as may already know my wife more
famously known as the lady I lived with
recently made the mistake of showing
interest in one of my hobbies so of
course instead of just sitting down and
enjoying some time together I recorded
her experience of playing various video
games for the first time and broadcasted
it to the Internet after watching her
play I began to see video games through
a new lens one unfamiliar with typical
game mechanics and conventions there's a
lot about the language of video games
that people who play them often take for
granted in witnessing her try to learn
that language has taught me a lot about
games and got me to think about them in
new ways so to continue her video game
education and in turn mine I decided to
keep this informal experiment going by
having her play what is arguably the
most important game of the decade
minecraft
a large part of minecraft success stems
from an appealing to a wide audience it
provides players with a massive set of
tools and then gives them the space to
decide what they want to do with those
tools there is no single right way to
play Minecraft some people enjoy
building a house in a cool location and
others like to make functioning
computers it is the peak of player
freedom given my wife's positive
experience playing breadth of the wild
I was curious to see how she would
approach a game with even more player
freedom as she is a human who lives on
earth she had heard of Minecraft before
this but aside from recognizing its
blockier art style she didn't actually
know anything about it for this
experiment I considered having her play
one of the beta versions as that's what
I'm most familiar with but I ended up
going with the current Java edition of
the game as it offers a few aids that
help players better understand certain
systems most notably the recipe book
which shows how to make certain items
she started with survival mode then
moved on to creative and lastly we
played some co-op together this gave her
some guidance so she could get a broader
sense of mine crafts major elements
while still having some space to
discover things on her own so this is
how it went
[Music]
at the start I decided not to tell her
anything about the game aside from the
basic controls I wanted to see what she
would make of it by just being dropped
in and as soon as she set foot in her
first world it became immediately clear
to me that despite minecraft being a
game that appeals to people of all ages
it doesn't do much at all to help
players who are new to it on a core
level the randomness of each world makes
it so a player's first experience can
vary greatly someone who starts in the
middle of a desert is going to have a
far tougher time getting started than
someone who gets placed in a lush forest
and that's because major elements of the
game are easier to pick up in certain
kinds of environments unfortunately for
my wife she spawned in a small island
with no trees or other landforms and
sites and understandably she had no idea
what to do every other game she's played
so far has had a relatively clear
objective even if it wasn't stated
directly there was often at least an
intended path to follow as she isn't
familiar with the idea of a sandbox game
she assumed that there must be some sort
of intended objective given that the
only thing of note on the island were a
group of pigs she figured that they must
be the key to progression she didn't not
having a clear objective proved pretty
frustrating for her because she had no
idea how to gauge how well she was doing
obviously minecraft is a game of a
player setting their own objectives but
her being stuck in an island made it
hard to set one because she had no idea
what she could even do there are a lot
of things in Minecraft that aren't
explained in the game itself and most
players won't figure everything out just
through trial and error however a few of
Minecraft score mechanics become more
clear when the player finds wood getting
wood unlocks recipes that show how to
build some of the most important things
in the game like the crafting table
tools and weapons being stranded on an
island absent of wood made it pretty
much impossible for her to figure
anything out on her own nighttime came
and as she had no structure to hide in
or weapons to fight with she spent the
entire time getting shot by skeletons
and blown
by creepers so I had to create a new
world this time she had a better
starting location and due to her
experience the last one an immediate
objective find some sort of shelter
before dark through finding wood and
getting a little additional help from me
she started to figure out some of the
game's basic concepts now stocked with
useful supplies she found a spot near a
nice looking cliffside and built a small
Hut while the Sun began to set well the
experience of her first night on the
island was a frustrating one it did
teach her an important lesson about how
the game works which led to her falling
into the core gameplay loop of survival
mode build up resources to create a
structure during the day and hide in it
at nights
despite her valiant effort the how she
made had some glaring structural flaws
and she found herself once again
overwhelmed by monsters when the Sun
came back up she built a more viable
hideout and from that point on she was
able to survive the night with little to
no trouble while I personally enjoy
Minecraft score gameplay loop her
experience highlighted one of the main
problems with it
night kind of sucks the tension of it
coming does give more importance to
being productive during the daytime but
failing to build something by dark leads
to nearly 10 minutes of guaranteed
frustration and even if the player does
get a structure built in time if they
don't have torches they'll most likely
just sit there waiting for daybreak
which is boring what's worse is that
torches are one of the few items that
don't get added to the recipe book by
just collecting the materials instead
for it to be added the player needs to
create a stone pickaxe first a lot of
players will most likely create a stone
pickaxe pretty early on but given how
important torches are for exploration
and survival it'd be more beneficial for
new players of the recipe book made it
clear how to make them just after
gathering wood obviously there is always
