Minecraft! (single player dwarf fortress)

The free version doesn’t have any of the crafting. The amount of craftable stuff in this game is getting huge.

Its a survival sandbox game. The game world size is nearly infinite. Between crafting, mining, farming, fighting, exploring, and building there is plenty to do.

Despite the retro graphics this is easily the most interesting game I have bought all year. Its a real classic in the making. The only thing keeping me from playing it all the time is that its changing so quickly that I don’t want to sink too much time into really building something huge.

The game can be scary as hell too. There is nothing like digging through a mine and finding a cave full of zombies and skeletons. Its a ‘real’ kind of scary that is unlike other games. I mean if you play a game like Undying you know something scary is going to happen so when it does you’re not caught off guard or anything, but in Minecraft your thinking about your tree farm or the tower you are working on or trying to layout enough torches to see the mine tunnel you’re in then all of a sudden ‘ssssssssssss’ BOOM and you crap your pants.

A single thread at QT3 with a couple dozen posts isn’t doing the game justice. Its a much bigger deal than that.

Oh boy is there a Dwarf Fortress game being built here. Already there’s so much potential - very recently Notch added the ability to program circuits. And cars and boats are essentially being developed. There’s also a really active suggestions forum, so if you have an idea and it’s cool, it’s likely to be added.

To give a sense of what this game can be like, check out this video from Something Awful’s LP that started about a week(?) ago:

It’s narrated by Dr. Evil, I guess, but it’s a pretty cool setup they’ve got going on.

This is amazing.

I’d also like to voice my support for Minecraft. It’s a slowly developing labor of love and absolutely worth a look. I’m hoping there will be more mission oriented tasks, as besides building the other fun of Minecraft is exploring. I’m always eager to explore other people’s creations. Adding simple quest could go a long way with this.

Try for example exploring this little map I was chipping away at:


(You just need a free log in to be able to open local saves.)
and imagine that kind of thing with some ‘go to location’ or ‘find item’ quests. Real quick and easy fun with tons of players making more worlds.

Is there a good tutorial somewhere for it? I’ve been searching and can’t seem to find anything.

Nice. I kept meaning to start this thread awhile back but for whatever reason it refuses to run for me anymore on W7 x64 and a Radeon 5870. Anybody else have some combination like that working? It works but is too slow on my laptop and I hate impotently watching all the awesome dev announcements (mine carts, seriously!?)

Re: tutorial: Not that I found. Most important recipes to start with are: processed wood, sticks, workbench, furnace, pickaxe. Once you have that, I suspect you’ll have enough going (zombies, spiders, sheep :)) on to consider next steps.

I’m playing it on my macbook with “fast” rather than “fancy” graphics. You could try those on your laptop …

Have you tired the download client? The browser one was a little choppy, but the standalone client works great.

BTW, I am pretty sure that the secret update with snow and ice was the first step toward seasons. Sometimes I’ll spend days digging through caves. It would be cool to come out and see that it changed seasons. :P

I still just see a big sandbox. I guess that’s great if you like sandboxes, but is there an actual game in there somewhere? Bad guys to fight, dwarves to manage, goblin raids to repel, etc?

So, can we set up a MP QT3 server of this or something?

Yea the paid version is a survival mode of sorts. Any dark area on the map has a chance to spawn a bad guy (zombie, skeleton, spider, other stuff). The goal is to craft yourself a means of surviving while you build yourself a sweet place to live. At least that was the state of things when I last played a month or so ago.

The developer has plans to build on the survival mode and add a few more, one he specifically mentioned some time ago was a dungeon crawl mode.

I … am not sure what else I can say. I already mentioned the zombies, skeleton archers, spiders and constructing defenses.

@Gendal: I just tried on my 4850 on Windows 7x64. No problems. I know it’s not the same card, but very nearly so (one generation older). Tried updating your java?

@Xemu: yes, but it’d be just the unlimited godmode construction part. Still entertaining, of course.

I’m thinking this would make for a good QT3 succession game.

Bad guys spawn wherever it’s completely dark, whether that’s caves, or just outside at night. That video didn’t show off any enemies or combat, because it was just a tour of what they’d built at that point.

