10
How do you know when you're actually old? Well, for single men, there's a pretty easy test. Just tell someone you're not married yet but you'd like to be. If they say "Aw, you still got time," congratulations, you're not old. I'd like to think I'm still a young man. Still, nothing ages me so rapidly as joining a Minecraft server. It's no secret that Minecraft skews toward a younger demographic, especially if you hang out with the older demographic who's always going on about "cringey" kids. And while it's easy to point and laugh and imagine we're so much better by virtue of being born before 9/11 (remember when you could walk your family all the way to the gate at the airport?), we forget two wonderful facts:
The first is that Minecraft really appeals to everyone. I first got the game in an early phase (infdev maybe) when I was a senior in college. Then, a week later, I removed the game from my computer because I had done none of my homework. Even now I still play from time to time, though I don't have the luxury of playing as often as people under 18. There are lots of people who play long past the age of 30, just as there are lots who play who are under 5. All ages, genders, races, and so on play Minecraft. What other game can you say that about? I can think of games that specifically appeal to really young kids, like the Freddy the Fish games I played way back when. I can think of games targeted toward older audiences, like Axis and Allies or Crusader Kings 2. I can also think of games that are only beloved by edgy teenagers who think they're mature, like Call of Duty. Sorry, that one was a joke. Call of Duty is beloved by no one. But the point is that Minecraft transcends demographics in the way that Mario or Zelda does. Perhaps the 10-year-old group is the most active and vocal (a statement I don't really believe), but the rest of us are still here, lurking and playing on our own private servers.
The second fact is that Minecraft allows people to create their own games within games. That's right, Minecraft trains new game designers. Many of these maps - the "Challenge" or "Adventure" maps - are created by children. It follows that many of these are very bad maps. But what a way to train yourself! I feel like an old man shaking my cane now when I say that, as a young child, I had to draw my ideas on the back of scratch paper my dad brought home from his job at Egghead. You kids don't know how lucky you have it that you can not only design but create games when you're 7, and not only that but you can upload them for the world to see. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN.
Given the wide range in demographics for Minecraft and the openness towards game design, it's natural that we can find adventure maps created by all ages and all stages of development. That is, we'll see some instances of a little kid making their first map, and other instances of a game design veteran creating a 32-hour adventure open-world RPG with extra mods and resource packs. Right now I'm interested in the former, the young one who's just starting out. There are two reasons for this: (1) it's great to watch children develop their abilities and become fantastic designers, and (2) it's also kind of fun to see them make really, really crappy things while they learn, and to point and laugh.
Let me break it to you... there is not one good "Find the Button" map. Not a single one. They are all bad. At the time of this writing, there are approximately 1,825 "Find the Button" games. That number is not an exaggeration. I counted. If you just got off the spaceship from Mars and are new to the ways of Earth, a "Find the Button" game is one in which a button has been hidden in the map and you have to, uh, find it. Given the sheer amount of these games, there are bound to be variations from people who are trying not to appear uncreative. Sometimes they'll change up the object to be found (there are a few "Find the Lever" games right now), or they'll add challenges such as hardcore platforming segments, but ultimately they're all the same, and they're all bad.
These games are part of a much larger subset of Hidden Object games that you can get anywhere. At their core, these games involve a goal object, and the game is over once the player has merely seen it. Clever game designers will spice things up a bit but it doesn't change the game. Sometimes they'll make the object blend into the environment. Still, your goal as a player is to look around until you see it. Sometimes they'll put other objects in the way so that you have to move them or move around them. Still, the game is over once you see it. There's only two wrong ways to make this game. The first is to put the object in plain sight such that the player immediately sees it on starting. In this case it's bad because there is no game. The second bad thing is to put a bunch of complicated puzzles in the way - for example, you can't push the button because it's behind a Rubik's Cube you must solve. In this case it's bad because it's no longer a Hidden Object game, but a Rubik's Cube. There are examples of both on the Projects page if you search "Find the Button," examples of mindless chores and unrelated puzzles alike, as these budding designers teach themselves how to create.
Hidden Object games are simple at their core. That may be why "Find the Button" maps are so bad. We've fully grokked the mechanics, and there's no game left. To "grok" a game, according to legendary designer Raph Koster, means to fully understand its ins and outs to the point where there is no mystery, no question, nothing left to do. Tic-Tac-Toe is a great game when you're 4 and haven't figured out the optimal strategy. A year later, though, you've figured out how to win and there are two outcomes: you either play with an idiot who doesn't know the strategy or you play with someone your own size and the game ends in a draw. Once kids grok Tic-Tac-Toe, they move on. "Find the Button" games, I believe, have been similarly grokked.
