Feb 3, 2011

ArenaNet want Guild Wars 2 combat to be “more like a first person shooter”

PC Gamer

Arenanet designer Jon Peters has been talking about combat in Guild Wars 2, specifically about how Guild Wars 2 plans to reject the traditional MMO damage dealer, tank and healer roles in favour of something new. He explains that "holy trinity" of combat roles won't be a part of Guild Wars 2, saying "frankly, we built a combat system that just doesn’t allow it.”

Peters shared his thoughts on Guild Wars 2's combat on the ArenaNet blog. In the place of typical MMO classes, there are professions. Each will have their own play-style, but won't fit into a typical DPS, tank or healer role. Each profession will be able to do a little bit of everything. As Peters explains: "Everyone has a dedicated slot on their skill bar where they must place a healing skill. These vary greatly and are an intimate part of the Guild Wars 2 build-making process, but ultimately they are your most efficient and reliable way to sustain yourself in battle. Why did we do this? Because we think it is a more interesting way to create sustained encounters for solo players AND groups while keeping players focused on themselves and their surroundings."

This extends to reviving players, too. "From level 1, every profession has the ability to revive everyone else. This means that players don’t have to rely on one profession in case someone is defeated both during and after combat."

There are a few other key differences between Guild Wars 2's combat system and other MMOs. One is a lack of any allied targeting. Typically you'd expect to be able to target a healing spell or buff by clicking on an ally in the world, his health bar in the group section of the HUD. In Guild Wars 2, all friendly abilities must be aimed. "Everything must be done using positioning, ground targeting or other unconventional methods."

"Instead of watching red bars, we want you to watch your allies in the world."

With player positioning playing such an important role in combat, player mobility is even more important. Arrows can be dodged, double tapping on a key will cause your character to roll, and spells can be cast on the move. Peters says Arenanet's aim is to "create a combat system that is more like a first person shooter where finding real cover, flanking and other more realistic fighting techniques find a lot more use."

"In a first person shooter there can be a variety of weapons, from sniper rifles to rocket launchers to machine guns and shotguns. No one looks at these weapons and says, “They’re all the same, they all just do DPS.” Why should an MMO be any different?"

For more on Guild Wars 2, check out details on the recently revealed Guardian class, and our Guild Wars 2 preview, or check out the official Guild Wars 2 site.

Feb 3, 2011

World of Love 2 – a lovely indie games conference

PC Gamer

Sexy, sexy developers. Indie developers, that is; for they were World of Love’s original target audience when it was set up by Mudlark last year. The aim was for a London, UK conference that allowed indies to meet up, share “best practice” (biz-niz speak for good ideas) and talk about the cool stuff they were doing.

Having seen the reports from last year, where both Introversion’s subversion and Mode 7’s Frozen Synapse were shown off for the first time, and Channel 4 spoke about their commitment to commissioning games as as educational medium, I have to admit to being a little disappointed at this year’s line-up. From a consumer and journalistic games viewpoint, there were no big reveals (Posterous’s Ho-Ho-hukum had already been shown off at the IGDF and Evolve in Liverpool) which meant it simply wasn’t as interesting as last year’s event; I’m sure it still retained its usefulness for Indie developers though, and it was still a useful vignette of that scene in the UK; a continuum of unruly hair, dress developed without reference to popular culture, and second-language English, first language C++ people with amazing brains and ideas who know how to do one thing well; make games; and need to learn all the other bits, like where to sell them, how much to charge, and when to sell out.

