03 - Minecraft is ready

"It's finally ready…" Alex said in a tired voice as he finished reviewing the game thoroughly.

He had been awake for 21 hours developing Minecraft and reviewing until he could no longer find any Bugs.

"It would be nice to actually have lots of Gaming Points to be able to let the system play the game using just my memory... unfortunately my remaining 50 points are way off the 50,000 points needed to be able to do that..." Alex sighed as he fiddled with the computer .

In the [Game Developer ] program, there was a [Test ] button. Alex couldn't think about how the game would be after being submitted, he was really looking forward to testing the game right now, but the fatigue he was feeling was very heavy, to the point that he found it difficult even to go to the bathroom.

So, after washing away the dirty cutlery, which he used to eat the rest of the rabbit he had hunted, Alex lay down on his bed and slept very peacefully.

---

The next day, Alex woke up excited to test the game. First he put some wood to burn to warm him up, and enthusiastically pressed the [Launch ] button in the program.

In the blink of an eye, Alex found himself in a completely different place. Instead of the small cabin he'd lived in for the last month, surrounded by pine trees and lots of snow, this time Alex was finally feeling warm again.

"This…this is magic!" He yelled excitedly as he looked around curiously.

There was green grass, oak trees, sheep, cows, everything he had imagined was in front of him.

The only problem that made him feel a little uncomfortable was that the whole world had something different... everything was square! But unlike the minecraft he saw through his computer screen, this time everything around him was square, it was like the whole world was squared to match itself.

With emotion, Alex ran towards a tree and did something he always imagined it would be like.

*Punch*

Alex punched a tree! But instead of what he imagined, the trunk of the tree did not break, but began to show cracks.

*Punch, Punch, Punch *

After three more punches, the tree trunk actually broke, and just as Alex imagined the tree remained in place, floating as if nothing had happened.

The experience of seeing this happening through a computer screen and making it happen with your own arms was completely different.

*Punch, Punch, Punch, Punch *

Alex continued to break trees until something happened. The leaves on the trees began to fall, and between the leaves a bright red apple also fell.

Curious, Alex took the apple and took a bite of it.

"What a divine taste!" He yelled in excitement making his blue shirt sway over the sides.

Finally Alex noticed something different. This should probably be the first thing a person entering this world would notice, but having played minecraft for so many years, Alex just ignored it without realizing how weird it was.

His hand that held the apple was square, his arms were rectangular, when he took his own face, he felt that his face was also square!

As he ran towards a nearby river, Alex saw a very familiar face.

"Steve..." He said shocked.

Looking at one's reflection and seeing Steve was shocking. But unlike playing on the computer monitor, seeing it with your own eyes was strangely…normal.

His eyes moved naturally, his mouth moved naturally, there were square teeth that for some reason could eat the apple well, his hand had fingers that even though they were square also looked natural.

All of this got Alex very excited making him explore everything. He had adapted crafting to work in a more "magical" way. The player still had the inventory, but crafting had been revamped.

Opening the inventory, Alex used his mind to make a cookbook come out. The book contained all the things a player could do with the materials he currently had, and the more different things the player got, the more pages the book would receive.

Initially minecraft didn't have this book, but this made many casual gamers not try to play the game as it was too difficult, so in later versions the developer added something that Alex also did in his game.

Following the recipe given in the book, Alex opened his inventory and took the other item that newbies would receive. A black box with a tool symbol.

The box had nine compartments where the player could place the block miniatures and items they had. By following the recipe in the book and placing the blocks and items in the right places, when closing the box it would glow and when opened again, the finished item would come out of there.

Alex had changed more things in the game to make gameplay more fun for players, but that he was too lazy to test for now.

Seeing that the game was starting to get dark, Alex realized that it had probably been 20 minutes since he entered the game.

As he ate an apple on minecraft, he felt he wasn't hungry, but his body in life really was probably feeling it, so he decided to quit the game for something to eat.

With a satisfied smile, Alex rose from his computer chair and marveled at the system he'd been given.

If he can keep using this system to make more games, the people of the world will go crazy about it. Even he, whoever made the game was dying to play, so who will say other players?

With a smile on his face, Alex used the mouse to click the [Launch ] button.

Under the system, this button would make the game launch on all non-exclusive digital platforms, that is, as long as it wasn't a digital store for a console, or a digital store for a game brand, all stores that accepted developers independents would have his game listed on the shelves as if he had actually signed up to promote his game there.

After hitting [Launch ], Alex decided to look at the system store and see if he could buy some cheap food so he wouldn't have to go hunting any more animals.

---

Meanwhile, in an apartment in the suburbs of NY, a chubby young teenager was browsing the world's most famous online game store.

Unfortunately he was very bored. All the games were very similar, it was either a game about Captain America in WWII, or a game where a soldier had to fight Nazis, or worse, a game where the company just wanted to take money from players, making them spend a lot to be able to stay strong.

Ned didn't have the money to play this type of game, so he was always weaker than other players. That's why he gave up on that kind of game.

But no matter where he looked, Ned couldn't find any interesting games to play.

He even went to the "Recently Added" tab, but he couldn't find anything there.

Until he saw something that caught his attention.

Among several war-themed games, there was one game that was standing out a lot for being different.

A pixelart that apparently represented a land, with a name written across the front in square fonts.

[Minecraft ]

Curious, Ned clicked on this different game and saw that the game page didn't have much information. The only information I had was some promotional images of a square man apparently looking after a farm, with pigs, cows, sheep, horses.

"Is this a game where the player is a farmer?" Ned wondered aloud as he became interested.

He had never seen a game where the player was a farmer. He was tired of war games, so watching a game about a farm seemed fun.

Seeing that the price of the game was only $20, he felt it could be worth it, after all if the game could entertain him for a few days it would be enough.

"I just hope this isn't one of those games that sucks the player's money..." He thought as he pressed the [Play ] button.