing back into my tunnel, I stopped only to take a picture of a poor zombie who futily continued to chase me.

Finally, I was home. This precious safe-haven that still held some extra pork-chops and a desperately needed spare set of armor. As the adreniline died down I decided it would be best to take a break from spelunking for a while and work on something above ground. This of course meant a celebratory barbecue.

I ran around restocking my pork-chop supply, and nearly got myself killed when I realized I had east and west mixed up the entire time; I only barely made it back before nightfall brought the creatures out. Once inside I went and checked on my pet tree, only to find it had still made no progress.

What was I doing wrong? Well, I remembered that trees had to have a good bit of space to grow, so the little room might not be big enough. After opening it up a bit more, I remembered that those newfangled bones I had collected could be used to make plants grow instantly, so like a dummy I started whacking away at my little sapling with a bone. Oh wait, bonemeal? That's right, I remember now. Crafting the bones gave me a solid stock of bonemeal, and I then proceeded to chuck those at the sapling. Nothing... Frustrated, I cleared out more space and chucked a couple more at it. Still nothing... I was down to my last bonemeal, and while I had absolutely no expectations for this thing anymore, I knew I had to be able to say that I tried. I chucked my last bonemeal at the sapling.

Once again, I have no real way of explaining what happened next, and I was far too shocked to remember to take a screenshot. Perhaps trees are randomly generated when they grow, and if that specific shape won't fit, it won't grow. Perhaps this tree was really Bruce Banner, and my incessant whacking made it angry. For whatever reason, everything suddenly went black. Now, I've had sand cave in on me before; I've been completely buried in an avalanche. I've always successfully dug my way out. But for some reason, while I could hear my panicked clicking was breaking through something, I still couldn't move and I still couldn't see.

In short, I died. I'd heard of people killed by falling trees. I'd heard of people killed by burning trees. But I was completely dumbfounded that I had let myself get killed, or better raped, by a growing tree. Still in shock, I rushed back to my shelter, taking out an innocent pig on my way, and sure enough...

There it was, completely filling the area I had cleared for it. I was simultaneously angry that I had survived my terrifying escapade underground, only to be killed by a tree, and proud that I now had my own man-eating hulk-tree.

It took me just a second to find and recover my gear from the foliage, and I very eagerly decided to call it a day. But this is when I made perhaps the most terrifying discovery yet. More tomorrow!

Minecraft: Day 1

Well, this has been extremely unpleasant so far. With the constant stream of new video games to try, being productive has become a very difficult and vague task. The greatest distraction has been Little Big Planet 2, which I believed would haunt me for all eternity. Alan and I have been hard at work creating some of the most epic levels in the history of everything, yet for some reason when I tried to start debugging today, the game (and my system) froze. Six times now. So, feeling completely drained of enthusiasm, I turned to another colossal creative outlet: Minecraft.

Now, after my first night in Minecraft several months ago, I discovered the Peaceful mode. Several days later I found InvEdit. It went downhill from there, as mod after mod found it's way into my game. It was no longer about survival as I spent day after day exploring my beautiful world. It wasn't as though I was lazy; I filled a tunnel I dug with TNT, then spent a week leveling out my new cavern floor, walls and ceiling. Even in the private SMP server Alan and I ran, we had modded armor and tools, yet we still built a 100 meter wide diamond pyramid by hand. With modded inventory...

But today my time of cowardice ends. Having no real experience with actually surviving in Minecraft, I created a brand new world, mod free. And no more Peaceful... and I am really shocked by what I have missed out on.

Day one:

I'm not so clueless as to not know what to do first, wood is the basis for everything, and that is my first priority, but right off the bat I notice something off; my precious forest is combusting.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed there was a nice little pool of another valuable, yet dangerous resource.

This will come in handy for farming obsidian. Yes, I do plan on entering the Nether eventually.

For the moment however, I had to focus on getting wood, and finding coal. I gathered as much un-burned wood as I could, then took off in search of the much-needed coal.

I set off, and it wasn't long before I spotted a beautiful mountain formation perfect for coal-mining.

Yeah, there's something floating right in the middle, but that's not too unusual. My worst memories are of the lawn care service I ran when I was 12; mowing those floating suckers was no picnic. As I'd hoped, it took me only a second to find a small cave with some coal in it, and fortunately for me it wasn't very deep.

With only a little effort, I successfully closed off the entrance to any creatures that might want my brains.

I was beginning to feel a lot better about my situation, and after just a few moments of enlarging my hidey-hole this feeling was reinforced with the discovery of an iron vein. Whistling, I started digging steps down into the mountain, with the growls of zombies indicating I was approaching a cavern. I broke through, and after a quick, self-confident double-checking, I made sure there were no deadly creatures in the immediate vicinity. I was disappointed to find this little cave nearly completely clean of anything except a little pool of water, but I was growing confident in my ability to handle anything the game threw at me.

I surfaced to find it was morning, and I immediately spotted several arrows from fallen skeletons. With my confidence reaching it's peak, I crafted my first iron chestplate.

Of course confidence doesn't indicate stupidity; I realized I was lacking anything restorative. Fortunately, some friendly neighborhood pigs volunteered to help fill this need. I headed back inside as the sun set, then another realization hit me: the forest had burnt down, and I was beginning to run low on wood. Being the clever type, I cleared out a room and planted a sapling in the middle. Well, growing a sapling can take a while, so I headed back down my tunnel, and started back up digging. Almost immediately I broke through into another cavern, and like before I lit the area with a couple torches and checked for baddies. For the first time I felt a twinge of fear as I spotted something move down one of the many dark tunnels twisting away from where a stood. But I had a sword and an iron chestplate, and the only way to get resources was to mine, so a chose a direction and started walking. What happened next was perhaps the most terrifying experience of my adult life next to having a child; there was a sudden loud hiss, and I exploded. There was no warning. There was no sign of the creeper, though I swear I checked everywhere; it just dropped right on top of me and I was dead.

Death is cruel in Minecraft, where instead of fading to a standard Game Over screen, they show you all the precious items you labored so hard to gather, lying strewn around your body. At this point it's hard to remember why I'm doing this, but if anything I'm determined not to give up. More tomorrow!