There were three developers in the morning; Honeyslug, who showed off their Ho-Ho-kum an cutesy art-and-music title that’s obviously been in search of a compelling gameplay twist since they started work on it. They mainly talked about their struggles to establish exactly what the game was about (currently it seems to be a worm-thing saving people in a 2D alien world) and then make sure everything fitted with their concept of the game, beyond having really bright, cute characters. They advocated a Good Cop, Bad Cop system of game development, with one enthusiast plugging as many ideas in as possible, and one person cutting the chaff willy-nilly. Their key concept was about enforced freedom; they feel that sandboxes like the PS3’s Noby Noby boy force players to be free; whilst they pointed out that the enjoyment of “hooning around” was derived from the feeling that “there’s something more important I should be doing.”
The next developer was Tak Fung, who worked in Lionhead on the Fable series before he became an Indie developer. He managed this by working mainly as a contractor, then setting aside time for his own projects - which he initially had difficulty getting off the ground, until he teamed up with a freelance art director. His recommendations for developers were not working with multiple contractors, as it’s hard to maintain consistency, ensure that everyone has a range of skills, and PR effectively - submitting a video to Touch Arcade provided enough feedback to polish the game before he transferred it to other platforms. iPhone is the easiest to develop for, but barriers to entry are low everywhere.

The third team, Remode Studios were an impressive couple of recent graduates (Elle Romanos and Martin Darby) with a very business-like focus; they do projects on time and on budget, and describe themselves as a “digital production company”. They also had taken the other independent developer route and are working mainly as contractors. In this position, unlike Tak, they advocated employing reliable freelance contractors and interns (who they don’t pay, sadly), and praised the Plymouth area for having a good supply of both fresh graduates, veterans of Britain’s gaming hubs, and excellent quality of life. When undertaking commissions, they focus on respecting the commissioner’s vision; it’s their IP after all.

Their own first title, a Minesweeper-twist called Mole Control, took them eight months to develop and was release across Steam and other PC platforms; as we always hear, Steam is very easy to work with, but the challenge of varied prices, responsiveness and release schedules made other platforms more difficult. By the time they released it however, the casual market had moved to Facebook, so they licensed the game to retailers in Europe & America, and moved on. They don’t see themselves, as Indies, making combat games in robot bodysuits; there’s no reason making a Halo without a huge budget and a convincing fiction.

For them, as more platforms emerge, it’s worth asking how they fit a player’s life; will they play it on the train, at work or on the sofa? “Design is marketing - it’s a holistic process.” Rather than using other people’s tech, they’ve built their own; this was due to a lucky hire, a 20 year veteran of LucasArts, whose ability made it cost-effective. This means that they aren’t held back by licensing issues and were eligible for the huge R&D tax credits that _are_ available to tech companies. It also allowed them to branch out into making non-games simulations for companies. They also admitted a certain weakness, in that they don’t understand direct marketing or web advertising.

After a short break for coffee and banter, the superb Alice Taylor stood up. Alice, if you don’t know her, is a veteran of the dotcom boom and bust who has just quit as the games commissioning editor for Channel 4. Her new project is informed by games, particularly by the dressing-up involved in World of Warcraft; she’s working on making luxury bespoke dolls using rapid prototyping technology. “I’m all about social change”, she said, “I really like to break walls.” She portrayed the toy industry as a bastion of social conservatism, rife with sexism and commercialism when it should be about play, and she wants to change it.

Her experience on StorTroopers, an avatar project she started that had a huge userbase in Brazil and WoW, made her realise that there was a market niche for bespoke dolls for a networked generation. “WoW is a giant dressing up and shopping game”, she said, and pointed to the WoW figureprints, Guild Wars marriage kits and hugely expensive SoulDoll Lineage II figures as proof that the market is there; people will pay over $100 for a blouse and jacket combo for their SoulDoll figurine on Etsy. Yet 95% of the toy manufacturing is in China, with a downward spiral just to compete on price (a Barbie costs $15 in the shops but 8c to make); rapid prototyping offers a way to compete, at the moment just with the luxury products.

Dr. Sam Redfearn, a professor at the University of Galway and solo-developer of the obscure Dark-wind, was equally inspirational. He talked about Dark-wind, “possibly the world's best MMO turn-based, physics-based, post-apocalyptic , tactical rpg-wargame vehicular combat”, a riff off Car Wars and Dark Future, inspired by the “persistent digital minions” of Championship Manager. Following years playing CRPGs and MUDs, his PHD was in topographic photography, which he moved into collaborative virtual environments from. He was part of an online community of tiny MMO developers - two guys went off to make Minions of Mirth, one guy gave up his house and lived in his car trying (then succeeding) to finish his game. One full-time worker even experimented with sleep deprivation; he’d work all night then wake up on his keyboard, fall asleep in meetings, and so on... until he got fired. Sam was one of the rare few who finished his project.

