Have you played Minecraft!

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So, I was reading in a magazine this weekend about this new (or new to me) Indie Game called Minecraft. It was developed by a single guy, and I'd have to say, I never figured I'd like it as much as I do. It's so simplistic, but yet, so amazingly complex. While it's still in beta phase, there's already so much that can be accomplished, it's outstanding. The game has an overly pixelated look, as everything is made of cubes. Essentially, it's a block world and everything is made of pixels and giant cubes that make up each item and object in the game. At this point, there isn't much of an objective, but there are some unique features and complexities that really allow a player to use his creativity and at the same time to bring us back to a much more prehistoric world. At the beginning, you're player is dropped into the world with nothing but his fists: no objectives, no items, no nothing. There's some animals, and of course the world around you made of mountains, rivers, beaches, sand, dirt, and trees. There's only one thing you'll learn though, and that's that the day is good and the night time is very, very dangerous. So, with your bare hands you begin to dig, mine, and harvest the world around you breaking the blocks and gathering materials. You can gather dirt to make a dirt house, or perhaps dig farther into the side of a mountain to get some stone. Most people will most likely begin to gather wood from the trees. Once you've gathered some material, you can begin to experiment in your inventory with what you can do to these basic materials. Logs can be turned into planks, stone into steps, etc. Combining sticks and planks creates simplistic weapons, while upgrading and using stone can also be done. Essentially, the game seems to be an experiment on survival and starting from nothing, an experiment of how we created our world today from nothing and creating cities and buildings, but all with a lone sole: you. And when night falls, you better hope you have a cabin built, so you have a safe place from the monsters so you can begin creating things. And that's the whole idea at this point, to build, build, build and experiment. You just try and survive, create magnificent structures, and as the game takes final shape we'll see what the developer has in store.