Howard

Mine, mine, mine…

I was never much of a gamer. For Christmas 1991 I asked my parents for a SEGA Mega Drive so I could play Sonic the Hedgehog like all my friends. They were okay with this, until they realised a Mega Drive didn’t have a keyboard.

“Of course a computer needs a keyboard, Howard. How else are you supposed to do work on it, such as writing letters of complaint to your local MP or writing letters of complaint to your local newspaper?” I think that’s what was said, anyway.

Instead of a games console, I unwrapped a steadfast Commodore Amiga 500 come Christmas morning, which turned out to be far better. Instead of having to save up and buy overpriced early ‘90s games cartridges, I simply took advantage of owning an actual computer and copied the floppy disk games of other friends. In case you were wondering what ever happened to Commodore and the Amiga computer range, it was killed due to piracy in the north Doncaster area.

I digress…

I do, because this column is actually about the very modern gaming phenomenon of Minecraft, into which my children have recently got themselves. To those uniformed few, Minecraft is a game that allows kids to build whatever they want in a blocky, pixelated world, then go on adventures killing things and other characters.

My three eldest love it. They can sit for hours on their tablets, playing, exploring, and if the graphic reports of my newly turned four-year-old son are to be believed, murdering. The eight- and six-year olds report similar things, as well as what they’ve built that day in a world that exists only at their fingertips. “I dug a hole today. It’s full of spiders now. Look.”

However, whereas the older two are very capable of separating the digital world from the real, four-year-old Gatsby seems to be having difficulty. He’ll often come running to me to excitedly describe that he was just attacked, “but it’s okay coz I bite it hard in it’s creeeepy face and it ranned away!” It takes me a few seconds to realise he’s talking about the game.

Cross

He also likes to show me what he’s built, and I have to say I’m often very impressed. And disturbed. Towering obelisks of stone and wood rise above a ground ploughed clean of grass and green. Monstrous archways spanning tempestuous rivers. Dark, seemingly bottomless voids, around which lay a scattering of bones. And crucifixes. So many crucifixes. Despite having never had the cultural relevance of that shape explained to him, he digs holes and erects buildings that would make the Pope proud.

To be fair to the wee tyke, he is a builder. Give him a heap of LEGO and he’ll create something truly imaginative, from an “aeroplane what goes wheelie, wheelie quickly”, to a “tall, tall tower for fighting the moon”. It’s just that he’s also tapped.

All the stuff

I’d be okay with all this Minecraft interest if it stayed solely within the screens of the kids’ tablets. Unfortunately, all three are very adept with YouTube and will search out Minecraft related content, often that we all must watch on the TV. I can’t tell you how painful it is to have to watch a teenage American gaming YouTuber nasally narrate themselves mining and crafting and killing. “Oh my God, oh my God! The creepers are coming, and they look so so so mad. Eeek! Diamond sword. Diamond sword!!!”

The kids love it, watching along and shouting out advice as if the millionaire arsehole can hear them. After watching one video the other day, Gatsby turned to me and said, “Daddy. Can we kill a cow?” I asked, “You mean, kill a cow in Minecraft?” to which he gleefully responded, “Sure, we can do it Minecraft, too!” Jesus.

Still, at least it keeps them off the streets. That’s especially important for Gatsby, who, now that he’s four, will soon be coming into his astral inheritance. If that Czech gypsy woman is to be believed, the “yellow haired demon child” will soon develop the ability to channel his powers, and all of space and time will be inverted and suffering is all mankind will know.

So yeah, let him dig crosses in Minecraft instead, says I.