Dark-Wind is different from many MMOs - travel time between the two hub cities is in real-time, taking up to 30 hours, and your minions are affected by ageing, training, weaknesses, permanent addictions, death and injuries; in this sense it’s closer to Necromunda or Blood Bowl than a normal RPG. He pulls his story out of maths and simulation rather than written narrative, and uses committed community members to work on bits he doesn’t have time for - even the art is bought in (from TurboSquid) and the game support is mainly automated services backed up volunteer Marshals with his phone number. He left us really wanting to try it.

After everyone shared a bizarre Swedish packed lunch, Preloaded’s Phil Stuart talked about the mechanics of making people find your games. First he offered a sneak peek of his upcoming game “The End”, a platform puzzler that helps teens deal with death and religion. Then he gave his rules for game dissemination. First, determine why you’re making it (marketing, education, fame) so you can determine what success looks like. Then you can work out the audience, and hence the genre, platform and level of complexity. Then you can work how it’s going to be found and how you’re going to drive traffic to it.

His tips for driving traffic are:

Work with pirates. They try to encourage it for their free games it’s free distribution. They create single flash files that pirates can stick on their site easily. Bizarrely, they find that 4399.com works well, as sites with the word “game” in the url get banned by schools.

Integrate with portals - use the APIs for Miniclip & Kongregate, and they’ll promote your game for you, as well as providing more reasons (e.g. achievements) for people to play it.

Adapt to the host. Create multiple configurations of the game. One that adapts to the host (with the APIs built in), one for pirates, one with an HTML surround.

Listen to your players. Involve your community early, and take feedback from the Kongregate beta list.

Stick around when you’ve released the game, follow the message boards and the forums, and watch out for recurring problems - but don't take the abuse personally.

Use analytics. Set it up right and watch it live to check it’s working. If you can, correlate your views versus completions for levels to determine difficulty spikes.

Be web friendly. You want your game to be the best SEOd destination for your game name. Use unique names, numbers, a great description, use a standardised url when sharing, create thumbs & icons for ease of distribution, and agree on your hashtags for Twitter. As a proof of success, he showed that their 1066 game for Channel 4 is actually above Wikipedia’s entry for 1066!

There was then a mostly uninformative interview with sex-game manufacturer (joke!) Charlie Knight of www.charliesgames.com - the only memorable question was “Bearing in mind you made a game with a disembodied dog's head and giant cocks everywhere, is there any prototype you've been ashamed of?”

Next we saw Oxford’s Mode 7 games, makers of the eagerly-anticipated-by-me Frozen Synapse presented by Ian Hardingham. This time round he showed off both how new maps are drawn (basically it can be done in Paint), how they’re randomly generated and how their single-player missions work around this generative process whilst maintaining consistent objectives. Very clever, and a great idea for other games.

Ill Rob Fearon of Retro Remakes had a bit of a fever-ramble, but spoke passionately about asset-sharing; he admitted that “none of my games includes more than 100 lines of code, because I’m shit” but pleaded with other developers to go open-source as even if an asset was of no use to you, it might be of use to other developers.

Call me a cynic but Sophie “Linear Blog” Houlden’s talk about SURPRISE was mostly obvious, though presented in an enticing manner (this year she used Powerpoint rather than reading it off a PSP), mentioning geek keywords like Ninjas & Science lots. Simply put she said that surprise was a good tool for keeping your game fresh, as long as you keen in mind players’ variety of reaction, engineer their expectations effectively and allow them room for finding surprises themselves. You can generate surprise through the narrative, broken consistency and false endings. She also defined the unit of surprise as a “wow” and pointed out almost all games involve attempting to kill the player.

