Read Online Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything by Daniel Goldberg, Linus Larsson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Daniel Goldberg, Linus Larsson
Tags: Technology, Building, Pop Culture, indie, gaming, minecraft, Mojang, blocks, Creeper, sandbox, gaming download, Minecon, survival mode, creative mode
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game, a terrifying giant spider is not a detailed 3-D model but a simple gray letter S . Minerals to be mined from the rock are represented by the British pound sign, beds are pale-yellow crosses, grassy meadows and trees are green dots and triangles, and so on. Small, smiling faces of different colors represent the dwarves. Many Dwarf Fortress players maintain that the simple graphics make the game more immersive—for what giant spider could possibly be scarier than the one you imagine?—but for beginners it is, to say the least, a deterrent. Just interpreting the information that’s presented on the screen demands a lot of study, and it’s not a wild guess that most people who download Dwarf Fortress give up after only a couple of minutes.
But the simple graphics are not there just to scare off all but the most devoted players. They also give the game’s developer time to focus on other things. Great game play and interesting mechanics are always more important than good-looking graphics, maintains Dwarf Fortress ’s creator, Tarn Adams. It’s also the reason he has spent several years adjusting and tweaking the balance in Dwarf Fortress and the nearly infinite number of situations that can arise from the combinations of thousands of different objects, creatures, and occurrences. For the person who takes the time to understand the game’s mysteries, it becomes a world that’s almost got a life of its own. In an interview with the New York Times , Adams tells of his surprise when he discovered that the carp he programmed into the game also turned out to be dangerous monsters with an appetite for dwarf warriors:
“We’d written them as carnivorous and roughly the same size as dwarves, so that just happened, and it was great.”
Judging by the popularity of the game— Dwarf Fortress has been downloaded more than a million times—many agree.
Secondly, Dwarf Fortress is a game that is almost completely open ended. Or rather, the game ends when the player dies, which happens often in the cruel, underground world of dwarves. Other than that, the player decides what to build and how. The game puts a bunch of happy dwarves, tools, and opportunities on the table and waves good-bye with one simple request: have fun. The rest is up to the player.
Markus had quit his secure job at Midasplayer to do just that. Have fun. He loved the indie scene that had sprung up in the gaming world. While it was hard for him to put his finger on exactly what it was that attracted him, he felt at home there, much more so than as a developer with one of the industry’s large, established studios, that much he knew.
His favorite online hangout was the game forum TIGSource, a meeting place for indie developers, where Markus (known as Notch in that context) quickly found a group of friends and acquaintances to talk games with. He loved the burning creativity of the indie scene, its focus on new, interesting gaming concepts rather than on elaborate graphics and expensive manuscripts. He liked that each programmer controlled his own projects entirely.
An outside observer who saw his career at this time would probably shake their head. Markus, who had dreamt of being a game developer since childhood, had had the privilege of working at two of Sweden’s most successful game companies. Avalanche developed Hollywood-like productions, with nearly unlimited budgets. Midasplayer was in the forefront of development and experimented vigorously with the new potential of the web. Still, Markus had hated them both so much that he quit. What was it that rubbed him the wrong way?
Maybe it was more than just getting free of the boss who told him what to do day in and day out. “Indie” literally means independent, that an individual can develop a game without a large company doling out commissions. Markus’s own interpretation of the concept is slightly different. He feels that indie is a matter of self-image. It’s about creating games for their
But the simple graphics are not there just to scare off all but the most devoted players. They also give the game’s developer time to focus on other things. Great game play and interesting mechanics are always more important than good-looking graphics, maintains Dwarf Fortress ’s creator, Tarn Adams. It’s also the reason he has spent several years adjusting and tweaking the balance in Dwarf Fortress and the nearly infinite number of situations that can arise from the combinations of thousands of different objects, creatures, and occurrences. For the person who takes the time to understand the game’s mysteries, it becomes a world that’s almost got a life of its own. In an interview with the New York Times , Adams tells of his surprise when he discovered that the carp he programmed into the game also turned out to be dangerous monsters with an appetite for dwarf warriors:
“We’d written them as carnivorous and roughly the same size as dwarves, so that just happened, and it was great.”
Judging by the popularity of the game— Dwarf Fortress has been downloaded more than a million times—many agree.
Secondly, Dwarf Fortress is a game that is almost completely open ended. Or rather, the game ends when the player dies, which happens often in the cruel, underground world of dwarves. Other than that, the player decides what to build and how. The game puts a bunch of happy dwarves, tools, and opportunities on the table and waves good-bye with one simple request: have fun. The rest is up to the player.
Markus had quit his secure job at Midasplayer to do just that. Have fun. He loved the indie scene that had sprung up in the gaming world. While it was hard for him to put his finger on exactly what it was that attracted him, he felt at home there, much more so than as a developer with one of the industry’s large, established studios, that much he knew.
His favorite online hangout was the game forum TIGSource, a meeting place for indie developers, where Markus (known as Notch in that context) quickly found a group of friends and acquaintances to talk games with. He loved the burning creativity of the indie scene, its focus on new, interesting gaming concepts rather than on elaborate graphics and expensive manuscripts. He liked that each programmer controlled his own projects entirely.
An outside observer who saw his career at this time would probably shake their head. Markus, who had dreamt of being a game developer since childhood, had had the privilege of working at two of Sweden’s most successful game companies. Avalanche developed Hollywood-like productions, with nearly unlimited budgets. Midasplayer was in the forefront of development and experimented vigorously with the new potential of the web. Still, Markus had hated them both so much that he quit. What was it that rubbed him the wrong way?
Maybe it was more than just getting free of the boss who told him what to do day in and day out. “Indie” literally means independent, that an individual can develop a game without a large company doling out commissions. Markus’s own interpretation of the concept is slightly different. He feels that indie is a matter of self-image. It’s about creating games for their
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