Let’s Play – Page 5

Let’s Play Minecraft – Day Four

The rasping at the door was slow. It didn’t follow any rhythm. Sometimes a knock would drag; the scraping sound made all the hairs on my body stand up straight. But that was nothing compared to the moaning. The slow, hollow cry of a creature in longing. It was terrifying, and it wasn’t going away. The combined sounds of inhuman hands banging on my door and the mournful call of whatever beast stood on the other side of it roused me sometime during the night. The sky was still a twinkling canopy of black, but the beauty of the night sky was the last thing on my mind.

The thing at the door stayed there, restless, for a period of time that I couldn’t keep track of. At first I thought that waiting for it to go away was the best course of action; after lying there for a while, hopelessly trying to ignore the moaning, I realized that it wasn’t going to work that way. I’d have to deal with this. I was about to open the door when I realized how stupid I was being. This wasn’t a creeper, but who knew what other kinds of beasts roamed these isles at night? Maybe it was just annoying and not dangerous. But then again, maybe it was above creepers on the food chain. And I was terrified to think of what kind of monster would hunt those terrible things.

I headed over to my workbench, and fashioned a wooden sword. It wasn’t much, but it would have been dangerous to go alone.

Peering out the small peephole in the door, I could see a fairly humanoid shape on the other side. It was a noticeably lethargic creature, its movements lazy and uncoordinated. I was beginning to feel like this wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. I still couldn’t make out exactly what it was though, as the overhang above the door cast a shadow that the starlight couldn’t hope to penetrate.

I unhinged the door, and started to pull it open. This lit a fire in the creature; it ceased its moaning and clawing, and lunged at me with a ferocious groan. The amnesia hadn’t affected my reflexes though, and I instinctively jabbed my flimsy sword at the creature. It connected with the thing’s throat, not enough to piece its flesh, but the blow knocked it back a bit. The stun was very temporary and it attacked again, its claws ready to tear into me. I evaded again, sidestepping to my left, and smashed the creature’s spine with the hilt of my sword as it toppled past me. The wooden sword certainly wasn’t sharp enough to sever any part of this creature: I’d have to find another way to score a killing blow.

The creature was a shade of a man. It was even clothed like one, though it’s garments were torn and soiled to the point where they could barely be thought of as clothing. It had the same physical shape as an average human, but the devil’s in the details. And these details were more than slight. The thing’s skin was a strange shade of green, maybe even the same as the creeper’s, but it was too hard to say for sure in the dark. It seemed similar to human skin, but at an advanced stage of decay. It almost looked as though it would easily peel off. Its eyes were devoid of life, looking at me and right through me at the same time. I suppose this is what you’d call a “zombie.”

While the beast could make sudden lunges in an attempt to clobber me, it was still quite slow otherwise, and I was easily able to take control of the situation once I’d focused. Basically useless as a cutting tool, I used my sword as a means to keep the zombie’s filthy hands away from me. I gave it a smack to the side of the head. The blow left only a small bruised patch, proving that while the skin looked dead and fragile, it was actually quite hardy. I circled behind it again and kicked it in the lower back, causing it to fall on its face. The thing didn’t even try to break it fall, and smashed to the ground with a thud. Recognizing my opportunity, I leapt up and brought my foot down on the back of the zombie’s neck, which simultaneously created a very satisfying crack and a sickly noise that I can only describe as a “splorch.” Movement ceased, and the zombie slowly faded into the dirt.

The zombie carried with it an awful smell, very similar to that of the rotten meat I’d found the other day. Of course, that’s probably where the meat had come from the first place. The only parts of this problem left to solve were why the possible zombie had been on fire, and where they were coming from.

Stepping out of the dwelling into some slightly fresher air, things got worse again when an arrow flew no less than a few millimeters in front of my face. I quickly hopped back into the doorway and peered around to see my attacker. This time, it was clear right away what was trying to murder me, but I was no less shocked to see that it was a skeleton that had shot an arrow at me. At this point, I was ready to start trying to convince myself that this was all a dream. Almost as if something wanted me to know that I was not dreaming, I felt a blot of pain shoot up from my leg. In my panic, I hadn’t quite completely hidden behind the wall, and my exposed leg was now home to a rather dull arrowhead. The pain was intense, but I was a little relieved that the arrow had only dug into my leg just enough that it wasn’t going to come out without a bit of coaxing. You’ve just gotta try to look on the bright side sometimes.