Whilst we were waiting for the last speaker, we had rapid fire rants. Richard Perrin spoke about hating people who say “If I wanted a story, I’d read a book” and pointed to Vespers, Digital: A Love Story, Mirror Stage and Looming as counter-examples. Veteran James Wallis talked about Collectable Card Games, and consultant Nicholas Lovell talked about the importance of varied price points - free for most people, normal price for a few, limited edition and uber-editions for fans and uber-fans. Rock, Paper, Shotgun also ran a panel talking about genitals in games.

I have to admit to diving out at this point, despite the last talk being given by the beautifully-designed Laser Squad alike Skulls of the Shogun developer Borut. His laggy Skype feed was being projected on a huge screen behind the stage, and I have a pathological fear of giants with connection issues; also his accent combined with the tinny speakers to sound like a rather irritating Steven Hawking.

World of Love is a great conference because it comes from so many angles; business, development, marketing, history and unintentional comedy. That said, to keep going, next year’s conference will need a tighter focus; not bigger speakers, but more research by the organisers so that the new games we’re shown are genuinely amazing, and the tips for developers are more organised and better delivered. Many of the talks were intensely personal, which made for great anecdotes but sometimes didn’t provide us with many lessons for either game development or game appreciation.

Feb 3, 2011

Dungeons preview

PC Gamer

A rip-off? Depends how much you want a new Dungeon Keeper.

Trust me, I’m not being mean: Dungeons couldn’t possibly try harder to be Dungeon Keeper 3. An underground empire that you carve out using imps and goblins. A map screen full of idyllic countryside. A Dungeon Heart in the middle of your empire that has to be kept safe at all costs.

Chatting with your goblin sidekick, it seems the main difference between being a Dungeon Lord and a Dungeon Keeper is that Lords have to put up with annoying middle-managers, while Keepers don’t have scantily clad demon girlfriends waiting to betray them and hijack their empires. Swings and roundabouts.

Still, despite all the shameless – shameless – cloning of theme and basic ideas, Dungeons does feel at least a bit different to Dungeon Keeper. For starters, you directly control the Dungeon Lord instead of just directing minions around from a distance, and can get properly stuck in with an RPGstyle levelling system and direct combat spells. If you die, you simply respawn back at the Dungeon Heart. Your goblin goons rush around carving out more space, but the rest of your monsters are controlled more by initial placements. If those aren’t the right spots, there’s no simply gathering up everyone in your dominion and hurling them en masse at any invading heroes. You need a bit more planning than that.

The most important tweak to the formula is that simply killing heroes does you no good. You’re not trying to repel them; you’re farming them. When a hero first descends to face his or her doom, their naive corpse is worthless to you. You have to build them up before you knock them down, driving them towards piles of gold (your gold!), tomes of arcane lore (evil lore!) and other adventurer-friendly loot. This makes their soul energy bars nice and juicy, ready for you to finally harvest with a cry of, “Surprise! +1 Sword up the arse!”

As with the DK games, death is the merciful option. You have prisons. You have a torture chamber. You have no scruples. If you need the implications of this explained, you may not be cut out for such levels of evil. Perhaps try macramé instead? You can, in theory, catch and release, too, to stop the best heroes paying a visit, but that’s just being a wuss. Soul energy can be spent on improving the dungeon and building up your evil prestige. You need lots of it.

Your own character persists between levels, complete with the choices you’ve made – individual attributes such as Strength, and Talents that let you specialise in killing enemies personally, or focus on particular skills. The combat isn’t particularly weighty, but you do get to enjoy being, unquestionably, the toughest guy around. There’s a definite satisfaction in seeing some grass-green newbie hero slink into your dungeon, not knowing that for once the boss is simply hiding around the corner, instead of lurking in a lair three levels down.

It remains to be seen how satisfying this more managerial approach will be, next to Dungeon Keeper’s more ramshackle villainy. Even in the first level, which is based entirely on wandering around your about-to-be-stolen empire, there isn’t the same sense of organised chaos to revel in. You can take direct control of your Lord, but that just moves the camera in a bit and gives you direct control – it’s not the same as switching to Dungeon Keeper’s firstperson mode and taking the reins of an imp, a Dark Mistress, or one of your other inevitably doomed grunts. Evil is, after all, a thing best savoured.

