[DESOLATE WIND SOUNDS] [CREEPY MUSIC BOX MUSIC] NARRATOR: Dearest Diary, I have now been trapped in Minecraft longer than I’ve been alive. I didn’t even know that was possible. I traveled into Minecraft to research Survival for my once-popular YouTube series. Be warned, my story is incredibly tragic. So you’d better cry. [JAUNTY THEME MUSIC] Six episodes in, I was excited to try playing Minecraft for the first time. I was less enthusiastic about the top secret technology that would literally put me inside Minecraft. Behold, handsomeness incarnate! Some people say that I’m far prettier pixellated, and that’s why my husband and I are no longer together. When you first spawn in Minecraft, you’re given all the tools you need to survive. And as many helping hands as you can hold. Hahaha only joking. You get nothing. For years, Minecraft had no tutorials at all. Leaving the player to have to try and figure out what they were supposed to do to survive. The game’s opening is a mystery for the player to solve, and the less we tell you, the more satisfying solving it will be. Telling you how Minecraft works is the antithesis of this strategy, which is why this show should be cancelled immediately. Cynics might say this approach is just a convenient excuse not to tutorialize the game properly. In fact, I said that, and Mojang Studios bribed me with this cushy voiceover gig to ensure I wouldn’t ever say it again. Since those early days, we’ve added more tutorials to the game’s menus, and on something called mmiinnecraft… dot…net. Never heard of it. But whatever approach you take, hopefully it won’t be long until you figure out your first goal: survive the night. Daytime in Minecraft lasts around ten real-time minutes. Then night falls, and hostile mobs rise. If you haven’t built a shelter by then, well, I’ll be wishing you luck. From inside my home. No, you can’t come in. We think it’s a reasonable deadline, one that’s tense enough to give the game purpose, without Being overly harsh. If you had five hours, that gives you too much time to get bored, and try a better survival and crafting game. Not uh… not that such a thing exists. Of course, building a house in real life takes slightly longer than ten minutes. Here’s a house I tried to build in real life in the same timeframe. Bet you wish you didn’t get the house in the divorce now, don’t you, Jonathan? Having survived my first night, I decided to celebrate by going back inside and hiding. Did I say hiding? I meant, pondering what makes survival in Minecraft fun! See, most games are power fantasies. They give you access to superpowers, incredible combat skills, infinite lives, and the ability to have a conversation without accidentally saying something stupid. But Minecraft and other survival games took another approach. In our game, you can’t jump very far. You have to eat, and watch your health. And you are far from invincible. Fun? Potentially, yes. Instead of a power fantasy, we’re offering something…well, I hesitate to use the word “realistic” because I don’t want you to laugh at me. But by making you more vulnerable and equipping you with a more plausible skillset, we’re offering a fairer, more compelling challenge. Crafting a survival game that’s fun but fair is a tricky balance to get right. For example, with hunger and daylight constantly ticking down, Minecraft’s Survival Mode has two persistent deadlines. Whereas, if we added more deadlines, we risk the stress levels rising to the point you’re not enjoying the experience any more. Forty-eight hours in, and I was starting to crack. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried then. For several hours. Proper ugly crying too. Ok, maybe I am a little ashamed. Enough feeling sorry for myself! It was time to take my survival seriously. After all, how hard can it be? Luckily, in Minecraft, death is temporary. That’s because we’re not trying to simulate the feeling of dying, no no no no! That version didn’t sell for some reason. We’re trying to simulate the anxiety of struggling to get home after an over-ambitious shopping trip. Trip. Trip. See, finding treasures in Minecraft is just the start. Getting them home safely – that’s the real survival challenge. If you perish in Minecraft, you lose all your possessions. However, you still have a chance to get all your stuff back, so long as you didn’t die because SOMEBODY told you it was possible to take a bath in lava. You’ll have to travel from your spawn point to where you perished. This risk-reward system, wherein you’re offered a dangerous chance to reclaim your lost treasures, makes for a compelling challenge. One we’re always careful not to dilute in successive updates. For example, in the award-deserving Nether Update, we added respawn anchors, so you could set your own spawnpoints in The Nether. But to make sure we weren’t making Survival too easy, that spawnpoint has to be crafted from items that require exploring The Nether. See, there’s always a catch! And I should know, I signed that contract without reading it after all. And that’s how we make survival fun! Debatably. Oh stop that, I can’t be killed by a cow on camera again! And there you have it! It was a fun adventure I’ll admit, but I sure am glad not to be trapped in Minecraft anymore. Which is exactly what I plan to say, as soon as someone gets me out of here. Hello? Anyone? Jens, old chum? Jonathan, even? Video Information
This video, titled ‘Survival: How We Make Minecraft – Episode 6’, was uploaded by Minecraft on 2021-01-29 16:00:10. It has garnered 1639387 views and 62791 likes. The duration of the video is 00:07:20 or 440 seconds.
Can our Narrator survive being trapped in Minecraft? Can his marriage? Find out in a groundbreaking concept episode that’s surprisingly tricky to describe. Learn what makes our survival systems tick, how we get the balance between fun and frustration right (right?), and why you should always read a contract before signing it. (With thanks to Ryan Sand for his assistance with the Narrator’s fashionable attire.)