#minecraft 2012

More specifically, Minecraft Pocket Edition (MCPE). As someone who saw Minecraft's rise to fame first-hand, along with every other kid in my fifth grade class, I wanted to play so bad. I watched Minecraft YouTube videos, saw all the mods, the whole shabang.

Thing is, though, I didn't want to get it on the computer for whatever reason (I think it was because I wouldn't know the controls? Maybe it was too expensive. Either that or I didn't know how.)

Eventually, they released the answer to these problems (until I decided to actually get the game, that is.)

The Minecraft Pocket Edition demo.

The way I would probably go about making a free demo version of the game is, oddly enough, the same way Mojang does now. That being, giving a full, free copy of Minecraft for a limited amount of time. That way, the player gets the full experience while still having incentive to buy the game.

What Mojang did at the time, however, was give the player a limited version of Minecraft for as long as they wanted it.

The limits were as follows:

You couldn't save. Ever. You close the app and your world is gone forever. (That's a very long time!)

Not all blocks were available to the player. Only 18 out of the 36 blocks offered on MCPE were free to use. You had to pay for the rest.

I, along with others, have fond memories of this game. Playing it was the closest we got to the real thing at the time. And sometimes it's best that memories stay memories.

This is where things. Get. Saucy.

The Google play store keeps a library of everything you've installed. Everything down to your first app. So after lots of scrolling, I found it (as I had done many times after the app was removed by Mojang). The demo.

So today, I decided "let's have a little trip down memory lane" and installed it.

(Here's the play store link btw https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mojang.minecraftpe.demo)

It's. Fucking. Scary.

Everything about this makes me feel watched. My monkey brain? It hates this. The render distance is so low it's like the Herobrine sighting. There's pigs, sheep, and zombies. That's all for mobs. I swear I remember chickens but I never saw any so idk. The lighting is FUCKED. The grass looks Weird. The jump button is on the middle of the d-pad. And worst of all? There's no point.

There's no hunger bar, so there's no need to kill the mobs. In fact, none of them drop anything.

There's no reason to mine because you won't get anything valuable. Either stone or ores you can't collect because you start with a stone pickaxe and can't go up from there because there's no crafting table.

There's no point to gather resources (unless you want cobblestone ig) because you start with infinite supplies to build and mine.

There's no point in killing zombies, because you're fucking stupid if you even get hit by them when you start off with infinite supplies to build a house.

It feels so Empty.

Provided are some screenshots of the game and a video tour of my house (with descriptions at the bottom):

The menu.

The server screen. Obviously, there's nothing there.

Proof of the shitty render distance and infinite supplies. Also, there's no clouds

The end of the world.

My inventory. Notice the infinite wool as well.

https://vimeo.com/383357923

This is my house, which has walls and a ceiling of oak wood, and a floor of bricks. There are two windows by the door and two on each wall, except the back wall. The walls are covered in torches except for the ladder, doors, and windows. This is because you could literally never have enough light in this game. There is a ladder which leads to the roof. The roof has a top like a castle tower.

The moral of the story is that Minecraft has made many advances since 2012, and we should all be grateful development hasn't stopped since then.