A skeleton, of all things. Really?

This monster wasn’t playing around. I could hear it advancing on me and I decided to take the initiative, bolting out from my hiding spot, hearing the thwip of the skeleton trying to peg me. I turned and zig-zagged at it. The shot that pierced my leg must have been a lucky one, as the skeleton had more than enough trouble leading his shots to give me an opening. I swung my sword upwards and the pile of bones collapsed in front of me. I took a breath and heard two thuds, one heavier than the other. Must have knocked the jawbone clean off, too.

A couple small bones remained while the rest flaked away in the wind, and I was happy to collect a few stray arrows as well. Too bad its bow and quiver had vanished along with the rest of it.

I limped back to my hut. Though it was only lasted a minute, the extra pressure of the battle with the skeleton had intensified the pain in my shin. It certainly got worse before it got better, but I was glad to be free of the extra bit of wood and stone. I wound a small length of cloth around the wound, and sunk into a corner. Hopefully the worst of the night was over.

More eerie sounds flowed in through my skylight before I my eyelids settled, but they remained distant, and I figured it would be best not to investigate further.

In the morning, I took what seeds I had left down to the edge of the water and tilled a little land to plant them in. My bread supply was almost out, and I didn’t feel like heading out to Home Base every time I needed to stock up.

I spent the majority of the afternoon basking in the sun, staying off of my injured leg as much as I could. The wound was uncomfortably deep but wasn’t very wide, so the bleeding had stopped overnight; moving around on it too much would inevitably open it up again, so I decided it would be my day off. Survival could wait until tomorrow, right? I dreamed of places I might find, islands that offered more than lonely trees and night terrors. I also got to thinking about a way to move faster between islands. Surely I’d be much better off if I constructed a raft or a boat. Swimming between islands with a bum leg was going to be worse than ever.

Having absolutely nothing to do but roll around in the grass makes one restless, and I eventually decided that I’d spend the evening of my day off building a boat. My wood supply had run out though, so it looked like I’d have to head back to Home Base anyway. The swim to Tree Island was as painful as I’d anticipated, and I didn’t envy myself the return trip.

The saplings on Home Base were out to get me that day, as only one had grown into a rather small tree. It alone would barely provide enough wood for a boat. Recalling how I managed to insta-grow the wheat though, I mashed up the bones I’d won in the wee hours and scattered the bone meal around the sapling. Almost instantaneously, I was looking at a tree of massive proportions, certainly the largest I’d seen on the islands. Feeling that it would be more than enough for the time being, I knocked down the two trees and collected the wood and new saplings that sprung from them. Leaving the planted saplings to grow on their own time, I began the long journey back to Hope.

I planted all my new saplings on a level plane of the island next to my hut. If I didn’t find something better once I was able to travel by boat, at least I’d have a healthy supply of wood waiting at home for me. I laid out among the little trees, exhausted and in great pain from my trip back and forth across the islands. Once the sun began to set, I knew it was time to get back to work. It was only a matter of hours before monster time.

I managed to get the boat finished up by the time night fell. It was a cold night, too, so I made a short trip outside to collect some stone that I formed into a sort of poor-man’s furnace. I figured that while I had no proper fire-starting materials, I could rub a couple sticks together to spark up a source of heat. I failed, and huddled back into my corner for the night.

I could already hear the cries of the beasts outside.

Let’s Play Minecraft – Day Three

I woke up early on the third day, feeling refreshed and satisfied. I was still full from gorging myself on bread the night before. I rubbed my eyes and at up. The cave was cool, and the first hints of sunlight weren’t carrying any heat with them. It was comfortable, though. I stayed there for a while, reflecting on the trials of the two days before, and felt the accomplishment of surviving in such a barren environment lift the weight of dread from me. Today would be another trial, but I felt satisfaction in knowing that I would at least be able to sustain my life long enough to find… well, anything.

Given the situation I was in, I’d be overjoyed to find anything that wasn’t dirt or grass. Or trying to eat me. That was a big one too.

I got up a while later, my strength not yet completely renewed, but enough to get me moving about. I spent the dawn using dirt I’d excavated from the cave making a simple bridge from Home Base to Gemini. Another wonder of this land was that apparently gravity wasn’t too keen on keeping everything weighted down. Forming a dirt bridge over the bottomless (as far as I cared) ocean shouldn’t have been as easy as it was. It felt strange that the dirt wasn’t breaking away and sinking once I packed it out so far, but it stuck nicely. Even my weight didn’t cause it to collapse. I really haven’t got a clue why I keep questioning these physically impossible things when they’re making life considerably easier for me.

