The Minecraft Experiment, day 25: D: D: D: D:

Minecraft Diary 25 - Boat Escape

When I first started playing Minecraft a few months ago, I played with a rule: if I die, I have to delete the entire world. Now I'm trying to get to hell and back. The diary starts here , and we're up to the 25th.

I'm trying to follow my compass home, but I seem to have surfaced from a spelunking trip in the dead of night, on the most monster-infested coastline I've ever seen in the game.

Day 24

Day 24

Day 26 >

Day 26 >

World 10, deaths 9

I could turn back - it's not far to my hole. But since I made almost no progress home yesterday, I ought to press on through the night. It'll probably be OK - they're just skeletons, they have a hard time hitting you if you're moving.

I skirt around them and try to head homeward, but the route takes me worryingly close to the gloomy forest. Soon there's a thwuck! and I'm being shot from the dark. I can't see anything in there, but I also can't stop to place torches without being hit. Thinking about it, I do know of a way to create a lot of light over a large area with very little effort - I could just start another forest fire.

I snag a leaf with my flint and steel as I scamper by, and soon the whole coastline is ablaze. I lose the skeleton easily, but just as I'm leaving the safe glow of the forest inferno, its light lets me glimpse what's ahead.

D:

It's a Creeper. Those I'm still scared of. I double back, immediately hit a burning tree and singe myself. I head left, jump over a small ridge and into a pond below.

D:

Shit! I scramble to get out of the water, but the Creeper gets me before I can get a purchase on the bank. The blast knocks off a chunk of health, but I'm alive. The beach is still crawling with zombies, so I turn back to the burning forest.

D:

Some men just want to watch the world burn. Some Creepers just want to watch those men, creepily, from a forest.

Beach it is.

There is a Creeper here, but luckily he's not looking my w-

D:

RUN. Run, and think about how that's going to help. Creepers are almost exactly as fast as me, and when I hit the water and slow down, the Skeletons that roam the coast will be able to hit me with their arrows.

None are in range right now, and the Creeper is a little way back, so I have a few seconds. Quick, what's the recipe for a boat? I think it's a V-shape of wood?

D:

Damn it, no, it's planks not wood. Why do I have so little wood? Wait, that's not normal wood it's some kind of hard wood I've picked up. I still have loads of normal wood. Build build build!

D:

Dammit, I've made a bowl! This is far too small to set sail in! Boats are a U shape of planks, not a V! More planks! More planks!

D:

A boat! Chuck it in the water! GET IN GET IN GET IN. I'm in, I'm looking furiously in the opposite direction of the Creeper, and I'm holding the forward key much, much harder than I need to. I have no idea how close it is, but by what feels like the skin of my teeth I make my spectacular getaway.

Next: I don't know, I'll probably find cool places and get in fights.

Latest in Survival & Crafting
Wearing a hazmat suit, a Rust player proudly holds up a freshly cooked pie, foregrounded by a table covered with pies and a large pumpkin on the left.
Rust's crafting update gives the survival sim real-time food cooking and pies to rival Monster Hunter, but the tastiest treat is the ability to make and throw 'bee grenades'
A pig, a cow, and two birds dance
Minecraft Live returns in March with everyone's favorite kind of content: 'exclusive movie content'
An explosion in a desert environment
Survival sandbox Core Keeper gets explosive next week with a whole new skill tree devoted to bombs and grenades
Dead in Antares screenshot
The tough luck continues in Dead in Antares, the newest addition to the long-running series about people trying not to lose their heads in bad situations
Jack Black with mining gear.
'3 hours of my life that I'll never get back': A Minecraft modder did the lord's work, creating a mod that adds Jack Black's voice to the game
The Last Caretaker trailer still
Humanity's last hope is a little robot with can-do spirit in The Last Caretaker, coming to early access this summer
Latest in Features
A vampire with a dark castle and swarms of bats in the background.
We need to decide on a genre name for Vampire Survivors-like games before a really terrible one sticks
Olivia, Alma and a palico
I wish Monster Hunter Wilds wasn't so afraid of letting me play Monster Hunter
SteelSeries QcK Performance mouse pads overlapping on a desk
The SteelSeries QcK Performance series has reignited my excitement over the simple pleasure of a quality mouse pad… and trying to click skulls with pinpoint accuracy
OneXPlayer 2 pro on a table
I never thought a handheld PC bloated with Windows could replace my Steam Deck, but after gaming on an old OneXPlayer 2 Pro I can see now I judged it too harshly
A screenshot from the original Assassin's Creed game
Assassin's Creed: Shadows is just around the corner, so come and see the last 17 years of the series' PC graphics at max 4K settings
Beyond the Ice Palace 2 screenshots
I’m not sure what’s weirder: that someone made a sequel to a completely forgettable 37-year-old game I played as a kid, or that it was actually worth the wait