Our Oldest used some of her birthday money earlier this year to purchase the xbox version of Minecraft. At the time, she and her younger sister would play it in what's called "Creative" mode.
If you've never played the game or seen it, it sort of reminds me of Legos. Not necessarily the Lego video games, but Legos themselves. Like, you build things out of different blocks, and the people look like blocks... it's weird, actually. I mean, people who love Minecraft will never admit to this, but I'm telling you from an outsider's perspective... it looks a little weird.
And at first, the girls would say to me, hey Mom, come look at my house I built! And I would look at it and squint and try to see what they were showing me proudly, and I would declare it Really Cool! What a great idea!
If you've ever seen a screenshot of Minecraft for the first time, hopefully you know what I'm talking about. It just looks like pixelated colors. Mostly brown and gray.
Anyway, so this went on for months. And they kept asking Scott to play with them. And, so one day, he did. Only, he played it by himself first, and figured out what's called "Survival Mode" which is more like a real game and less like just building little houses and digging to the center of the earth.
The girls never played Survival mode because they could never quite figure it out. It had a strategy, that I've since been schooled on: you have to make a house, then find food, avoiding the zombies and creepers that will kill you. It can get really, really, REALLY complex apparently - you gather supplies to make things that help you fortify your house and survive. Like, you shear a sheep and then you can make a blanket for your bed. Or, you find sand, throw it in the fire, and then you can make glass.
So, since Scott has started playing this with the girls, it is FULL ON MINECRAFT MANIA in our house. He has even let them stay up super late with him playing this game (we haven't started school yet), and they are having a blast.
There is even talk around our house of "getting a fourth controller" so that "Mom can play with us."
Hmmmm.... I'm not a huge video game fan, really. Maybe I'll indulge in the occasional online Halo round with Scott, and I do like to play Super Mario Brothers or Mario Cart here and there, so we'll see.
Anything creative and non-threatening you can enjoy with your children is a good thing.
ReplyDelete