On the shores of Gemini, I discovered that sand did not pack as well as dirt. I tried welling some of it up to finish the end of the bridge, but it simply broke away from the earth and sank into the blackness of the ocean. Learning the rules of this place might take a few more days.

I was too busy to notice at first, but on the far end of Gemini, another figure had appeared! It was simply standing still, but burning steadily like the figure I’d seen the previous morning. The being once again toppled over and vanished without a trace, but this time I was within distance to hear a bone-chilling moan escape from the thing before it succumbed to the flame. Because this phenomenon was an almost perfect recreation of the event I’d witnessed the day before, I felt it was only logical to assume that I might find another arrow where the humanoid had stood. My expectations were subverted yet again when I found not an arrow, but chunks of meat laying about the grass.

The meat itself was nothing to celebrate, unfortunately. Even from a few yards away, I could see that it’s colour was not that of something that I should be eating. On a lucky chance, the wind was blowing east that day, and the meat’s foul aroma wasn’t able to overtake my olfactory sense until I was right on top of it. The flesh reeked, making very sure that I didn’t immediately stuff it down my gullet. Not that I was even considering downing uncooked meat at the time, but the stench cemented the fact that this was not going to make a tasty topping for my otherwise uninteresting bread. In hindsight I can’t explain exactly why I did it -maybe it was the compulsion to collect everything that could be even remotely useful- but I stuffed the funky fare into my pockets. Not the smartest thing I did that day, but not the dumbest either.

As it turned out, I wasn’t having a great day as far as being observant goes. The whole while I was entranced by the malodorous meat, there was a strange green shape bobbing up and down over the east ridge of the island. I didn’t notice it until I was right next to the thing. When I did finally see it, I fell over in fright.

The shape was not just a shape. In fact, it was a horrible green head. The creature was bouncing up and down at the side of the island, unable to get up the sheer face of the land. This was a boon to me, as the creature was definitely not looking to make friends. Unlike the oversized spider, this beast was well and truly a monster. It’s eyes were hollow, the deepest black you’ll ever see, and peered straight into your soul. The thing’s gaze was very nearly paralyzing, and the only reason I was not completely frozen in fear is that I realized that the monster was too stupid to move a few feet to its right and ascend the glacis of the beach. The monster continued bouncing hopelessly against the wall, its mouth agape but uttering nary a sound.

I closed in on the odd creature, despite my better judgement, to get a better look at my would-be assailant. It’s skin was a splotchy green, almost vomit coloured, and not textured much differently. It looked at though the creature was covered in some manner of boils, its flesh uneven and bulging all over. The thing was only slightly shorter than me, but it quickly became apparent why it could not climb over the small cliffside: the being was but a pillar of mass with four tiny legs protruding from the bottom. At this point I could tell that it wouldn’t be a threat from where it was, but its gaze never left me for a second, so I figured it would be prudent to try to “dismiss” my slow-witted stalker.

Carefully, I edged close enough to batter the thing, but before I could raise my fist, the thing began hissing strangely, almost like the sound of a fuse burning away. I backpedaled quickly, noticing that its skin had also started to bubble and glow. This monster was unlike anything I could recall, and I wasn’t sure how I should handle it. As I put distance between it and myself, the hissing stopped and its body returned to normal. I had no idea what to make of it, but I was sure that I’d need to extinguish it now. I quickly lunged at the monster, planting a fist right on its forehead. The blow knocked it back into the water, but the thing kept coming, still not displacing its gaze from me. I continued to wail on the thing, making sure to not get close long enough to activate its extra-creepy glowing state. Eventually, the beast hit the water and burst, leaving nothing but ripples in its wake.

I wasn’t sure what to think of this encounter, but it put the fright right back into me. If this was an example of the species’ common behaviors, these things were completely silent until they were essentially right next to you, and were laser-focused on doing whatever they do to their prey. Based on its actions and grotesque apprentice, I dubbed the vanquished monster “creeper.” I hoped it would be a long time before I saw another one.

Between the excitement and fear pulsing through my body, I had completely forgotten what my plan was for the day. Thinking back, I realized that I’d never really made an action plan beyond bridging the gap between Home Base and Gemini. Wary from the encounter, I trudged along to Tree Island, where I laid down in the grass and rested for a while, knowing that the swim to Hope wasn’t going to be much easier than the last time I made it.