When I was a kid (get off my lawn), I played a different game. My family called it "Hide The Silver." The game was simple: Dad had a quarter he'd put somewhere in the room and me and my brother would try to find it. At first this was a wildly fun game, more fun than hide-and-seek. After all, there were fewer places to hide a large human body, but a tiny quarter could fit almost anywhere.
Now very quickly me, my brother, and my Dad learned some principal rules of game design. See, if my Dad laid the quarter on the middle of the table, it was way too easy and no fun. On the other hand, if my Dad hit it somewhere we'd never find it, then we'd wander around for hours and get bored. So Dad used the "Hot and Cold" system. When we were approaching the location of the hidden quarter, he'd say "warmer." If we moved away from the quarter, he'd say "colder." This allowed him to come up with rather clever places to hide it without frustrating us. You'll notice this method of design goes against what every hardcore gamer believes. Every hardcore gamer rails against games that "hold your hand" and tell you what to do. We all hated Fi from Skyward Sword because she wouldn't just let us play the doggone game. But it turns out the only way to have fun is if we are being guided somehow. Looking for an object for hours with no clues and no help and no progress is boring and bad game design, period.
We learned this best once the tables were turned. After a few years of playing, Dad felt we were old enough to hide the quarter ourselves. I'd hide it, my brother would look for it, or vice versa. Suddenly the lessons we had merely heard coming from our Dad became real when we had to do them ourselves. I could hide the quarter in my closed fist and my brother would never find it. I could laugh and laugh at his ineptitude. "Look, I made a game that's really, really hard and he can't beat it ha ha ha." But that's the sign of an immature, purile, mentally deficient designer. I can say that because those three words describe me at the age of six pretty well. The only person having fun was me, the designer, and not my brother, the player. He was not having fun playing my game. And consequently, the only fun I was having was in making him miserable. What kind of cheap human being gets fun out of that? Well, play a "Find the Button" map on this site and you will find out!
Quickly I learned I would have to do better than that. There needed to be rules put in place. Rules for both the designer and the player. For example, my brother couldn't take a golf club to my kneecaps and demand I just tell him the location of the quarter. Not only would that hurt me, but more importantly it would break the game. And for me, the designer, there were two very important rules:
Rule one: the quarter must be hidden in plain sight. This means that it must be visible. If I hide it in my fist, that's not fair. If I hide it under the dresser so that only the slightest bit of quarter stuck out, that might be very hard to find but it would be very fair - especially if I were saying "warmer" and "colder" correctly. (I guess there was a rule about not lying, but that's a general rule for life.)
Rule two: the player shouldn't have to move anything to find the quarter. This means I couldn't hide it, say, in a locked glass box, such that it was in plain sight but still impossible to get at.
Those two rules together not only meant the game was fair, but it also steered us to finding the quarter with more success. After all, if I were to walk into the room where my brother hid the quarter, and I saw a bunch of boxes, I would know immediately that it was no use looking there because it would break rules one and two. I also knew not to check under stacks of books, inside closed closets, and so on. The game technically got easier, but not because the quarter was easier to find; it got easier because I, the player, felt like I knew how to play. Games are fun when we feel we know what we are doing and not fun when we feel lost and confused.
You might think these rules would make the game less fun because there were less places to hide the quarter, but one example sticks out to me pretty well. Dad had opened the closet door and placed the quarter on top of it, such that, when we moved the closet door, the quarter fell down into the closet. He broke no rules. The quarter was in plain sight and nothing needed to be moved to find it, and he told us "warmer" and "colder" appropriately. But because we, the players, broke the rules (we didn't need to move anything and we did anyway), the game became impossible to complete. I am still a bit salty about that game.
Nowadays I've moved on from Hidden Object games because, well, I grokked "Hide the Silver" years ago. And someday, you'll move on from "Find the Button." It's no coincidence that many of these maps are the first challenge maps created by these budding designers. I played a few of them (for research) and most included a very cringey statement along the lines of "it's just my first evar map dont flamm me pls !!101x0xhaxMEMES." The edgelord in me laughs, but really this is just the next generation of kids learning to hide the silver. Like me, they learn by creating really bad games and figuring out the rules for game design by experience. I don't mind when I see these maps! I won't play most of them but I appreciate that people are learning to create and hope that these designers learn their lessons. However, there is still one piece of advice I wish to impart to the next generation of game creators:
I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give your crappy map a shoutout on YouTube and will never check out your godawful Twitter page. STOP INCLUDING THOSE BUTTONS.
