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Dec 4, 2012

Minecraft: The Search for the End

I finished a project! I know, right? Pretty out of the blue. That's because I started it a year ago not really considering it as a project, and decided today it was and finished it!

The Search for the End is... well, a fictional glorified documentary, I guess, of a Minecraft campaign I played in 2011. It started out as a "Race to the End" with my friend Jon, to see who could get to the End Realm and beat the end boss first. I won by a landslide because Jon slacked off on his writing. It was a lot of work to play the game, take cinematic screenshots, separate the mission into segments, come up with a literary way to explain what happened, and in my case, Photoshop some of the screens. But I still bug Jon to finish his story.
The thing I like about this story is the way I tried to 'translate' the odd mechanics and culture of Minecraft into a story with lore that made sense. For example, I keep the origins of the player (In this case, a man actually named Abelhawk based on my Runescape toon) mysterious, but I leave hints as to his origin. Take the first line of the first entry for example: "I awoke in a forest this morning without knowledge of what happened to my ship or crew. It appears that I will have to go on in search of 'The End' alone." This is rarely spoken of again, and adds to the effect that every singleplayer Minecrafter feels while playing: that he is absolutely, terribly, alone.

I also allude to other aspects of the game through storytelling. Of course I take liberties, but most of the story is accurate. I even explain away my character's knowledge of the game as something he gets from books he finds. It was really fun to make this, and I still treasure the world that was built out of it. I intend to make a sequel now that it's a year later and there are other stories to make up about it.

A couple regrets: Each entry begins with "Day #:". I wish I would have just put "Entry #", because the timing on some of them is messed up. I eventually just forget about it anyway and say "Months ago..." even though there are only 35 entries, and thus days, total. I also came up with names for the entries, which I put in the alt text of each entry. So you can see them just by hovering your mouse over them.
Also, there is a continuity screw-up that I might fix involving a desert. That's all I'm gonna say. If you don't notice it, it won't bug you like it bugs me. Yeah, I'll have to fix it sometime.

Anyway, enjoy...
The documenting of my Minecraft adventure to beat the game! Mouse over the pictures for their original titles.
Entry 1: The Search Begins
Entry 2: Dungeons
Entry 3: Lava in the Deep
Entry 4: A Breath of Fresh Air
Entry 5: Diamonds!
Entry 6: Underground Victory
Entry 7: Obsidian
Entry 8: Welcome to Hell
Entry 9: Hellish Encounters
Entry 10: Surviving in a Damned World
Entry 11: The Dark Fortress
Entry 12: Blaze Rods
Entry 13: Brewing
Entry 14: Exploration
Entry 15: Caught in the Rain
Entry 16: The Canyon
Entry 17: Enchanting!
Entry 18: Ender Pearls
Entry 19: Eyes of Ender
Entry 20: Forest of the Stronghold
Entry 21: The Village
Entry 22: The Second Expedition
Entry 23: Humanity at Its Finest
Entry 24: Inside the Stronghold
Entry 25: Library of the Ancients
Entry 26: The End PortalEntry 27: Lost in the Nether
Entry 28: The Nightmare
Entry 29: Awakening
Entry 30: Recovery
Entry 31: Ender Hunting
Entry 32: Gateway to the End
Entry 33: The Time Has Come
The End Realm
Entry 34: The Quest is Over
Entry 35: The Literal End
I hope you enjoyed my adventure as much as I did! Stay tuned for Episode 2: Advent of the Wither
 

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