Before we can get into the flow that Minecraft, we first have to think about exactly what flow is. Flow, to put it simply, is essentially a state of mind in which your head is put fully into the game, and your hold on things like how long you're doing it for fade away. Flow is incredibly important in game-making because, well, it's what allows games to become addictive and actually enjoyable to play. If it reels you in and keeps you engaged and entertained, then it's a good game. It means you'll find that it isn't boring, but also not too frustrating, and just sort of in its sweet spot. And this brings us to Minecraft. Minecraft, to me, is fun mostly when it comes to creative mode, since it allows me to build whatever I want in an infinite space. This, of course, falls into constructive fun, but for the sake of simplicity, and for an actually followable line of events, I've decided to instead evaluate the game's survival mode, which instead follows more closely to narrative or story-based fun. It does instead have a story to follow, and events that you are meant to follow in order to beat the game. I can say with complete confidence that Minecraft's developers at Mojang really have managed to make a game that puts you into flow. There have been countless times where I've played Minecraft for several hours on end without even realizing how much time had passed. It's far more engaging in multiplayer, where you can build, fight, or just survive together, and potentially even beat the game and make a multiplayer world to mess around in. Speaking of surviving, I'll go ahead and explain every event in my flow chart. Starting from humble beginnings is the first day. The first day is generally pretty easy and simple, you find yourself some materials to make some tools, maybe get some food and/or armor, make a little hut to live in. It's fairly tame. The first night can be a little bit more problematic, however. Attempting to evade and survive against all the monsters that spawn at night in Minceraft is engaging, but it can also be a little frustrating if you end up dying. However, this keeps you engaged by keeping you at risk. Next is acquiring ores, which isn't all that encapsulating, since it's really just trying to find certain bits of rock so you can make more tools and armor, create other items of use, etc. It's more engaging if you're in a cave, but nonetheless, not very fun. Exploration of the world fits in this group as well, it's fairly engaging looking around for the various things you may need on your quest to reach the End, but nothing special and nothing too mundane. Gaining Diamonds, on the other hand, feels great, even though finding them can often be a bit of a pain. After you get Diamonds, you're able to reach the next frontier: The Nether.
Reaching the Nether is incredibly engaging, mostly because in the Nether, constant attention and awareness is required to avoid dying a brutal death and risking losing all of your items. It's often not too frustrating, but what IS frustrating is acquiring Ender Eyes.
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This unit has been really weird, especially since for a good chunk of it, I was stuck at home due to COVID exposure. However, I have at least tried to learn about a few of the things this unit is all about, and even if it's not actual game creation or art yet, it is still quite interesting. We ended up being taught once again about jobs, though this time we went more in depth about what jobs are in the game industry. While at first I just wanted to be an artist, I now know for sure that in particular, the role of a concept artist is what interests me most. I didn't even know they had dedicated artists for things like the textures of games. We also learned about the history of games, and in the process, I had the, for lack of better terms, experience of trying to create a timeline of games that leads up to my game of choice to describe and trace back. I'm not actually very proud of this timeline, because it's hard to follow without having the full description, and even then, I really, REALLY struggled to try and connect them all in a way that made sense when spoken out, and the fact that it got super loose by the end didn't help either. Either way, though, I didn't really know exactly what to do, so I just tried to make it easy to follow at least visually. Finally, we've learned about the ethics of game design, with things like respecting copyright and royalties, acting in a diligent and respectful manner inside and outside of work, and even the reasons for the existence of age-based game ratings. All of this stuff, even if not exactly what I really want to learn, was pretty interesting and fascinating to learn about. I just really hope I can remember enough of it for the test. Alright, that's all I have to say. There'll be more updates in the next post.
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AuthorHello! I'm Alex, or John. I already told you quite a bit about myself in the About Me Page, so I won't say too much here. I'll just say that I like to do things like roleplay, make concepts for characters and stuff like that, and overall like to do things that require visual things, like drawing. Archives
January 2023
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