Not starving certainly helped the trip, but my nerves were completely shot after the fight with the creeper. My arms and legs still felt wobbly after resting under the sun, and when I first jumped into the water, I sank a few feet before I could get my limbs to bring me to the surface. I pulled myself onto the shore and splayed out in the hot sand. I closed my eyes and focused my mind away from the ghastly creature.

The second attempt to swim to Hope went much better. Concentrating on the large island, I pulled myself across the water and collapsed on the beach. Being a genius, I’d forgotten to bring any bread with me this morning, and now when I reached for sustenance to renew my energy after the long swim, all I grasped was the awful meat.

Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it smelled. I took a bite out of the meat, and just about lost any bread that was still digesting in my stomach. The stuff didn’t taste as bad as it smelled, but not by much.

Polishing off the first hunk of the flesh, I decided that it was a really bad idea to keep eating the rotten substance, and hucked the other half into the ocean. Let the jellyfish deal with it. The jerks. I did feel a little more energetic now that there was something solid in my belly, but the sensation didn’t last long. Almost immediately my stomach cramped up and I fell over, curling up in agony. By some divine grace, the pain dissipated rather quickly, and I vowed never to eat any strange, smelly meat I found lying on an island ever again.

It wouldn’t be long before dusk approached, and I wasn’t exactly feeling up to going back out to Home Base. I picked up my hoe, tilled some soil by the western coast, and sowed what was left of my seeds. The plain bread now seemed like a delicacy in my mind. Looking out over the ocean, I spotted a considerably large mass of land off to the northeast, which didn’t seem any bigger than Hope, but it melted into the horizon, so I couldn’t tell how big it really was. All I knew is that it was a very long swim away, and that I was puzzled about how I didn’t notice it the day before. Chalk it up to hunger, I guess. To the east was a flat island that looked even more empty than the ones I’d been living on these last three days. This one was notably closer, and as such, even more mystifying in that I hadn’t seen it the previous day.

Feeling like things weren’t going to get better anytime soon, I began to excavate the northwest part of the island. I planned to build the dirt up into a small hut, so that I could leave the featureless Daisy Chain behind me, and operate from the much larger Hope. By the time I was done, the sun was partway into the ocean, and I was bushed. I’d set up a small workbench in my dirt fort, finding that my tools needed replacing fairly often. Apparently, wood is not the most durable material.

I left a small hole in the top of the hut, half worried that it would be my undoing if a wayward monster were to notice it. The hut itself was a good three meters tall, so I felt confident that unless there was a subspecies with wings, at least it was tall enough to repel creepers. The skylight did help to calm me though, as looking up at the stars as I drifted off to sleep was much nicer than the blackness of my den on Home Base.

Tomorrow, I promised myself, would be a better day.

Let’s Play Minecraft – Day Two

I awoke to the sun’s rays shining through the holes in my hastily built doors. It was already fairly high in the sky. The light was warm and comforting, a nice change from the chilly night air that I had an unusually easy time sleeping with. Maybe it was the lack of energy that kept me out for the duration of the night. Maybe it was just the hopelessness of my situation.

I rose from my corner of the floor and kicked open one of the doors so that I could bathe my entire body in the warm light. It was a new day, but my predicament stayed the same. The Daisy Chain didn’t seem to have grown any food sources overnight, but one of my saplings did bloom into a full tree. I was a bit taken aback by the fact that it had actually worked. Just a few hours ago it was small enough to cram in my pocket, and now it had grown into a tree at least three times the size of myself. Why the other trees hadn’t grown as well was equally as puzzling.

I knocked down the tree and replanted a new sapling in its place. At the very least, I’d have a consistent supply of wood for building tools and other objects. Maybe if I ended up stuck here long enough, I thought, I could upgrade my dirt cave into a wooden shack. Ah, how luxurious that would seem in this land of nothing!

Grabbing anything I felt might be useful, I started over to Gemini, but noticed that there was a figure flailing around on the larger island. More notably, it was aflame! The creature expired and the flames were extinguished before I was able to swim over, which left me more than a little put out. At the very least, I would have liked to capture a little of that fire to heat my den. Then I started to wonder what exactly the being was. And where it had come from. Why was it on fire? How did that even happen?

