Minecraft has been a game that is extremely popular with young children. It is one of the most used apps on both Google Play and Apple, and there is a large amount of content on it on YouTube. There have been academic studies on it, and some librarians have even constructed activities and events for it.

Minecraft can be a platform for artistic creation, virtual engineering and architectural creation. Although it is marketed as a game, there are various construction features making it similar to art design programs like photoshop, paint I have opted to play it on creative mode as I believe it allows for more possibilities.  The Minecraft app on mobile platforms and my tablet was the choice of software used to run the program. The computer version and app version does cost money to buy a license and if libraries want to use the program they may have to request a budget for it.

When launching the game I am immediately presented with an option to create a new world, with many different additional options and add ons. The menu can be extremely confusing for young children and those unfamiliar with the app. I was unsure what the realms or additional add ons do. Texture packs seem to have to be bought through the micro-transactions systems. This limits the type of structures users can construct and can be unappealing to children as they do not yet have the ability to make online purchases. It can be also morally seen as consumer unfriendly as the game already requires payment for access.

Upon immediate gameplay I encountered some inconveniences. First person nature of the game makes the tool less effective, and the lighting changes are an inconvenience. I had to change the settings to third person and the lighting to always daytime for the game to function effectively. I also found the movement of the game to be an inconvenience as you have to move around to build things in the place you want to.

First short gameplay footage of my journey into Minecraft

 

The creative mode appears to be an open world game. I will be playing the game on creative mode as I believe it will be the most useful and diverse in terms of gameplay and goals achievable.  As the game seems to be catered towards constructions, my goal will be to design a library. I can see that this game appeals to children that are looking to express their creativity as the open world game mode allows for many possibilities.

As I started to build the foundation of my library in the game I realized that this game can be quite time consuming if templates is not already loaded to help the user. This means that it will be better to focus on minor goals and programs in shorter sessions. Due to the lack of tutorials for beginners, in-game guide and help options, the game was extremely difficult to play without the help tertiary resources like YouTube videos and third party guides on the internet.

Through out my gameplay time there were various aspects of the game that I believed were effective to it’s goal of being a platform for virtual building. There were many textures available for building available in the game. The various similarities of objects provide quick access to different colours of materials. Although I believe one potential improvement would be to have a colour palette option available to recolour objects to your desire. The existence of a character does improve the immersion of the game as it feels like you are constructing something personally. The hidden functions of some objects like additional patterns in the loom can be both a positive and negative of this game. Hidden features can add longevity, sustain interest and curiousity of the game but it an also be frustrating for newer players that do not know the existence of these features.

However I faced various design difficulties in the game. It can be extremely frustrating to find the parts you need for constructing items.  I could not find tables or chairs or computer templates for the inside of the library. Since most of the objects come in the form of opaque blocks, some areas can be difficult to access after you built on top of them. Some possible quality of life improvements the game can add are an undo and redo option, cut and paste option, add more free textures and templates of objects, allow the upload of images and files as objects from your computer into the game.

The time I spent was approximately three hours in learning the basic mechanics of the game. I managed to outline the library design, create some tables, bookshelves and added some carpet in some areas. Due to the level of difficulty I was unable to complete my design of a virtual library in the game.

Librarians that wish to use Minecraft should aim to build their familiarity with the tool and focus on activities of a smaller scale that has great compatibility with the object templates available. Constructions that involve a lot of natural objects like parks, gardens and farms are recommended as there are various templates for crops, flowers and trees.

Overall, Minecraft is a tool that is extremely unfriendly to novices, but contains many possibilities for experienced users. It can be recommended for children that have an interest in art, architecture or just constructing things in general. It can be used by librarians to make small activities but larger activities may be too time consuming.

My final thoughts on Minecraft after playthrough: