What a month of June we have spent with these experiences! The odyssey began with the challenge of killing the Ender Dragon and the Wither, followed by a very intense week doing parkour, another very fun week as a god on a Hunger Games server, and finally role-playing as a revived early 20th century detective in the present.
The bar for this week is very high and it has been impossible for me to find a feat to match. However, it is not necessarily a bad thing. They say that a good mix of music must have ups and downs to compensate for the moments of ecstasy. And so it will be.
This week I have rejected all plans and I have back to my origins: A game I started at the beginning of all this with the intention of building my dream Viking home.
Playing solo is a pleasure that not everyone understands
I’ve spent many hours socializing on Minecraft over the past few weeks. And not socializing with your friends on a Friday night with a cold soda on the side. No. I have socialized with people I did not know to know their views Y play events. That for an introverted and lonely person like me is quite a challenge.
I’ve met some amazing people in the Minecraft community. I especially stay with the couple of girls from the last experiential. However, the time has come to abandon the exploration of my limits and return to my beloved comfort zone: the solo experience.
This week I closed Discord and went back to playing alone. While I resumed the construction of my home in Minecrafta recreation of a house typical of northern towns, I reflected on how much fun I’ve had… and even so I prefer a thousand times to play alone.
It’s not something that looks fun from the outside. Not everyone understands how a person can spend 8 hours in a row quietly in front of the monitor and have fun. But it happens! The beauty of playing solo lies in that very thing… that you are alone. There are no external influences. Everything revolves around you.
Minecraft: a Fortress of Solitude for those who want it
Minecraft offers many tools for socializing, but I firmly believe that the best experience is alone. Facing the challenges that survival mode presents (at least in normal mode) can be anything from a relaxing activity to therapy.
Real life is chaotic and your goals may not always be clear. Blessed are the people who know what they want and where their life is going. I don’t even know what I’m going to eat tomorrow… I’m going to know where my life is going.
play alone Minecraft (and other video games) allows me to set clear goals. In this case, get materials to build my house, prepare the foundations and finally build it. Each step has other steps marked. Know perfectly what I have to mean -10 points to my Anxiety attribute.
It all boils down to being in control. I have proposed to make a house with a very specific style and very few things can escape my control to prevent that from happening. So much so, that the only obstacle I find is a spider that almost killed me with a scare in real life and that manages to kill my character. Nothing that doesn’t resolve to reappear.
A little from here and a little from there
At this point in the reflection and in the night, the house is almost finished. A while ago I changed the world to Creative mode to avoid hunger and death, and incidentally have materials that are difficult to obtain to make a couple of silly things for my house.
Once finished, the first thing I do is take a couple of screenshots and send them to a friend. I take the opportunity to share this reflection with him and he told me: “you don’t want to be so alone if you have shared this with me as soon as you have finished”. And he’s partially right. Then I fell into the phrase of the poet George Gordon Byron:
I only go out to renovate the need to be alone.
As typical-Disney-topical as this may sound: I believe that happiness lies in share things…otherwise the planet would not be sharing its life daily on social networks. This, on a much smaller scale, is the same: no matter how introverted you are and no matter how much pleasure you get from doing things alone, in the end the cycle always complete.
In short, this week I have had a great time absorbed in my world while building my house in Minecraft, but I’m also not going to deny that I’ve missed my friends from Red Dead Online, Sea of Thieves and World of Warcraft. Also, the presentation of Skull and Bones has me on edge because they showed how co-op worked.
And you, do you enjoy it more alone or in company? How do you think Minecraft is enjoyed more? What games do you like to play alone and with friends? I read you in comments.