Thanks.
The first is that Minecraft really appeals to everyone. I first got the game in an early phase (infdev maybe) when I was a senior in college. Then, a week later, I removed the game from my computer because I had done none of my homework. Even now I still play from time to time, though I don't have the luxury of playing as often as people under 18. There are lots of people who play long past the age of 30, just as there are lots who play who are under 5. All ages, genders, races, and so on play Minecraft. What other game can you say that about? I can think of games that specifically appeal to really young kids, like the Freddy the Fish games I played way back when. I can think of games targeted toward older audiences, like Axis and Allies or Crusader Kings 2. I can also think of games that are only beloved by edgy teenagers who think they're mature, like Call of Duty. Sorry, that one was a joke. Call of Duty is beloved by no one. But the point is that Minecraft transcends demographics in the way that Mario or Zelda does. Perhaps the 10-year-old group is the most active and vocal (a statement I don't really believe), but the rest of us are still here, lurking and playing on our own private servers.
The second fact is that Minecraft allows people to create their own games within games. That's right, Minecraft trains new game designers. Many of these maps - the "Challenge" or "Adventure" maps - are created by children. It follows that many of these are very bad maps. But what a way to train yourself! I feel like an old man shaking my cane now when I say that, as a young child, I had to draw my ideas on the back of scratch paper my dad brought home from his job at Egghead. You kids don't know how lucky you have it that you can not only design but create games when you're 7, and not only that but you can upload them for the world to see. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN.
Given the wide range in demographics for Minecraft and the openness towards game design, it's natural that we can find adventure maps created by all ages and all stages of development. That is, we'll see some instances of a little kid making their first map, and other instances of a game design veteran creating a 32-hour adventure open-world RPG with extra mods and resource packs. Right now I'm interested in the former, the young one who's just starting out. There are two reasons for this: (1) it's great to watch children develop their abilities and become fantastic designers, and (2) it's also kind of fun to see them make really, really crappy things while they learn, and to point and laugh.
Let me break it to you... there is not one good "Find the Button" map. Not a single one. They are all bad. At the time of this writing, there are approximately 1,825 "Find the Button" games. That number is not an exaggeration. I counted. If you just got off the spaceship from Mars and are new to the ways of Earth, a "Find the Button" game is one in which a button has been hidden in the map and you have to, uh, find it. Given the sheer amount of these games, there are bound to be variations from people who are trying not to appear uncreative. Sometimes they'll change up the object to be found (there are a few "Find the Lever" games right now), or they'll add challenges such as hardcore platforming segments, but ultimately they're all the same, and they're all bad.
These games are part of a much larger subset of Hidden Object games that you can get anywhere. At their core, these games involve a goal object, and the game is over once the player has merely seen it. Clever game designers will spice things up a bit but it doesn't change the game. Sometimes they'll make the object blend into the environment. Still, your goal as a player is to look around until you see it. Sometimes they'll put other objects in the way so that you have to move them or move around them. Still, the game is over once you see it. There's only two wrong ways to make this game. The first is to put the object in plain sight such that the player immediately sees it on starting. In this case it's bad because there is no game. The second bad thing is to put a bunch of complicated puzzles in the way - for example, you can't push the button because it's behind a Rubik's Cube you must solve. In this case it's bad because it's no longer a Hidden Object game, but a Rubik's Cube. There are examples of both on the Projects page if you search "Find the Button," examples of mindless chores and unrelated puzzles alike, as these budding designers teach themselves how to create.
Hidden Object games are simple at their core. That may be why "Find the Button" maps are so bad. We've fully grokked the mechanics, and there's no game left. To "grok" a game, according to legendary designer Raph Koster, means to fully understand its ins and outs to the point where there is no mystery, no question, nothing left to do. Tic-Tac-Toe is a great game when you're 4 and haven't figured out the optimal strategy. A year later, though, you've figured out how to win and there are two outcomes: you either play with an idiot who doesn't know the strategy or you play with someone your own size and the game ends in a draw. Once kids grok Tic-Tac-Toe, they move on. "Find the Button" games, I believe, have been similarly grokked.