There are four types of enemies!

Zombies – Green guys who shamble at you while moaning. They’re the easiest enemy to kill and don’t have any special behavior. They burst into flames in sunlight. They drop feathers, which you can use to make arrows.

Skeleton Archers – Probably the most annoying enemy, in that they’re very quiet and can sneak up on you, and hammer you at range. Their arrows can knock you back, so if they catch you on a narrow walkway, hope you enjoy the fall. They also burst into flames in sunlight. They drop arrows on death.

Spiders – They’re kind of similar to zombies in behavior, except they don’t burst into flames in sunlight. And they can jump higher. However, they also aren’t aggressive during the day, as long as you don’t accidentally smack them with something. They drop string, which is useful for making cloth and bows.

Creepers – They look like weird green cacti. They initially act exactly like zombies, but after they sustain a bit of damage, they detonate like TNT. If you’re next to it, you’ll probably die. They also don’t burn in sunlight. They drop gunpowder, which you can use to make your own TNT.

Like I mentioned, enemies don’t spawn where there’s light, so there’s a bit of a meta-game going on where you try to keep your base, your mines, and connecting pathways adequately lit, so things don’t spawn on top of you. There are underground caves that you can stumble upon that are packed full of enemies, and some even come with treasure chests. This is the only way to get the coveted saddle, which you can use to ride pigs!

Methinks I must try this game. Is the UI less of an opaque hieroglyph than Dwarf Fortress’s?

If you played any FPS, you’ll figure it out ;) The only tricky part is the initial setup, but I outlined the basic needs you’ll need in the posts above.

Oh, hint: try to be indoors, in your own dug-out space, with a torch (stick with coal on top in the crafting table) lit and preferably behind doors, by nightfall.

Hint 2: build a chest and store your stuff so you don’t lose everything you’re carrying when you die.

Finally someone started a minecraft thread. I’ve been wanting to start one for the past month, but can’t because of the 50 post limit.

Minecraft doesn’t really need much of a tutorial, it’s very easy to get into. Here’s a rough quick-start guide:

Useful keys/buttons:
F11 - full screen mode
F5 - third person view
I - for inventory
left/right mouse button - to use tools/weapons and interact with the world

crafting recipes:

Getting started:
1.Find the nearest tree and collect all the wood by punching it (left mouse button)

2.Open your inventory, place the wood you collected in any crafting slot. A stack of four planks should appear in the finished goods slot. Turn all your wood into planks by clicking on the finished goods slot multiple times.

3.Use the planks to make a crafting table. Place the crafting table on the ground, by first placing it in the nine slot grid at the bottom of the inventory, close your inventory, now select the crafting table (mouse wheel or 1-9) and right click to place it on the ground. If you’re not happy with your placement, you can pick it up by punching it.

  1. Use your crafting table (right click) to make a wooden pickaxe.

5.Find some coal. You can usually find coal in an exposed cliff face. Completely dig up all the coal in that vein, then use the remainder of your pick collecting stone.

6.Use the coal to make torches, and the stone should be used to make stone tools and a sword.

7.Make yourself a simple wooden shack, with a crafting table, furnace and chest. This gives you a safe place to stay at night until you have the equipment and skills to go adventuring while the nasties are out.

What you do next is up to you. Some people like going spelunking, there are some huge and interesting caves to explore in minecraft, others like building massive forts or castles.

Thanks for the quickstart guide. I actually finally learned that you have to hold the left mouse button while cutting a tree. I dug out a decent little underground dungeon area to live in and the crafting page showed me how to make torches/picks. Pretty interesting now that I know how to do some of this stuff. I’d love to see what he comes up with for future additions to make it even more DF-like.

I heard about the block building game and shrugged. Completely not my thing. But an actual game is being made out of it, eh? …okay, what the hell. I just bought the alpha. I don’t think I’ll probably actually -play- it until there’s more there, but why not get it cheap while I can.

Man if a qt3 succession game is started I’ll buy it just to partipate in that. In fact I may just buy it regardless, as malkav said, may as well get it when it’s cheap. If the guy keeps updating with this frequency I can see this being a huge game in a few months or a year.