I don't actually recall what version I started on when I was but a humble 12 year old. I want to say it was during The Update that Changed the World (that being 1.7), but I could be wrong about that. Regardless, I do remember how I was introduced to the game!

Picture it... it's 2013, or whatever. You've just finished your homework, and you're about to watch YouTube. Y'know, after you battle with your school laptop's high tech security that was easily bypassed by quickly restarting your internet connection. You scroll through the YouTube homepage, looking for something interesting to watch. After watching your standard selection of Pewdiepie Amnesia custom stories, you stumble across Tobuscus' Minecraft let's play in the reccomended. Curious, you click on the video. Of course, it's a random part in the series, so you have little to no context on anything going on. Still, you're intrigued. And so, you go to find the playlist, and watch it from the very beginning.

That... is how it started. Yeah, remember Tobuscus? He was such a dude. Didn't he get accused of a bunch of fucked up shit? Oh wait, so did Pewdiepie. And... and Cryaotic. Man, that's depressing. Is there any let's player out there that isn't, like, fucked up? Good lord.

ANYWAY! A while after discovering Toby's let's play, a friend of mine (who later bullied me to all hell, but that's neither here nor there) offered to lend me their account information so I could play. Why didn't I just ask my mother to buy the game for me? Well, we were poor. I say that as though we're not still poor. XD

My first time playing Minecraft went about as well as you can expect. Creative, Peaceful, Superflat. Built a giant castle (which was primarily a box with weird hallways shooting off of it). Went into Survival once it was done. Kept seeing these weird little gray things for a split second every time I broke one of the stone bricks. Asked friend about it. They ask what block I used. Look to see what the item was. Stone Bricks Monster Egg. *sigh* Good times. :')

There are so many things I love about this game. So many things, in fact, that I think the only way I can get this across to you, the reader, is to compile a list of all said reasons.

  1. The graphics. It's pixelated, but not in a way that makes it look cheap. I feel like a lot of Minecraft clones skip out on that part. XD When you stop to look at the game, and your specs aren't too trashy, even without any fancy shaders, Minecraft is really pretty looking.

  2. The soundtrack. Particularly the stuff created by C418, though I'm not about to trash any of the newer tracks. There's nothing more calming than walking around your world, chillin', and suddenly somethin' like Mice on Venus comes on, and you just fuckin' melt into your chair due to nostalgia overload.
    3. ~ And then there's calm4.ogg. M o j a n g   S p e c i f i c a t i o n s.

  3. The inherent storytelling of it all. Once you're in a Minecraft world for a while, given the nature of a sandbox, one can't help but begin to a craft a story in the back of their mind as they play. The story tells of the construction of your base, of the animals you tame, the monsters you've killed, the dimensions you've visited, etc. Was your base created out of desperation, necessity, or did you actually put time and effort into it? And if you've put your base their a village, there's even more story to be developed there. Are you a friendly neighbor, keeping the villagers safe from the monsters of the world? Or are you a ruthless dictator, constructing iron farms and trading halls? Are you taking your time with progression, or are you speedrunning the game? The possibilities, man!!!

  4. The older versions of the game were buggy as hell. One of my favorite bugs would being what strange things happened when you traveled 32 million blocks away from spawn -- it's one of the most famous Minecraft oddities, iiiit's the Far Laaaaands! *applause* This bizarre terrain glitch occurred due to the way in which terrain generation works. They're what happens when a noise generator exceeds the largest value it can handle, resulting in an overflow. The swiss-cheese-esque walls are what happens when "low noise" and "high noise" overflow simultaneously. Of course, the Far Lands is not the only thing that happens that far away from spawn. The position at where blocks are rendered won't match up to the position of entities and other world elements. This imprecision is often attributed to the Far Lands, but these are actually isolated errors. And they're both SO cool!!!

  5. Minecraft, particularly on singleplayer, feels oddly like a horror game. Not an outright horror game, mind you. XD There's no spooky scary jumpscares (unless you count the creepers...). No, it's a more subtle kind of horror. Whenever one of C418's classics isn't playing, there's no other ambient noise in the game to keep you company. There's nothing but silence, save for the occasional cluck of a chicken, moo of a cow, or any of the other mob noises. It just feels so... lonely. And there's nothing that feels more Minecraft to me than that weird sense of loneliness.

  6. Given that I just talked about how spooky the game can feel, it's only fitting I bring up its most popular creepypasta! Herobrine. I have nothing to say about him, really, I just think he's neat.
Fanart

Oh boy, here comes my favorite part! Showing off my stupid scribbles! :D As per usual, right-click and press 'Open in new tab' (or your browser's equivalent button) to see the full view!