From the same people that brought us Game of Thrones and Tales From the Borderlands comes their newest decision based game, Minecraft: Story Mode. Telltale Games is notorious for their rigorous storytelling and memorable characters and this time is no different. You play as Jesse, regardless of which gender you choose at the beginning, who is on a mission to create the greatest build at EnderCon, (Enderman Convention if you didn't catch on). The winner gets to meet the great Gabriel of the Order of the Stone, a group of people who slayed the Ender Dragon years ago but have disbanded since. Of course, the episode would be nothing without some kind of story of revenge that spirals the characters into an adventure that they would have never seen themselves in. Someone sets out to create a Wither, a huge monster that sets out to consume everything, leaving you and your friends to seek out the Order of the Stone. You are accompanied by your friends Olivia, confidant and trusty, Axel, large and loyal, and Reuben, a pig. Telltale hit the nail on the head this time with a different, family-friendly take on one of their main installments. No prior knowledge of the original building game is needed, but it would help if you had some basic terminology.

It’s safe to say that Minecraft has become one of biggest gaming phenomenons ever, earning mass cultural significance and merchandising opportunities, all while solidifying Persson’s creative mastery and contributing to the indie game boom of the 2010s, but Minecraft has taught many gamers and developers alike that there are ways to approach game design from other angles and still provide a fulfilling experience. When it comes right down to it, gaming hasn’t had the kind of creative milestone Minecraft has shown in a long time. It uses the gaming medium in groundbreaking ways that no other medium can use; it is a work of art in every sense of the matter.

The episode relies prettily on QTE (Quick Time Events) and gives you something next to decision making to worry about. While a lot of the QTE are really to avoid taking damage, some are just used for the sake of being there, like to build things, but they also add to your situation and count as something else to watch out for. You are given a set of ten hearts to have throughout the episode (and most likely throughout the series) and damage gets taken away every time you are either attacked by an enemy or fail to do a QTE. The QTE also acts as its own decision as some events can change how a person sees you. It isn't as effective as a regular decision, but something like which group of people you want to run with or how long it takes you to do something might have a much more of an impact in the future.

Finally, the construction element is there. Minecraft ’s blocky aesthetic has constantly been compared to that of LEGO’s, and really that’s true. In fact, it’s likely that it was intended to be that way. As kids, many of us were fascinated with LEGO’s. Building castles and cars using fundamentally simple components was appealing. Even better, it breathed experimentation. It encouraged trying something new. It fed that feeling of individual creative freedom by allowing us to build something that we wanted. That idea is omnipresent in Minecraft ; it’s the crux of the construction element in the game. Simple cubes of dirt, rock or sand can be used to build everything from houses to skyscrapers to sculptures. With a little hard work, you can make your "castle of dreams." The Creative Mode, with its free movement and ample resources, is the pinnacle of this mentality; you can create what you want. And gamers have. There are hundreds of Minecraft videos online of people building enormous, monolithic structures with the game’s basic building pieces. Minecraft has proven that this idea can be made into something massive; gamers are guaranteed to create something when given the tools to do so.

Now Minecraft has no overarching objective, so it instantly challenges McGonigal’s claim that a goal is required in a game. But actually, Minecraft ’s main goal is composed of multiple smaller goals. It doesn’t have a "grand" objective, but it has smaller objectives, little bite-size incentives that replace each other over time and take the role of a larger objective. First you collect resources, then you build a house, then you survive the night, then you wake up and continue reading this, but each with steadier and steadier increases in scope and scale. Even better, there’s no one direction to go. Being able to explore in multiple regions and build whatever you feel is satisfactory is open-ended. You are given tools and no direction, yet you are still creating. You’re making the direction. This is a massive undertaking, one that changes everything that anyone knew about videogames before, and it’s a bigger embodiment of the "sandbox" mentality than Grand Theft Auto has even been.

What do I mean by that? In game development terms, a "vertical slice," is a gameplay segment of finished or near-finished quality that showcases all the planned features of a game to potential investors. At the start of a project, these are a massive sink for time and effort, since they essentially involve doing all the hard parts of finishing a game to complete one 10-minute section. Generally, they’re seen as a bad practice. However, toward the end of development, it’s a lot easier to pull assets together for a vertical slice. Of course, if you’re shopping your game around to publishers at that stage, you’re probably in a lot of trouble, but a standalone "vertical slice" can also serve as a strong alternative to a traditional demo.