The Minecraft Posts: Part One

So a while back I was pretty into that whole mining and building game, also known as Minecraft. However, I reached a point where I began to get a little bored. My fortifications were awesome, I had a decent stockpile of minerals and ore, and my mine was so vast and expansive that I would frequently have to just dig a brand new tunnel so that I wouldn't get lost.

I vowed I would give it a break until another substantial update to the game. And lo and behold, that time has come. The Adventure Update meant that it was time to once again dig into (ha ha ha) that blocky world and survive.

Piggy photobombed my sunset shot >_> 

It also meant I had to start again from scratch, but there was something cleansing about all that. It had been long enough since the last time I played that it was a welcome return. The first day in Minecraft is quite frankly, the most stressful. If you don't find a seam of coal you're going to spend the first night in darkness and terror.

Unless you play on peaceful, but that's for old people with weak hearts and fraidy cats.

An Enderman, one of the new mobs. This was pretty scary.

There were a couple of things I was hoping to find this time around. The update added random villages, abandoned mineshafts and ruins known as strongholds to the game. The villages interest me the most. What I liked about Minecraft the first time around was that sense of loneliness you get, and I wondered if adding Villages (and later NPCs) would change any of that.

As luck would have it, upon spawning in a brand new shiny world, it wasn't long before I found a natural ravine near a lake. Cutting straight into a mountain, it was pretty fucking foreboding. But I had some coal, and I had a flimsy wooden sword, and I thought hey, half the work of digging down is done for me, I may as well start here.

That was when I found the mineshafts. A maze of networks that ran like holes through swiss cheese. There were rail tracks (which I immediately stripped for later use) down there, and cobwebs and sweet, sweet ore.

I've explored an entire map worth of overland, with nary a village to be seen though. And the ruined Strongholds still elude my loot happy backpack. Perhaps it is time to venture into the Nether, and see where else I will pop up.

The current layout of my home base.