When I first played open-world sandbox game Minecraft, soon after the first, full survival mode launched, I knew very little about the game. My first in-game day was spent wandering about, admiring the procedurally generated graphics, punching some trees in a sun-dappled forest, digging some aimless holes, and wondering why so many gamers had suddenly proclaimed this uneventful, primitive, goalless game as a masterpiece. Then night fell.
As darkness surrounded me, the previously bucolic world of Minecraft exploded into chaos and horror as skeletons, zombies and strange, detonating creatures called “Creepers” materialized from the darkness and assaulted me. While the MOBs of Minecraft might be 8-bit looking and a little silly by day, at night, if you don’t understand their ways, those things are monsters.
In a panic, I dug into the ground and covered myself with the earth. I was barely alive, but safe. But it was dark. Not videogame-dark, where you can see what you need to after boosting the brightness setting, but complete, black-screen darkness. I was still able to hear the moans and groans of the creatures that wanted to kill me, and had no idea if they could follow, so I started to dig away from the sound.
I tunneled blindly all night, lost and terror-stricken, an eyeless mole-rat. Finally, through dumb luck, I managed to break through to the surface again, the sun was shining now, and my former adversaries were bursting into flames from the sunlight. Good riddance, bastards. I looked behind me to see the results of my evening of fear and darkness: Ugly holes gouged in the earth, a monument to panic. I committed myself to the simple goal of comfortable surviving a night in Minecraft, and so I was hooked into the most addictive game I’ve ever played.
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