Questions kept charging into my head. If the being were aquatic and had come ashore from below the waves, why didn’t it jump back in when it lit on fire? Even if it were a land creature, why wouldn’t it have jumped in to extinguish the flame? The islands of the Daisy Chain were creating far more questions than I felt like finding the answers to. Something about the complete randomness of everything around here was very unsettling.

When I made it to shore, I noticed that there was an arrow laying in the grass where the creature vanished. Nothing else remained, which was even more unsettling. The grass around the area wasn’t so much as singed. What was going on here?

I grabbed the arrow and made haste. I was starting to feel like maybe I was in some sort of dream world, or a marionette dancing in the fantasy world of someone else. My hunger pangs were more than enough to convince me that I was real and that I would have to find something to eat, lest the curtains close on the strange puppet show that now was my life.

When I reached the easternmost point of Gemini, I noticed something that I had failed to the prior day. The ocean was disturbingly calm, and more or less silent. If one tried really hard, it was possible to hear the water making tiny splashes on the rocks. But here, my ears picked up on what sounded like running water. Looking around, I saw that there was a small area of water flowing towards the land, but where on Earth was it going? I walked up closer to the rushing water, and to my surprise, it was flowing into a hole! It was barely wide enough for me to fit inside, but the depths of the cave were draped in darkness so I dared not venture into that pit. All I could see inside was a small landing covered in sand, and the stream of water which continued down into the void.

I knew better than to be interested in exploring such a place. I decided that if I could find nothing else on the distant, unnamed isle that I spied the day before, I would make a point of venturing into the mysterious hole. It wasn’t the best Plan B, but at least it was something.

Tree Island looked mostly the same as it did when I discovered it, besides the fact that the tree it was named for no longer existed on it. The peculiar thing here is that I found a few bones and a feather lying in pile towards the north shore. The remains of yet another mystery creature? What exactly was going on here? Why does it seem that any other living things (flora notwithstanding) appear only during the night and are killed at daybreak? Is this even what’s happening? I collected the remains and looked out to the faraway island.

Losing myself in my thoughts, I almost didn’t notice the violent hissing that was approaching me from behind. Luckily, my assailant had trouble containing its excitement at finding prey and continued to hiss loudly, giving me more than enough warning to spin around and face it.

What I saw was a massive spider. While it was a squat little monster, if it stood vertically, it would easily match the size of an average man. The black and brown hairs on its torso and legs stood out like millions of little spines, probably in excitation of locating a meal. The spider lunged at me, but I socked it right in the center of its collection of beady little eyes. They were surprisingly small for a beast if its size, but they were a chilling shade of blood red. I ran toward the beast, planting another fist deep into its head. The blow sent the beast flying back, over the edge of the island. It didn’t take long for the massive arachnid to climb back up (the highest edge was only about three meters above sea level, at best), but I prepared my rickety wooden pickaxe for combat.

I let the spider lunge at me again, dodging its attack at the last moment, and countered with a swing of my pick. Despite the frailty of the tool, the spider’s skull was pierced and it collapsed on the ground, letting out one final hiss before the corpse up and simply popped like the squid from the day before. These creatures didn’t exactly pop, per se; there was no sound, and no spray of beast bittles. But their physical bodies just ceased being. In the spider’s place were a few strands of what I assumed was webbing, thick enough to use as a string, and not nearly as sticky as this kind of thing is supposed to be. I grabbed the strings, and contemplated the fact that in my quest for anything useful, I’d become quite the packrat.

After sitting a while to catch my breath and clam down a little, I figured that it was time to start the swim to the northern island. My stomach was rumbling louder and louder. I wasn’t sure how much more I’d be able to push my body before I collapsed from malnutrition.

Halfway across the waters between islands, I could see that the new land was easily bigger than all of the Daisy Chain would be if they were picked up and stack on top of each other. This is where I would find some sort of salvation.

When I made it to shore, I decided to call the island Hope, because it’s the only thing that had brought me any real hope at all up to this point. I was summarily disappointed when I found that despite its size, Hope was jsut as barren as the Daisy Chain. Hope was essentially a big right angle. The southern part was close to the water and was characterized by a small beach, a handful of flowers, and plenty of tall, unkempt grass. As I moved along the island, it slowly rose farther out of the water. The eastern side featured more of the bright yellow flowers that seemed to bloom wherever they liked, and another single tree. I summarily knocked down the tree and gathered the usual spoils.

