Man vs Minecraft, achievements and goals
One of the Minecraft vidcasters, Paul Soares, Jr on YouTube, recently started a new series called "Man vs Minecraft," in the style of a television show. It's rather interesting, in that he has created a set of "hard core" rules by which he has to play... basically, he has to survive 14 Minecraft days travelling across the countryside, staying in a new shelter every night, unable to dig a shelter or place blocks into the world, only able to make tools and armor no better than stone and leather, and unable to carry any blocks, including the workbench and furnace. If he wants a workbench and furnace at his shelter, he must build new ones every night. And food can't be treated like a "med-pack"... he must eat twice a day, whether he needs to heal or not, and he can't eat more than one food item at a meal.
The only awkward thing about the rules is that it doesn't seem very much like Minecraft when you cannot mine or build. You can't even explore a deep cave, because you are required to travel far enough to find a new biome every day. But having seen his first two episodes, I decided to give it a try and have found it to be rather fun. One night, when I realized that the sun had nearly set and I hadn't found a defensible cave to shelter in, I found myself on staking out a hilltop and defending it on all sides. It brings a whole new dimension to the game when night no longer means shutting yourself up in a fortress and mining for diamonds while you wait for dawn. Now you're holed up in a cave, and it turns out the cave has a back-door... you're not allowed to place blocks, so you can't just wall up the entrances... you have to stay alert and keep an eye on both of them. I did find that I used Paul's rules about digging to the best effect a couple of times... you can mine stone one layer deep, dirt two layers, and sand/gravel three layers. So more than once I have dug trenches across cave openings, figuring that's nearly as effective as building a wall. And things get tricky when you need wood, can't carry it with you, and discover that you need to shelter in a desert, where there are no trees. Or you want to make a new sword before your current one breaks, but you can't find stone anywhere near your chosen shelter.
I have also decided that TNT is not a "block" so long as I don't use it as an obstacle... if I've gone to the trouble of collecting (and carrying around in my very limited inventory) that much sulfur, then I should reap the rewards, whether it be blast-mining or blowing up skeletons.
I think the hardest part about this mode of play is seeing really neat mountains or cave openings and being unable to stop and explore them. I've taken to marking these sites with torches on the ground in an "X" pattern so I can see them with my map viewer later and go back to explore them later.
But all this has me thinking... the goal is an arbitrary 14 days. The distance to cover each day is "reach a new biome" which really isn't difficult. If I just set off running in the morning, I can usually reach a new biome well before noon and have plenty of time to search for shelter. In fact, when I encounter a desert biome, I usually keep running for the next biome to find better shelter. And "take off running" is good advice when you want to get an early start... it seems the best defense against creepers is a good sprint. Even if they're hiding up ahead, they like to hide just off your path... if I'm already running, I can usually pass them fast enough they don't even explode, or they explode so far behind me I don't get hurt.
But that's all I'm doing... sprinting from biome to biome, with no ultimate goal but to survive an arbitrary number of days. I find myself thinking I need more of a goal, and it would be great if I was trying to reach a specific destination, say, the King's castle, to warn him of an invading army. The faster I get there the better, so when I reach a new biome in early morning, I can't decide to use the rest of the day to explore and find a good shelter. A deadline would mean I'd be pushing as far as I could before sundown forced me to ground. I might even decide to keep travelling through the night to make better time. I would take more risks, and meaningful conflict makes for a more interesting game.
That has me imagining a pre-built map... someone would have to intelligently lay out the destinations and goals. But that would add the opportunity to add way-stations... wouldn't it be great if I knew that, if I can just make it a little farther before sundown, there's supposed to be a pre-built shelter stocked with supplies? And it would give me an opportunity to acquire weapons and armor I'm not able to build on my own while travelling? It would be fun just to discover unexpected man-made structures along the journey.
Even if there was no story behind it, just having a series of concrete goal posts to strive for would make this set of "Iron Man" rules even more fun. I might have to start making that map.