In terms of length, Dungeons offers 20 campaign missions to finish – which start out very restrictive, but hopefully open up as you get a bit further in – and a custom map mode that only offered a sandbox in our preview code. Oddly, there’s no multiplayer mode at all. Admittedly, the hero-harvesting focus and limited control over your army make it hard to see how it would work, but the custom maps will need a hell of a lot of variety to keep you coming back. Simply offering the chance to be evil will only take Dungeons so far, because when evil’s the whole point of a game, it’s tough for your own specific brand of spite and sadism to push its way out of the karmic fart-cloud. Let’s face it: a rollercoaster that’s meant to kill people is nowhere near as much fun as one you’ve specially engineered to hurl terrified tourists into the nearest lake for no greater purpose than your own amusement.

Dungeons has a tough challenge ahead of it, not simply living up to the Dungeon Keeper games, but also our memories of them. It’s a cheerful enough game behind all the monsters and gore, constantly poking and prodding at the fourth wall, with everything from the opening tutorial featuring a goblin trying to work out what WASD means, to spells directly calling out how useless they’d be in the real world. Will it be Dungeon Keeper 3? We’ll find out soon.

Feb 2, 2011

What does DCUO’s first major update have for you?

DC Universe™ Online

In our review of DCUO, we noted that while the game has a solid foundation for a robust endgame, SOE would need to follow through on their promise of monthly content updates in order to really thrive. Good news! Less than three weeks after launch, full details about the game's first major content update (available later this month, a bit later than we'd hoped) are out--and it looks to have a little something for everybody--from furries to Mayan god-worshippers to star-crossed lovers to fans of cyclopean baddies.

The official announcement from SOE will be coming out this Friday, but Creative Director Chris Cao already let loose most of the info yesterday in an interview with Massively.

Valentine-specific content will only be available during the month of February, but everything else on this list is here to stay! To help you sort through all of the content being added (and to help you bitch and moan on the forums about why "carebears are totally lame and don't deserve gear" or why "gankers have no soul and SOE should nuke them all from orbit"), we've sorted the different updates into categories for who they're meant to please. Find yourself below and see what's coming your way!

The Raid Leader: "Gotta get that new belt for +2 Might"

Batcave's Back: The hardest raid in the game right now is the Batcave (filled with robots after Braniac took it over, despite the Dark Knight's resistance). Hardcore raiders are still trying to clear the existing content, and SOE is already tossing open the doors to another wing of the Batcave, with harder bosses and sweeter loot. Only the most dedicated raiders will want to take a crack at the sentient computer Brother Eye and his army of OMAC cyborgs right when it's released.
Suit upgrades: Those looking for premium gear will find it here--provided they're capable of downing a multitude of androids and reprogrammed tech, like the Batcave's own riot control mech.

The Pacifist: "Can't heroes and villains just get along?"

Win their hearts: For Valentine's day, players can morph into an oh-so-cute cherub form, take to the skies and aim their adorable little bow and arrow at the heartstrings of Metropolis' ordinary citizens. As you collect more hearts (the holiday's currency), you'll contribute to your faction's control over the fountain of love--what that is or why you want it has yet to be revealed, however.
Spread the love: As a cherub, free spirits can do their best impression of Aladdin's magic carpet ride by racing through the clouds as a part of a multiplayer race, flying through hearts for speedboosts and avoiding traps. Or just relive your 6th birthday by collecting hearts in a bouncy castle. Wheee!

The Casual: "I'm almost level 20!"

Levels don't matter, baby: Love is free, so your level doesn't matter. You'll be able to participate in all of the cherub events--like races, heart-collecting, and bouncy castles--whether you've reached the level cap or not.
Seasonal items: A lot of slower levelers are moving at the pace they are because they're stopping to smell (and collect) the roses along the way. And holidays add a bunch of new things to collect and explore on the side! Earning enough hearts can net you a his-or-hers Valentine's Day get-up guaranteed to turn heads in Gotham and Metropolis. (We're really hoping it's not a creepy baby cherub outfit.)