When I was a kid (get off my lawn), I played a different game. My family called it "Hide The Silver." The game was simple: Dad had a quarter he'd put somewhere in the room and me and my brother would try to find it. At first this was a wildly fun game, more fun than hide-and-seek. After all, there were fewer places to hide a large human body, but a tiny quarter could fit almost anywhere.
Now very quickly me, my brother, and my Dad learned some principal rules of game design. See, if my Dad laid the quarter on the middle of the table, it was way too easy and no fun. On the other hand, if my Dad hit it somewhere we'd never find it, then we'd wander around for hours and get bored. So Dad used the "Hot and Cold" system. When we were approaching the location of the hidden quarter, he'd say "warmer." If we moved away from the quarter, he'd say "colder." This allowed him to come up with rather clever places to hide it without frustrating us. You'll notice this method of design goes against what every hardcore gamer believes. Every hardcore gamer rails against games that "hold your hand" and tell you what to do. We all hated Fi from Skyward Sword because she wouldn't just let us play the doggone game. But it turns out the only way to have fun is if we are being guided somehow. Looking for an object for hours with no clues and no help and no progress is boring and bad game design, period.
We learned this best once the tables were turned. After a few years of playing, Dad felt we were old enough to hide the quarter ourselves. I'd hide it, my brother would look for it, or vice versa. Suddenly the lessons we had merely heard coming from our Dad became real when we had to do them ourselves. I could hide the quarter in my closed fist and my brother would never find it. I could laugh and laugh at his ineptitude. "Look, I made a game that's really, really hard and he can't beat it ha ha ha." But that's the sign of an immature, purile, mentally deficient designer. I can say that because those three words describe me at the age of six pretty well. The only person having fun was me, the designer, and not my brother, the player. He was not having fun playing my game. And consequently, the only fun I was having was in making him miserable. What kind of cheap human being gets fun out of that? Well, play a "Find the Button" map on this site and you will find out!
Quickly I learned I would have to do better than that. There needed to be rules put in place. Rules for both the designer and the player. For example, my brother couldn't take a golf club to my kneecaps and demand I just tell him the location of the quarter. Not only would that hurt me, but more importantly it would break the game. And for me, the designer, there were two very important rules:
Rule one: the quarter must be hidden in plain sight. This means that it must be visible. If I hide it in my fist, that's not fair. If I hide it under the dresser so that only the slightest bit of quarter stuck out, that might be very hard to find but it would be very fair - especially if I were saying "warmer" and "colder" correctly. (I guess there was a rule about not lying, but that's a general rule for life.)
Rule two: the player shouldn't have to move anything to find the quarter. This means I couldn't hide it, say, in a locked glass box, such that it was in plain sight but still impossible to get at.
Those two rules together not only meant the game was fair, but it also steered us to finding the quarter with more success. After all, if I were to walk into the room where my brother hid the quarter, and I saw a bunch of boxes, I would know immediately that it was no use looking there because it would break rules one and two. I also knew not to check under stacks of books, inside closed closets, and so on. The game technically got easier, but not because the quarter was easier to find; it got easier because I, the player, felt like I knew how to play. Games are fun when we feel we know what we are doing and not fun when we feel lost and confused.
You might think these rules would make the game less fun because there were less places to hide the quarter, but one example sticks out to me pretty well. Dad had opened the closet door and placed the quarter on top of it, such that, when we moved the closet door, the quarter fell down into the closet. He broke no rules. The quarter was in plain sight and nothing needed to be moved to find it, and he told us "warmer" and "colder" appropriately. But because we, the players, broke the rules (we didn't need to move anything and we did anyway), the game became impossible to complete. I am still a bit salty about that game.
Nowadays I've moved on from Hidden Object games because, well, I grokked "Hide the Silver" years ago. And someday, you'll move on from "Find the Button." It's no coincidence that many of these maps are the first challenge maps created by these budding designers. I played a few of them (for research) and most included a very cringey statement along the lines of "it's just my first evar map dont flamm me pls !!101x0xhaxMEMES." The edgelord in me laughs, but really this is just the next generation of kids learning to hide the silver. Like me, they learn by creating really bad games and figuring out the rules for game design by experience. I don't mind when I see these maps! I won't play most of them but I appreciate that people are learning to create and hope that these designers learn their lessons. However, there is still one piece of advice I wish to impart to the next generation of game creators:
I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give your crappy map a shoutout on YouTube and will never check out your godawful Twitter page. STOP INCLUDING THOSE BUTTONS.
Thanks.
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