Looking out to the north, I saw a tiny speck of land off in the distance. This was considerably father than Hope had been from Home Base even, and I doubted that I’d be able to make it there without aid. The rest of the horizon was simply blue leading into more blue, with the exception of the Daisy Chain, which now looked so small and pathetic in the distance. Hope was a lie, a fruitless gamble, and I wasn’t sure that I had enough stamina to swim back to Home Base, nevermind survive another day in the middle of this wretched ocean.

I did make it back home, and I shambled into my den, falling to the ground under the weight of my considerably weakened body. Life was over. There was no hope left for me. I let my mind empty and passed out.

I opened my eyes and saw only a dim orange left in the sky. Maybe, I thought, once night fell I would be treated to a quick death at the hands of one of those mystery creatures out for a snack. But I wasn’t entirely ready to give up. I went outside and started plucking at the tall grass. If livestock can survive on grass, why couldn’t I? Oh, right: dysentery. I began furiously tearing at the grass with the last of my remaining energy, cursing whatever force put me in this forsaken place. I wanted to live, dammit! I dropped to my knees, wishing to the sky that something would come to save me in my last hours. Looking back down, I noticed that small seeds had scattered around, most likely produced by my destruction of the grass.

Logic would denote that seeds that come from grass should produce more grass. But this place is different. I took a chance, the only chance I had to save my life, and put together a hoe from a few lengths of wood. I tilled a bit of the ground on the southern edge of the island, and planted the seeds there. Deciding that calcium would make for great fertilizer, I mashed up the bones I was carrying around and spread the shards about my tiny farmland. I cannot fathom how it happened, but stalks of wheat grew right before my eyes.

I quickly gathered up the wheat and took it into my den. Through a process that I will refer to as “magic,” I transformed the wheat into delicious, edible bread. It wasn’t actually delicious, but given the fact that it was all I’d eaten in the last two days, I was incredibly satisfied. It also wasn’t actually magic that made the wheat become bread, but we all know how that happens, so I won’t bother to detail the process.

So that was that. On an eleventh-hour gamble, I somehow managed to harness the totally illogical nature of this place to create sustenance for myself and survive another day. At this point, I could easily call Home Base my new home, and just stay here for the rest of my days, but where’s the fun in that?

I laid in the corner of my cave, contented and full. It had been a rough day, but I was beginning to understand how things worked here. Maybe tomorrow I would be able to make some progress towards leaving. But for now, it was time to rest.

Let’s Not Play

Turns out that the best way to get bored of Minecraft is to ~~write fanfiction~~ Let’s Play it. At least for me. I have screenshots for four more updates, and have written the second and most of the third, but the idea of playing more? Totally haunts me.

I mean, I want to play Minecraft. I really do, but the idea that if I play more I have to play whilst doing something that will keep the ~~fanfic~~ LP at least moderately interesting is super annoying, and makes me not want to play anymore. I really shouldn’t have made it work in a day-by-day format. Right now, I need to spend time in the game mindlessly working on finding anything resembling not-ocean, but instead I have to play it as if it were an actual man trying to do so. Bleh. I should have thought this through better.

Yes, I could create a new map to play on (I can’t go back to old maps with the super-improved V1.8 map generation), but I love this map! I was getting bored of Minecraft, and then found this wonderful new thrill in being lost at sea thanks to the random world generator. I feel like I’m exploring a real place, rather than a bunch of blocks stacked together. If this had been the first map I ever rolled in Minecraft… well, I think I’d have probably had even more fun with it. Also, if I hadn’t read the crafting wiki before playing the game. That may have ruined it a little.

Mostly, I like 1.8’s addition of a hunger meter. I don’t know what happens when it’s empty, but the game sure feels more game-like when you have an objective (of sorts). Not to mention that on my island map, I haven’t seen even one animal mob. Maybe it’s just coincidence, maybe the rules about where pigs can spawn have changes. Either way, I like that I’m actually having to work to keep my Minecraft Man alive. And yeah, that’s how I feel about Minecraft today.

Let’s Play Minecraft – Day One

My head hurt.

Everything was blurry for the first little while. I laid on my back, basking in the warm sun, trying to process any kind of information at all. I tried to watch the clouds roll by. Tried to find recognizable shapes in them. The throbbing in my head denied me concentrating on even that though.

Time rolled on. I tilted my head to the side a little, just enough so that the blazing sun wasn’t directly in my eyes. The thing certainly wasn’t improving my headache. Tall shoots of grass quivered in the gentle breeze. Getting past the pain, it was all actually quite serene. The sensation of absolute peace was calming, a feeling that I haven’t had the luxury of since then, and eventually I was able to push the pain out of my immediate thoughts.