The Pickup Group Partner: "Yeah, I've got time for a quick run"

Gotham Museum: Each monthly content update is going to be themed around a specific DC comics character. The month of love's featured character is Catwoman. Level 30 players can chase her as she hops between rooftops in a new multiplayer race as she leads you to Gotham Museum's warehouse of artifacts. Once you're there, you can continue her storyline with some quests and instances.
Purrrfect: Things get hairy when ancient Egyptian relics begin transforming security guards and curators into buff lions and tigers (sorry, no bears allowed). Catwoman can't evade the feline metamorphosis either, and players will need to take her down as the last of five bosses, each with plenty of new gear to loot.
Spinecrushers: Also on the way is a new duo instance featuring Bane and his juiced-up posse--props to anybody if they spot Tom Hardy doing a little acting prep-work in this zone.

The Lore Hound: "Wonder Woman has a maximum jump distance of..."

Battle the gods: Trouble is afoot on Mount Olympus. The conflict between the heroes and villains of the world has thrown Aphrodite out of sync, and the two sides of love, both caring and selfish, have split her personality. Players will be able to choose which side they want to fight for in the attempt to restore order to the realm of romance.
What's with all the leather?: We don't know what we're going to find out about Selina Kyle (AKA Catwoman), but you can bet there's going to be a lot of info nuggets dropped in this content update about her backstory, characteristics, motivation and all that good stuff.

The Ganker: "Kill 'em first, ask questions later"

Open-world battles: More open world zones are being put together for heroes and villains to clash in (hopefully more exciting than the current Ring War event). In an interview with Massively, Chris Cao says that he believes that PvP is one of the driving factors behind DCUO's appeal, so SOE plans to continue to expand PvP content.
A new challenger appears: Alongside her new instances and quests, Catwoman will be added to the roster of available Legends characters to play as. If your opponents have any diamonds, she'll be sure to steal them.
Be a heart-breaker: All those sissy carebears are going to be doing open-world races to collect coins. A real jerk would sit along the race's route and give a soft tap (or stun) to anyone that rushes by, just to screw with their finish time. You bastard.

The Skeptic: "I would've liked it more if they'd changed..."

It's the little things: In the same interview, Cao also lists a plethora of upgrades to big and small things on their way, which will hopefully make the player's life easier. Chat is getting a minor upgrade (not the overhaul it needs) for now, with added controls over which channels you join and respond to by default. Animations have been spruced up, and the usual bug fixes and progression tweaks are coming.
More to come: These little fixes are more difficult to nail down ahead of time. We'll be sure to keep you updated as more specifics are announced.

Mr. Money Bags: "MORE MONEY MORE MONEY MORE MONEY!"

Auction houses: For everyone looking to make a profit in DC's universe, the auction-house system will help jump start the game's non-existent economy. Selling Valentine's event items, collections, costumes and of course powerful gear should give potential wheelers-and-dealers a good starting point for packing out their virtual wallets. Let the undercutting on Domino Masks begin!

How about you? Based on what we're looking forward to most, Lucas is a Pacifist PUG Partner and Josh is a Ganking Casual PUG Partner. What are you?

Feb 2, 2011

The Minecraft Experiment, day 26: Mystery Fire

PC Gamer

When I first started playing Minecraft a few months ago, I played with a rule: if I die, I have to delete the entire world. Now I'm trying to get to hell and back. The diary starts here, and we're up to the 26th.

I've just escaped a monster-infested coast in a tiny boat, and I'm back on track toward home.

< Day 25

Day 27 >

World 10, deaths 9

Boats are the way to travel. Fast, easy, no risk of Creeper attack. I'm enjoying speeding across this ocean so much that when I hit the opposite coast, I veer right to follow the waterway around instead of disembarking.

This world is so watery that I'm able to sail for most of the day, occasionally, shipwrecking myself and rebuilding my boat the other side of a troublesome peninsula. I'm still sailing when the sun goes down, and while I'm safe out on the water, avoiding land gets harder in the dark.