the option to craft things through trial
and error and well I get that making a
torch seems intuitive to those familiar
with how minecraft works for a new
player it really isn't so during the day
she'd collect and build and at night she
would just wait they're more experienced
players would probably use the night
time to dig a hole and explore
underground but as it took her a while
to get torches and her supply of them
was fairly limited she didn't want to go
down too far especially because she
didn't know if anything a value would be
down there around this point she started
having that feeling again of not knowing
what the game wanted her to do next
except this time
didn't actually care about figuring out
what she was supposed to do next and
instead decided to just do the things
she enjoyed most see you want me to play
this game without realizing it she
pretty much perfectly described
minecraft well not having an objective
definitely made things a little more
difficult early on she ended up
appreciating that minecraft didn't have
one because it gave her the space to do
what she wanted in the previous
experiments she stuck as closely as
possible to the main path only
occasionally strain off of it either by
accident or to complete a related task
here instead of just following
instructions she actually made a choice
of how she wanted to play the game
discarding any notion of what she
thought she was supposed to do minecraft
gave her the freedom to engage with what
she liked most it's a game with a lot of
content of varying levels of complexity
meaning there are things for both
experienced and inexperienced players to
latch on to and of course the biggest
pull of the game is
[Music]
well the actual act of building
structures came pretty naturally to her
there were a few mechanics of it that
took some time for her to get used to
like needing to place blocks on other
blocks and not just in the space she
wanted them to be furthermore while
she's far better at using the mouse now
than she was in previous endeavors she
did repeatedly mix up left and right
click leading her to place a lot of
blocks that she didn't mean to place
also given that my wife hasn't played
any game before where she could directly
manipulate and interact with the
environment it took her a little while
to figure out that she could even break
and to move blocks but when she did she
immediately recognized the game's
potential after a while I had her switch
over to creative mode so that she could
have a little more freedom with what she
built and this is when she went from
thinking the game was alright to
actively wanting to play more her time
with creative mode got me to view it in
a completely different way in the past
I've always thought of it as the mode
you use when you get tired of collecting
blocks and just want to build something
quickly but now I look at it as a mode
meant to make the game more accessible
to certain players creative mode doesn't
explain all of its mechanics most
notably how to fly but minecraft score
aspect of choosing and placing blocks
doesn't need much explanation and
without having to worry about mobs or
deal with gathering specific supplies
she could just focus on building she
mentioned that all the other games she's
played for these experiments she had to
constantly juggle different activities
and ideas and that often left her
feeling overwhelmed but with creative
mode she was able to do something that
she hasn't done much of while playing
video games relax she took in the
beautiful blocky environments and made
choices based solely on what she thought
would be most fun it's also worth
mentioning that creative mode doesn't
have any sort of fail state and this
ended up going a long way for her
throughout these experiments her least
favorite part has been having to replay
sections of a level over and over again
after dying losing progress can be
disheartening for everyone but it is
especially difficult for players who
aren't confident that they'll be able to
do the section again she'd often get
frustrated as things ramped up in
difficulty and asked something along the
lines of
make me do this until you beat it beat
it
both minecraft hours would pass and she
would barely notice her progression was
never entirely reset and that helped her
enjoy the game a lot more even survival
mode handles its failed States in a way
that she found less frustrating than
other games dying interrupted her
progression but it didn't entirely erase
it she could always recover her items
and the things she built stayed intact
she found dying annoying but far more
manageable obviously traditional fail
states aren't going anywhere and they
shouldn't as they can offer a good
source of tension in certain games but a
system more like this can definitely
help inexperienced players I also think
having various modes that only focus on
a specific mechanic can go a long way
for helping new players get adjusted a
mode like creative that takes away some
of the more gamey elements of survival
can give players the space they need to
figure things out and it definitely led
to her enjoying the game way more after
she built stuff for two hours longer
than I expected her to I wanted to try
one less thing and have the two of us
played together and while doing that I
realized something fundamental about
Minecraft and its core it's a game
after starting a world together we
jumped right into the typical survival
gameplay loop find shelter don't die
things were a lot less daunting for her
with my assistance leading to a night
cycle that wasn't entirely frustrating
together we were able to gather a bunch
of supplies to make a suitable base and
also actually explore daring nights this
gave her the chance to focus primarily
on her favorite aspect while still
dealing with some of the tense and
exciting elements of survival it was
kind of the best of both worlds I gave
her bits of information as things became
relevance I helped fight against the
various threats and I introduced her to
new aspects of the game that I thought
might interest her I shared the
knowledge I had gained from my
experiences and I think this is kind of
the way minecraft is meant to be played
it is meant to be learned from someone
else back when I first got into it in