I closed my eyes and listened to the wind.

I don’t know how much time had passed when I finally found the strength the at least sit up. It didn’t change anything. Not really. Instead of the pale blue of the sky, I was then surrounded by the deep blue of ocean. Miles and miles of ocean. Off in the distance behind me I saw a small patch of green and tan jutting out of the endless navy. Suddenly I realized that something was amiss. The calm was quickly replaced by terror.

My heart began to race.

Where was I?

Who was I?

These are questions I still don’t really have the answers to. At this point, I don’t think they really matter. But I’m getting ahead of myself. If I’m going to tell this story, I’m going to tell the whole story. You might want to grab a snack, this is a long one.

As a million questions about what was going on raced through my mind, I frantically looked around me for anything at all that might give me a clue about anything. But there was nothing. I was sitting at the peak of a small island. It jutted maybe five meters high out of the ocean, at most. The whole thing was covered in unspoiled green grass. The only shoots that were bent at all were the ones that had been under my body. If someone had brought me here, it certainly wasn’t very recently.

Doing a thorough survey of the land didn’t take long. It was an amazingly featureless little patch of land. On the northwest side, some of the grass had grown out of control (I still don’t know how the rest of the island was so well-maintained). To the southwest was a small sandbar which was mostly underwater, and plunged into the depths before it stretched too far from the land. The east side was host to a wall of dirt, and looking out in that direction was all I had if I wanted to see more than blue leading into more blue.

The faraway island didn’t seem as far away as it did when I first noticed it. Perhaps that had something to do with my newfound feeling of necessity to escape this tiny landmass. The other island looked significantly bigger than the one I was standing on, too. It must have been at least three times the width. While it was the only ray of hope for me, I couldn’t help but despair, as despite its larger size, the other island appeared just as barren as mine. But if there was a larger piece of land that way, maybe there was an even bigger third island farther out! And more beyond that!

In any case, I had to come up with some sort of plan. I had to find something, anything that wasn’t grass or water or dirt. Despite the dire situation I was in, I started to get a little excited that I was going to be able to explore lands that appeared completely untouched by humanity. My body’s need for sustenance was becoming more noticeable too. At the very least, I would need to find something to eat. That would be my priority for now.

I waded into the water, eager to start my hunt. And suddenly I was submerged completely.

As it turns out, my island wasn’t your typical island, and wasn’t an underwater mountain, but rather a very tall spire pointing out of the earth. Aside from that one sandbar, the land basically all dropped straight off as soon as it went underwater. Everything I felt like I knew about geography was screaming out at me that this was a very unlikely way for land to form, but so it had.

And then I was attacked by an audience of squid.

“Attacked” might not be the best word to use though. It was more like I fell into the group of cephalopods as they were swimming by. I couldn’t remember if I liked calamari or not, but I figured that this was a pretty good opportunity to find something to fill my belly, so I grabbed the tentacle of one the the squid and punched it repeatedly. It tried to flounder away like a spineless coward (ha!), but it was no match for my furious fists. Much to my chagrin, the thing just popped into nothingness when its life expired. It did leave behind a trio of ink sacs, but they were decidedly not edible. Looks like squid were not the answer.

I continued swimming over to the next island, and as I’d surmised, it was completely devoid of anything that I could use. The entire west half of the island was a flat square with little beaches capping its corners and a submerged shoal connecting it and the grassier east side. The island’s overall geography did seem a little less like a third grader’s doodle of an island than mine, with outcroppings of dirt here and there. There was a single, lonely flower growing on the north shore, which I thought odd. The flower’s bright yellow petals stood out brightly against everything else. Between it being the only real landmark thus far and being completely useless to me, I decided to leave it there.

Out to the east of this island, I was very excited to see that there was indeed a third island! Maybe I would find something there! From what I could see, it was even bigger than this one, and unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, it was even home to a small tree.

I was able to wade between island two and three, as the two were actually connected. More flowers bloomed on the stretch of land pointing at island three. The north sides dropped off into the black depths of the ocean like the entire circumference of my island, but the land stretched out quite a ways to the south, with a fairly gradual incline. This was more like how I imagined islands were supposed to be. Perhaps the first island was just a freak geographical accident.

