A few years ago a friend convinced my to part with my hard-earned money and purchase Minecraft. After downloading the software and playing for a little bit, I thanked him. I've always enjoyed games where I can create, rather than destroy, and this game is full of that.
I made basic mud huts so I could survive the first night. I played around with simple houses, learning how to improve them and keep creepers from coming inside and blowing a huge hole in the ground where my house used to stand. Especially after that time when I left the front door open and a few of them wandered in. Imaging my surprise when I ran into my house only to be explodinated into oblivion.
I began to understand that even though this looks like a simple game, mostly because of the graphics, there is more to Minecraft than meets the eye. I learned about simple and complex switching mechanisms. These enabled me to make doors that open, and more importantly close, automatically. I learned how to combine tools to make a self-feeding furnace to automate the process of refining ore into metals, and cobblestones back into stone.
Each thing I learned gave me the skills to build bigger and better than previous attempts. It gave me ideas for new designs and better ways to survive in the harsh Minecraft world. It let me think so far outside the box of my early Minecraft days that I couldn't see the box anymore.
But as with any other game where I can build things, I suddenly needed a binder. I needed a place to put sketches of places I wanted to build. I needed a place to put the blueprints as I developed them. I started a new playlist on my YouTube channel where I could save links to videos made by people who built really cool stuff. The obsession began to grow. I'm currently on my third build, with sketches, blueprints and such.
I got the idea for this blog so I could chronicle the adventure of my builds. I'll go back and show my first couple of big builds before I get into my current project. The first one was a standard castle with a garden. The next one was built in a snowy, mountainous area so it is an alpine-style house and barn. The current one is a castle carved into a mountain with a rather grand entrance. All of these are made in survival mode only and have been alot of fun. I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I enjoyed planning and building them.