the days the beta I didn't figure out
most things on my own before ever even
actually buying it I watched a handful
of videos from a series called X's
adventures in Minecraft where I learned
a lot of the basics I knew what to
expect going in because someone who I
didn't even actually know taught me once
I got more into playing at myself I'd
open to the Minecraft Wiki and tried to
learn as much as I could back then there
were even less in-game systems to help
players figure stuff out so it was the
natural path to learning the game and I
want to be clear that I don't hold
anything against Mojang for their game
being designed in this way minecraft
started as a tiny indie title that
gained traction because of its unique
ideas the developers weren't trying to
design a massive hit they were just
trying to make an interesting game and
they succeeded at the time there wasn't
really anything like Minecraft I put
every player into the position of being
inexperienced and for people who are
used to fully understanding games
there's something exciting about that
feeling in a weird way having the main
mode not be all that accessible made it
so that minecraft had to be a game that
was shared and no certain versions of it
have a tutorial world meant to teach
players the basics of crafting but that
isn't how most people learned about the
inner workings of Minecraft most people
learn through friends through videos and
through discussion boards the game
itself relied on sharing experiences and
knowledge and it grew into something
that people enjoy talking about almost
as much as they enjoyed playing a
player's fort instead of a hollowed out
tree isn't truly complete until it's
shown to at least one other person
Minecraft came out at
I'm where people had more places to
share their experiences than ever and
that has led to it becoming one of the
most popular games ever made of all the
titles my wife has played for these
informal experiments minecraft is the
first that she has actively wanted to
continue playing we've even had
conversations between play sessions
about what to build the next time we
jump in which is new territory for her
as typically when she's done playing a
game she never brings it up again it
definitely took a while to get over some
of the games barriers like not having an
objective but once she did she found joy
and having the freedom to set her own
goals through these experiments I found
that high pressure situations often lead
to a fair bit of frustration for her so
to be dropped into a game with
relatively low stakes and a wealth of
time and space to figure things out she
was able to relax while playing also she
has always loved the idea of designing
her own house so it gave her the chance
to incorporate her personal interests
into the game itself making things much
more engaging for her in these videos
I've talked a lot about how important it
is for those who are familiar with games
to be willing to teach those who aren't
in Minecraft seems to be a title
expressly designed around that
philosophy I don't think that survival
mode is the most complicated thing in
the world but a lot of aspects go
unexplained so having someone around to
be a guide goes a long way of course
designers shouldn't intentionally make
their games confusing so that players
will have to rely on outside sources but
that is part of why minecraft became the
behemoth it is today is a game that is
made better by sharing experiences and
information with others as cheesy as it
is to say it has brought people together
when I think of Minecraft my memories of
it aren't tied to playing alone they're
tied to the countless videos I watched
of other people's adventures and
creations they're tied to the hours upon
hours my college roommate and I spent
building everything from a castle to a
flying ship and now they're tied to
showing it to my wife for the first time
and watching her go from being entirely
confused with what she was supposed to
do to being engaged with the game in a
way she never has been before
let's go like we are we in there crying
we're like yeah well the kind of our
stuff is gonna kill us hey thanks for
watching this video is sponsored by
Nordby pn there are a lot of reasons to
get a VPN ranging from protecting your
privacy and information to being able to
connect to servers in France in order to
watch Avatar The Last Airbender on
Netflix all good reasons personally I
don't like the idea of anyone tracking
and potentially selling my information
so having a VPN that encrypts my online
activity and doesn't log my data helps
put me at ease and for the next few days
if you go to Noor VPN comm slash
Rasputin or use code Raz butan you can
get 81 percent off of a three-year plan
this special deal will also get you an
extra four months for free and nord pass
which is a service that helps you manage
your passwords all this comes out to
just a few dollars a month it's a
holiday special and is indeed really
soon so now is the best time to check it
out again in order to get the deal and
help support my channel go to Nord VPN
comm / Raz butan Nord VPN has thousands
of servers spread across 59 countries
and Nord is making an effort to
privately-owned all of their servers in
order to help ensure maximum security
instead of using ones run by third
parties for the more Nords interface is
super easy to use and choosing where you
want to connect is as simple as clicking
a location on the map and if you find
that the service isn't for you there is
a 30-day money-back guarantee so I would
say give it a shot and see what a VPN
can do for you the link I mentioned
before is in the description thanks to
Nord VPN for sponsoring this video
anyway I appreciate you all so much for
watching I'm excited to get more content
out this year I have a lot of big ideas
and ambitions for the channel none of
which I'm gonna say cloud just in case I
changed my mind or they don't happen or
it happens differently but if you like
what I do and you like the content I put
out hopefully it'll be an exciting time
for all of you because I know it's a
very exciting time for me so yeah have a
great day and/or night
and I will see you in the next one
hey got you something I got you
something
I gave it to you all right what do you
want to do we gotta build yeah I know
I'm a great husband