The third island featured nothing that I hadn’t seen on the last two, with the major exception of that tree. It was considerably bigger than I’d estimated, and I saw potential for forging some incredibly primitive tools from its wood. I didn’t have an axe or anything, so I set about punching the trunk of the tree until it came down.

My knuckles were bleeding pretty bad (in hindsight, maybe kicking the tree down would have been a better idea) once the tree was felled. I had an armful of wood now, and to my surprise, tiny saplings erupted from inside the tree’s leaves when I felled it! Since it wasn’t the strangest thing I’d seen all day, I collected them and figured that at the very least, I could plant them so that they could grow and provide me more wood.

I was hoping that yet another island would become visible from island three, but things were not looking good. Indeed, I did spy another landmass, and it looked like a big one. The hitch was that it was at least twice as far between here and there as it was from island one to island three. I wasn’t sure I’d be up to that kind of swim, especially since I was already getting pretty exhausted from the day’s activities and lack of nutrition. Maybe I’d give it a shot the next day.

At this point, the sun wasn’t hanging quite as high in the sky, and I decided that I would have to create some sort of shelter. Unfortunately, the second and third islands were pretty flat, and I wasn’t about to live in a pit. The first island’s dome shape and relatively flat eastern facing made it the perfect candidate to turn into a cave that I could call home. So, with tree bits in tow, I began my return to the first island.

Because I’m sort of a sentimental guy, I figured I would name the trio of islands that I’d been adventuring on. If nothing else, trying to come up with clever names would help keep my mind of the more desperate nature of my situation. I settled on “Home Base” as the name for the first island. What else would I call it? Island two became “Gemini,” as it was separated into two halves, and island three was “Tree Island,” despite the fact that I’d removed the tree it was named for.

I also decided that it would be funny to refer to the collective islands as the “Daisy Chain” for all the little yellow flowers blooming on the larger two islands. It wasn’t long before I questioned my sense of humour.

When I made it back to Home Base, I immediately went to planting the saplings I’d collected, considering it was probably best to have more basic materials as soon as possible. Considering that entire saplings had spawned from the tree rather than just seeds, I was hoping that maybe they’d grow into whole trees at an accelerated rate too. In this land of mystery, I felt like anything could happen, no matter how ridiculous.

I then set about tunneling to the creamy candy center of the island. I would have liked if there had been candy there, or any kind of edible substance. What I got was dirt, dirt and a bit of rock.

Hollowing out the dome took the bulk of my night. It wasn’t much of a living space; the ceiling was just high enough that my head didn’t rub against the top of it when I stood upright. I broke down the wood, and used it to fashion a crude table. From there, I used some more wooden bits to make some rather ugly pickaxe-like tools. I tried using one to dig through the rock, but it was only marginally better than using my now very bloodied fists.

There wasn’t really much else I could do. The night had set in, and the hot sun had given way to cool ocean winds.

It was the least I could do to huddle in the corner of my cave. I put up some makeshift doors, created with the rest of my wood, in hopes of keeping the westerly wind out of my den.

I have no idea why, but fate really had it out for me. I mean, amnesia and being lost in the middle of nowhere I could deal with, but why couldn’t I be lost in a forest or on a mountain instead? You know, somewhere where I could easily forage for food and gather survival supplies. Out here on the ocean, with no trace of civilization, what hope did I have? The only life out here besides me were the flowers on Gemini and Tree Island. Squid too, I suppose, but a fat lot of good those would do me.

I laid down in the dirt and closed my eyes. If I didn’t find something edible tomorrow, that would be the end of me.

My pop is about to brain

It took all damn day, but I’ve archived every single word I blogged this year here on the WordPress powered site. When I first approached the task, I figured it would be a piece of cake. Now that I know what I’m doing, using WordPress makes blogging life so easy! Turns out I had a rather impressive buttload of stuff to move over though…

By the end of the year, I intend to get everything loaded up on here, creating what will be the definitive version of my website. I probably should encase it in carbonite and hang it on a wall or something at that point so I don’t go and ruin it.

Also, over the last couple days, I accidentally started a Minecraft Let’s Play. Yeah, I don’t know how it happened either, but It’s there, and I feel like I have to see it through. Here’s the little art project that set the whole thing in motion:

I started a new world in the game, because I do that when there’s a major update (hey, did you know there was a huge update on Friday?), and I was plopped on an island in the middle of nowhere. You’ll get more details when I start making the LP posts. Oh, and don’t worry, it’s a screenshot LP. I only dream of being interesting enough to do video LPs.