Minecraft Mania!

Saskatchewan Legislature Re-created in Minecraft

So today, Majong, the company formed around the hugely popular Minecraft video game, released the TU14 update for Minecraft on XBox360.

If you’ve been living under a rock (or at least without an obsessed six year old in your house!), Minecraft is a “sandbox” game – basically, a game that allows players to move through the game’s world freely and that don’t have pre-determined paths or barriers, goals or ways to “win”.

It’s become hugely popular over the past couple years as millions of players have taken to the game.

Acting much like “virtual Lego”, Minecraft allows you to use a variety of blocks and other shapes to create…well, pretty much anything you can imagine.  The game has two modes – “Survival” where you try to stay alive against a variety of monsters – both traditional (skeletons, spiders) and unique to the game (Creepers, Endermen) while building, mining and crafting the food, tools and resources you need to survive.

There’s also “Creative” mode where you are given unlimited supplies of everything the game has to offer plus the ability to fly. Arguably, this is a big part of what has made the game so successful – instead of another “fight the zombies/try to survive” game (even within the unlimited world of a sandbox game), the Creative mode gives players virtually unlimited freedom to build what they want, create games-within-games and so on.

I’d heard buzz about the game awhile ago and downloaded the free version for our iPad and XBox.  As he got more into it, we upgraded to the paid version on both platforms.  Then we began adding some of the mods (not as many as the PC version has but we haven’t made that leap yet) and other add-ons to change the gameplay experience.

As with Lego, there’s a whole sub-culture of Minecraft fans making videos on YouTube of their tips, builds and so on.  (Pace loves the videos of a guy called Stampy Longnose and he’s not the only one!)

As always, there are those who immediately worry video game are bad.  (Just yesterday, Pace came home and told us that a friend had told him Minecraft was violent.)

That’s true to a point but only in the same way that Looney Tune cartoons are violent – the game’s very limited violence is cartoonish and since the game has a very pixelated look like a retro 1980’s game, you can barely recognize the violence at all, even when it happens.

Personally, I’m much more interested in the positives of a game like this – teaching everything from spatial awareness to problem solving to experimentation to good old reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.

In fact, the Journal of Adolescent Research published a study comparing kids that played video games to those that didn’t. “Video game players, regardless of gender, reported higher levels of family closeness, activity involvement, attachment to school and positive mental health,” authors Paul J. C. Adachi and Teena Willoughby concluded. “Video game players also had less risky friendship networks and a more favorable self-concept.” – via

Libraries are getting in on the action too and finding Minecraft is a great way to connect with otherwise hard to reach teens and other young people (I know it’s a huge hit in my branch – I often see as many people playing it as browsing Facebook which is saying something!)

Although I think this is only for schools at this time, there are even educational versions of Minecraft that permit a dedicated server so students can play collaboratively.  That would be an excellent addition to a library’s IT environment as well.

Anyhow, it’ll be interesting to see what lies in store for Minecraft – will it continue to grow in popularity or be replaced by something else?  Time will tell…

Ten Things That Make Me Happy These Days

  1. I’ve recently rediscovered hummus.  God, that stuff is addictive!
  2. The local hard rock radio station playing German quasi-death metal on my drive back to work after lunch recently = Jason has a very productive afternoon! 😉
  3. I’ve mentioned this before but getting to come home for lunch every day is beyond awesome.
  4. That’s partly because, when you say “kisses” to Sasha, she gives a big wet sloppy kiss!
  5. Without any help from me, Pace reading me a book I read him a zillion times over the past three years.
  6. Caesar salad.  Shea and I live on that stuff these days.
  7. When patrons call me by my name.
  8. ThisLife.com (other than the fact that they don’t yet offer an unlimited package and I’m quickly approaching their third tier of service which might get me looking for another similar service)
  9. Watching the Flames beat the Oilers 8-1 on Hockey Night in Canada last Saturday.  God, that was hilarious for so many reasons – over-rated first overall picks accidentally drenching their coach with water, angry goalies throwing home team sweaters back into the crowd, rejected former Oilers scoring hat tricks.
  10. Reddit as networking tool. 😉

Music Monday – “Sleep pretty darling/Do not cry/And I will sing/A lullabye”

One of my and Sasha’s go-to bedtime songs…

“Golden Slumbers” – Paul McCartney

Why Do Atheists Deny The Existence of God?

For the same reason we deny the existence of fire-breathing dragons.

Saturday Snap – One Thing I Noticed About Pace’s Report Card…

I have an English degree so can’t help but notice that Pace went from “MEeeting” to “EsTablished” (which is the highest level in the school’s rating system) in English Language Arts between the first and second terms of Grade One.

Shea has a degree in Nursing and I also noticed that his Health Education mark stayed at “MEeting” rather than going up to “EsTablished”.

Just saying… 😉

(Of course, Shea could also argue that a big part of nursing is the Science and Pace had his biggest jump on the card, going from PRogressing to EsTablished.  Or that this jump is inevitable when he gets nightly reading homework but not nightly Health homework – whatever that may be.  So there’s that…)

At any rate, the one thing I do know for sure is that both of us are incredibly proud of our little man – great report card Pace!

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Friday Fun Link – Interviewly Reformats Reddit AMAs for Readability

Interviewly is a new web site that re-purposes the many Reddit Ask Me Anything chat sessions into a more readable format that mimics a traditional magazine interview layout.  No Ryan Meili AMA in the Politics section…yet.

(via MetaFilter)

The History of the English Language in 10 Minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rexKqvgPVuA

Edward Snowden’s Surprise TED Talk

Hero.

28 Books You Should Read (If You Want To)

I’m probably one of the worst people for loving all of those “50 Books To Read Before You Die”, “10 Books Every Child Should Read”, “17 Books for a Summer Holiday” lists.

I mean, they *do* comprise two of my most favouritist things in the world – books and lists.

However, I think this list of “28 Books You Should Read (If You Want To)” actually captures how most people discover the books they end up reading – almost always in completely random, serendipitous ways.

For example, here’s a list of how I found five of the last books I’ve read…

  • Library Catalogue Search – Search the library catalogue for “Minecraft”, find a guide to the game that Pace and I have read together over the past month
  • Unavoidable Media Coverage – Hear everywhere about a big buzz award-winning non-fiction book about Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the people at New Orleans’ Memorial Hospital that makes many “Top 10 of the Year” lists and wins the Pulitzer (I think) in 2013
  • Media Mention – A book of lists targeted at men that I read about in Entertainment Weekly.  (Should I also admit that a book like this tends to become my default “bathroom reader”?  Or that same Entertainment Weekly subscription is my usual bathroom reading?  Probably not in both cases…)
  • Random Library Display – A quick and easy book of financial advice, presented as a series of comparisons between two common options (Buy a House vs. Rent?  Invest in Your Retirement or Your Kids’ Education?)  This book caught my eye on one of the display shelves at my library.
  • Random Gift – A great read which is one of three books I received from my Reddit Secret Santa this year.

Music Monday – “Begosh and begorra/Ev’ry Irish son and daughter/Ev’ry good old Irish name and his relation”

Thanks to community radio for bringing this song to my awareness a couple days ago.

Useless trivia: the song doesn’t mention “Murphy” in the long list of Irish names it features even though “Murphy” is the most common surname in Ireland.

Happy St. Paddy’s everyone!

“It’s A Great Day For The Irish” – Judy Garland