Let’s talk about this block game, beloved by millions of people and why it isn’t easy to create a complex game like Minecraft from a game developers perspective. Two words to describe Minecraft. Fun and unforgettable. Now, the first aspect is Pretty straightforward. I mean who would play a game if it isn’t fun, right? So, what exactly sets Minecraft apart from other equally enjoyable games, drawing in a larger player base? It’s the fact that Minecraft can be played by virtually everyone and players are Able to have fun in their preferred ways. Do you enjoy making your own builds? Well, you have hundreds of blocks you can use to build whatever you want to make. Are you a fan of survival games? There’s a dedicated survival mode. Or maybe you’re a competitive Gamer? There are Minecraft servers offering you various competitions with other players. Besides, if you aren’t happy with existing Minecraft experiences, you also have an option to install additional mods. These sand box and the open-ended gameplay elements are what truly enable more than Just a small part of the player base to enjoy the game. What makes it even more enticing is how accessible the game is to play. For instance, because the building blocks in Minecraft are, quite literally, just blocks, you don’t need to be a professional architect to bring Your own creative ideas into the game. Anyone can start building whatever they desire. Additionally, thanks to Minecraft’s block-based world, you are sort of confined in a way that prevents the creation of absolute monstrosities. Yet, it still provides enough flexibility for skilled Builders to bring their visions to life. The game really maximizes the concept of “easy to play, hard to master”. And this applies to nearly every way you enjoy the game. What you need to know at this point is that Minecraft differs from a typical sandbox game. Thanks to the amount of creative things you can do with Minecraft and friendly graphics, the target audience of the game is exceptionally broad unlike other games. This also means that you could literally hang out with almost anyone you know by playing Minecraft. The inclusion of the survival mode in Minecraft significantly enhances its playability, too. A casual survival game is something that you and your friends can easily dive into at any given time. If Minecraft were solely a sandbox “create your own game” type, you’d either have to invest Time in making your own creation or dig into what others have created. This might be somewhat intimidating for certain players, as some prefer to simply jump in and play with their friends. The way how Minecraft has designed its survival mode is also quite remarkable. It offers a unique adventure experience and builds tension. This is highlighted with a day-night cycle system and encourages you to build your own unique house. Additionally, it introduces multiple monsters with varying difficulty, creating an RPG like reward cycle. The second crucial aspect, and arguably the reason why Minecraft maintains its Popularity is its remarkable memorability. There are thousands of Minecraft nostalgia videos on YouTube. Take a look at these players appreciating their memories with Minecraft. You too might be feeling nostalgic every time you hear this. The question here is then: “What makes the game feel so nostalgic?” Players often reminisce about their previous experiences with their friends or about their old creations. To understand why this phenomenon occurs, let’s go back in time when Minecraft was first released, when you played Minecraft in a cozy environment. At that time, There weren’t many online games approachable for children. So when Minecraft introduced multiplayer, you and your friends had an option to hang out in a virtual world, which was an entirely new experience. Because of the sandbox nature of the game, It really made the players feel like they were having a social interaction, person to person. The game’s soothing audio design also plays a great role. The game has a very calming music along with sound effects that aren’t aggressive. These aspects make players feel comfortable when playing Minecraft with their friends. Most importantly, Minecraft features procedural world generation. What this means is that your Minecraft world is unique and different than anyone else’s. The fact that you can then place your own blocks however you want in your creative ways is what really makes the Minecraft world feel unique to you. Now that we’ve actually analyzed Minecraft and have a better understanding why it’s such a successful game, let’s attempt to design a similar game that might be as successful as Minecraft and evoke similar vibes. Back in 2011 when Minecraft was first developed and fully released, it gained a lot of traction Thanks to its unique concept. This is a challenging task for us right now, considering the sheer number of games in the market. So let’s just say our hypothetical game needs to be a sandbox game that has endless possibilities and allows the users to do whatever They want to do and expand on top of the game. As I said earlier, our game needs to be easily accessible to anyone who would like to play. This means that the game needs to be cross-platform and ideally hold an E-rating. Now this can be quite