The Case for the Crappy Minecraft Build
This article is kind of an extension of my other post It's Okay to be Bad at Things You Love. I've always considered Minecraft to be one of my favorite games. Despite that, I find myself getting frequently burned out. This morning I came across this video by LuvstarKei where she essentially talks about why she deliberately chooses to make "bad" builds over these aesthetic/complex builds. She kept getting burned out on these incredibly aesthetic and beautiful builds and shifted over to these more eclectic builds, pixel art, random buildings with odd shapes, things us veteran Minecraft players used to build. She makes the point that a lot of people see these incredibly elaborate builds and feel they need to be at that level.
I think this sentiment is the reason I switched back to primarily playing beta Minecraft. Going back to my roots in this game and making things that were fun rather than "aesthetic". If you get fulfillment for that sort of thing then by all means do it, it's YOUR game after all, but for many of us I think the solution to our Minecraft burnout is to embrace our clunky, absurd, and crappy builds that are fun and keep us coming back. We need to stop making these hyper-detailed builds to try and match this standard of professional Minecraft builders on Reddit and YouTube. I think this is another problem I see with social media, is that when we see what someone else has created we feel the need to replicate that for ourselves otherwise we aren't playing the game right. This prioritization of making builds to make cool renders for strangers on the internet is killing our enjoyment for the game, everyone's world starts to look the same rather than an expression of oneself.
Going back to beta Minecraft has kinda forced me to embrace the bad builds. It takes me back to a time to when that was ALL we did, we just built whatever we wanted pixel art of Nyan Cat, an ugly house made of diamonds, a roller coaster. I've realized that when I try and make EVERY build be bombastic and try and min/max my gear, it kinda takes the fun away from the game. I think the problem with modern Minecraft, or at least the way we play it, is we put so much emphasis on making farms for EVERYTHING, and the game kinda encourages that. Villager breeders, mob farms, XP Farms, enderman farms, iron farms, farms for every food item, your world becomes less about the builds and more about the farms. You get sucked into this vortex where you can't get into the build you want because you have to AFK for hours to get all the materials. When you embrace simple, fun, and even bad builds, the necessity for these farms diminishes. Hell, in beta Minecraft you can't farm anything besides some wheat, I have to regularly keep an eye out for sheep so I can get wool, took me 3 days just to make a little wool heart and I'm slowly building these castle walls around my base, they're simple in shape, but it lets me be a little creative with what I want to do with it.
So, I hope this post inspires you to brush off Minecraft again, play the game the way YOU want to. It's a sandbox and it's YOUR game, don't let the pressure of these 100 Days Hardcore videos get in the way of making what you want. Embrace the crappy Minecraft build.
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