My new discovery for "pick up and drop" games seems to be the rapidly expanding game of ...
MINECRAFT
This game in and of itself is fascinating, especially to an IASC major, because it breaks a number of "popular game conventions" and formulates gameplay primarily around exploration and creation, rather than "kill the orc, get the treasure", gameplay we see more commonly.
Yes, Minecraft is my new addiction as of late and it seems that I'm not the only one...
The game itself is a sandbox in its purest form - a world designed and based entirely on the ludic attitude of the player - they must make their own story.
The story (or premise in this case) of Minecraft is as simple a thing as one can imagine:
"One day you were dropped in the middle of nowhere. Go."
At least that's what a new player with no prior knowledge will deduce from their surroundings.
Apart from being a great deal of fun, Minecraft is a world in which the player is able to literally reshape the terrain as they see fit, manipulating the area to form homes for themselves to provide protection from hostile creatures that spawn in the environment, make farms to collect resources more efficiently, forges and work tables to make tools, food, objects to use in construction, etc.
The world is infinite (topographically, though one is limited to a certain height above ground, and depth below.
Game much more than consumption and entertainment - it literally acts as a vehicle for dialogue between player, developer, and game environment with which a story is formed through exploration, consumption and maintaining of resources available (through farming and planting trees, etc.).
Break anything. Build anything. Collect anything except for Bedrock, Clouds, and the Sun... The versatility of play in this visually-simple game is tremendous, and accommodates all kinds of play, emulating a progression from "hunter gatherer" behavior to that of farming, and even industry if the player chooses to do so.
Personally, I, like many others, enjoy the construction aspect the most, devoting a great deal of time to the collection and assembly of materials into defense, and then far more time just building things to ammuse myself (images shown below were built by other Minecrafters!).
Minecraft is so versatile in fact, that a Minecraft Wiki was developed by users to sort out what can and cannot be done within the game (without modding it), introductory information and advice to new-comers, and many, many pages of information on details concerning nearly every aspect of the game as it is, and speculations/plans to prepare for what it may be as the game continues to update regularly.
A community of gamers has formed around this strange little game, and continues to grow at a tremendous rate.
I find this trend very, very encouraging.
Too often do I see game upon game released with the same "story", the same premise, and the same basic gameplay as its innumerable predecessors and Minecraft is a refreshing break from that monotony.
Long-live the Indie Developer!
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