difficult, because what appeals to children isn’t What necessarily what the adults like. So there should be child-friendly graphics yet still interesting for adults to play. Something that’s not too realistic but not too cartoony. In order for our game to be memorable the game should also encourage social interactions with Fellow players. Particularly the player should be able to accomplish a difficult goal together. Hmm. We are all aware that AI development has been skyrocketing recently with many AI contents available to everyone. So how about a sandbox game where you can ask the AI to generate any Building materials you want to use to bring your creative ideas to life? This way we know that the game has a good potential in popularizing. Next, we need to have a base game mode to offer. Minecraft chose survival which is a solid choice. However, in Minecraft survival, Progression usually tends to take more than just a single gaming session. In other words, for an average player it is quite challenging to accomplish significant tasks during this time. While some people may prefer this, it might also be a good idea to offer an interesting experience For player’s first session and also have a possibility to extend further. So how about a survival game but in a different way? Say you landed on a desert island all of the sudden and you and possibly your friends needs to survive the nights. In the first couple of days AKA in Your first session you’d have to gather food and construct a camp for survival. This is a bit more challenging than Minecraft’s survival and avoids rather boring continuous mining activities. Apart from that, doing this will also involve more activities with people who you play with. As For for the coming days, the players are expected to gather more resources perhaps travel to other neighboring desert islands and then bring their creative building ideas using the AI. However there’s a problem: if all building materials and perhaps even the structures Themselves are created by an AI, then you might feel like the creations aren’t truly yours. In other words, when you look back at something you made 10 years later, you wouldn’t experience the same nostalgic connection. What’s really important here is that the player needs to be Deeply involved with their own creations. Because of this, let’s consider removing the AI aspect from the building and utilize AI controlled NPCs. These AI NPCs could be personalized based on how you’ve shaped your own Island. This would also be helpful when the player comes back at a later time As the AI NPC could act as a storyteller helping the player to remember what had happened. Then, what do we do for the building and the art style of the game exactly, if we aren’t going to rely on AI for this? The truth is, Minecraft’s voxel world and ability to build whatever You want with blocks is practically perfect for everyone who plays the game. Here’s an example: let’s say there is a beginner player who would like to build a house made out of wood planks in Minecraft. You can easily come up with building a cube. When the building materials aren’t just Restricted with blocks then it might be necessary to provide players with some sort of a blueprint to guide them in building a house. Although, this might make the house less unique to the player. As I said earlier, really the blocky materials in Minecraft restricts the players to Build in a good way that it’s not too difficult for new players to get started with building. So at the end of the day, we would have a game that’s very similar to Minecraft but with slightly different survival approaches and just AI NPCs added… which I think this Could just be done with a couple mods in Minecraft and not an entire new game. Even though Minecraft remains popular at this moment, it’s inevitable that it will eventually gradually fade away from our lives. While there may be a new Minecraft Replacements coming soon, Whether these games can truly replace Minecraft and give the same level of emotion is questionable. In case you’re watching this video in 2027, which is 5 years from now, then let me know in the comments, if there’s a similar game. If you have better idea for a Potential new Minecraft that meets all of the criterias I’ve talked about earlier, then do let me know in the comments. Let me know about other criteria as for a new Minecraft, as well. Thanks for making this far into the video, you must be a true viewer of mine. I’ll be uploading A new devlog to my game Project Terminal very soon, hopefully within this month, so stay tuned. This has been semikoder, I don’t really know why I made this video Video Information
This video, titled ‘Why No Game Can Replace Minecraft’, was uploaded by semikoder on 2023-10-10 15:13:33. It has garnered 947 views and 67 likes. The duration of the video is 00:09:59 or 599 seconds.
In this video, I talk about why Minecraft is one of the greatest game ever created and why most of us consider Minecraft as our childhood game.
This video isn’t what I normally post on my channel, if you like these type of analysis videos, definitely let me know and I’ll consider making more.
Timestamps: 0:00 – Intro 0:15 – Why Minecraft is so fun 3:01 – What makes Minecraft so nostalgic? 4:41 – Trying to create our new Minecraft