Source (intention) — original note, preserved verbatim. Synthesis in Why games.
Minecraft Is Not A Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjxH0IuyCpg
- Minecraft is not a game, it’s a thing with which you play games.
- Minecraft is an timeless game - video
- I think the magic of Minecraft lies in enabling the style of gameplay you want
- The meaning of any word depends on the context in which it is inserted.
- This aligns with Yuri’s explanation for why he doesn’t like Duolingo (it teaches words out of context)
- Plato’s metaphysics: everything already exists in the intelligible world, we just haven’t discovered it yet in the sensible world
- All change in a language starts from bottom to top (from the population to grammar dictionaries)
- My approach to analysis/research is strongly prescriptive → I take each word from a question, break it down, research the meaning/concept of each one, and then begin to infer.
- A well-designed video game will bring a game and encourage you to use all the mechanics created in its simulation.
- Players tend to use the simplest solution for a challenge and stick with it > difficult rule or challenging objective to break this strategy
- The meta: a base game that is easy/manageable, but uses its story or depth of mechanics to encourage players to complete challenges that seem almost impossible, requiring creative solutions from them. (example: pacifist runs or limited engineering challenges)
Minecraft Is An Timeless Game!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yidkhy7NbmI
- What makes Minecraft so great: love for the game and freedom to create
- You can create anything and play the way you want
- The most important block in Minecraft: redstone
- It adds a layer of complexity that can be used by newer players and infinitely expands the creation possibilities for more engaged players
- This, for a product/software, is essential: being simple and efficient for the standard user and having tools to expand usage for engaged users.
- Mods play, in my opinion, the most important role in the fact that the game is still alive today.
- There are mods for everything and, if there isn’t one, you can create it
- This reminds me of the open source software philosophy I discussed with Yuri