I don't have a good plan for where I'll hide for the night, so I skull along the coastline keeping a healthy distance from the Creepers and Skeleton Archers roaming it. I finally moor up at a cliff, deciding I'll just dig into the rock and avoid the open entirely.

Surprisingly soon, I break into a natural cave. It's flooded, making a lovely little underground lake - the kind of place I'd probably set up in if I didn't already have a home to go to. It's while I'm splashing pointlessly around in this paddling pool that I suddenly notice I have three pieces of string.

While many pensioners could proudly say the same, this has special significance to me - it means I can make a bow. I've been stockpiling arrows for most of my life in anticipation of this day, but virtually the only way to get string is to kill spiders, and I didn't dare tangle with that many of them before I went to hell.

I slap down a workbench and construct my super weapon, the final solution to Creepers and Ghasts. I have 85 arrows for it, so I'm not shy about testing it out. It's incredible - like a medieval machinegun. After peppering the walls of this cave with arrows, I happily get back to digging.

There's a lot more rock to get through this time, but after a few minutes I hit air again. And in the gloom ahead, I see the most extraordinary thing: fire.

Lava, I'm used to. Fires I started, I know those well. But this is completely the opposite direction to all the terrible things I've done since I came back from hell. Am I home? So soon? What else can cause fire but me?

As I get closer, I recognise the blaze and remember the one other thing that burns: Spawners. Rare, weird devices that churn out one type of creature indefinitely. A rattle and a thwunk confirm that this one spawns Skeleton Archers, the nastiest thing on this plane of existence short of a Creeper. Spawners are found in dungeons, which as I discovered in a previous life, also contain chests of 'treasure' - predominantly eggs and string. Yes, this is definitely worth risking my life for.

I'm cautious at first, erecting a barricade with a single hole in it, to let me shoot my new bow at the skeletons without too much risk of retaliation. After killing a few, though, it occurs to me that the whole point of this Spawner thing is that it spawns indefinitely, and this would be a quick way to burn through my arrow supply.

So I break down my wall and charge in sword first. I am perforated. There are about five of the damn things in here, and though I slap down a few torches, they're grey bones against grey rock and almost impossible to spot in a hurry. Eventually I run away, tail between legs, grilled ham in mouth.

Once I'm healed, I decide to be more strategic. I have a handle on where the chests are in that room now, so I can brick it up and take out chunks of the room just big enough for me to reach through.

It's a perilous, stupid process, not helped by the fact that I start it with my inventory full and have to frantically throw dented metal trousers and feathers at the skeletons trying to shoot me. But after some time and a lot of damage, I escape with my prize: two leather saddles and some gunpowder. Goddamn it.

After digging through the mountain for a while, I realise I'm going to need to dig up a bit to actually see daylight again. I do my usual staircase pattern to climb as quickly as possible. Soon I hit sand, which means switching to my old diamond spade. I'm careful, spading only sand that's ahead of me and not directly above. But sand doesn't play by the normal rules. It sometimes stays hanging in the air until a block next to it is disturbed. I'm not sure exactly how it happens, but I'm spading some sand ahead when suddenly a heap of it falls directly on my head.

Now I'm panicking. When gravel or sand falls on you, you choke on it. I have never survived this. I flail wildly with the spade, but after a few crunches it makes no further sound, suggesting I'm not making any progress to clearing this shit off my face. My health is ticking down and it wasn't high to begin with, thanks to SaddleQuest. I can't think what else to try, so I just try to buy time - bringing up the inventory, dragging cooked ham to my toolbar, and scarfing it as fast as I can.

Not knowing what else to do, I try switching to a pickaxe so that I can knock out any rock that might be blocking me from escaping this suffocating sand - I can't see a damn thing, so it's hard to know why I can't seem to move or hit it. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but after a few frantic blows, suddenly my airways are clear and I can see. The sand is gone, but I have no idea what I did right. And when I look at my hand, I realise I actually pulled out an axe. Whatever I finally hit with it, that can't have been the best way to do it.

I'll settle for being alive, though.

Next: A pig is tragically killed.