Minecraft and Saga Storytelling.

Several LP'ers have said that they will not let's play Minecraft because, as all sandbox type games, it has no obvious endpoint. NintendoCapriSun stated in an update video, "It's not a game that can be LP'ed, as far as I'm concerned, as there really is no end to it". A definite ending is often taken as a requirement for let's plays, though this is an unwritten rule and not overall accepted. It is considered bad form to stop a let's play in the middle of a game and never finish, but such proscriptions are again useless for games that never end.

Most video games follow a type of storytelling which Joseph Cambel calls the Monomyth, or Hero's Journey. There is a protagonist, who has some problem to be faced, usually with some antagonist hindering his progress. Various puzzles or quests along the way to the solution are overcome. The conflict escalates to a climax, the protagonist is victorious over the problem (and usually the antagonist), and in the denouement he returns to his life before the issue began or at least goes on to do something else. It makes an excellent pattern for video games as well as literature because it is easily recognized by the player. Games in general, not only video games, follow this cycle of conflict.

But this is not the only format for storytelling. In icelandic saga, a story consists of a long string of interconnected episodes, of which there may be no clear resolution except that the last word is reached. Njal's Saga consists of a family feud leading to violence and exile, and culminates with the burning alive of the warrior sage Njal within his house, but there is no clear resolution, and the parts of the story are episodes of violence and meetings at the law rock interspersed with times of quiet. While Njal is the most prominent character, he can hardly be said to be a protagonist or hero, and the story continues after his death. The Homeric epic poem Iliad is very similar, with many characters and no clear protagonist, the story consisting of a string of episodes culminating with the death of Hector, and the Trojan war continues after the Iliad ends.

Storytelling in Minecraft is far closer to that of the saga than the hero's journey. A player is set in a randomly generated wilderness where he or she must fight to survive the darkness of night, build a shelter, make tools, delve into the earth, and explore the world, but there is no clear problem beyond this basic need for survival. Interesting events of finding precious minerals, finishing a house, discovering a deep chasm and fighting a creeper are all interspersed with more mudane events of cutting wood, farming wheat, and digging stone, so the whole experience is purely episodic. There is no overall build to a climax, and no clear resolution. The game ends when the player runs out of things he or she wants to do, or creates a new world to start fresh. This is of course not the only way to play Minecraft, but it is the stock method and the method most players choose to take.

I previously defined a good LP as being one that crafts a story whereby both the viewer and player are entertained. Since I have shown that storytelling in Minecraft follows the same format as saga storytelling, I believe that a good LP in Minecraft is possible as long as we accept that it will be episodic, have no clear resolution, i.e., have all the characters of a saga.

X's Adventures in Minecraft is a series of videos by Youtube user daviddr64yt, uploaded between August 2010 and April 2011, with the main set of episodes uploaded in August and September. The series ended after X [davidr64yt] became bored with the replay value of the game and wrote a long blog post about how Notch (the creator) might improve it for adventure inclined players. The main run consists of 47 episodes as X learns his way around the wilderness of Minecraft, builds a fortress, digs deep into the earth, works with redstone and tnt, and discovers buried dungeons. This first "arc" of 29 episodes leads to X leaving the "X-Cave" and traveling across the water to a new land, bringing only his original crafting bench along with him. The "Death Mountain" sequence, lasting until his death 10 episodes later. Since there was no way to reset spawn points during his LP, X is returned to the X-Cave. The realization that his first crafting bench was left behind leads him on an Odyssey like quest of retrieval and return home, possibly the most touching video of Minecraft ever recorded (helped massively by the Windwaker sailing theme). The final videos trail off as X becomes increasingly disinterested with Minecraft.

The two sequences, and indeed, every episode, can be watched independently and enjoyed, yet are linked together by the main thread of the saga. Despite there being no climax or definite ending, X's Adventures in Minecraft is an engaging let's play experience, and good storytelling. LP'ers shouldn't shy away from Minecraft as a storytelling medium.

A note on criticism.

Since I will soon be venturing out into the world of high profile LP'ers, I wanted to make a clear statement about the purposes of this blog, my intent, and the meaning of criticism.

You will notice that I don't use a rating system. Most commonly, these take the form of a series of numbers from 1 to 10 indicating by some (often unknown, always subjective) standard) how excited that particular person is about an object d'art. My purpose is not to review LPs. I am not here to say "well, this is good so you should watch it", or "this is horrible, you should avoid it". I am not a reviewer, I do not review LPs.

Criticism is (quoting La Wiki): "the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature, social movements, film, arts, and similar objects and events. The goal of this type of criticism is to understand the work or event more thoroughly." If I am criticizing an LP, it's an evaluation of it's qualities in a greater context of film and literature to understand it's place (and LPs in general) within the wider world of art and human culture. It's taking a look at a work's merits and faults overall, and not simply it's faults. My intent is not to upset people or make them feel bad; feel free to disagree with my attempts at writing, my opinions, my subjective viewpoints.

That being said, the majority of art is mediocre. Very little art is truly abysmal, and even less is extraordinary. You'll be able to tell if I enjoyed a work by my critique, but given I have limited time I probably will be criticizing little that I don't enjoy. Overall, I follow Eric Swain's guidelines on avoiding pretentiousness, a good post addressing not only video game criticism but also literary criticism as well as honesty in video game reviews.

Don't take it personally. I'm just taking art seriously. You take fun seriously, so you should understand.