09 November 2023

I've been really reminiscing on my childhood as of late. A big part of it was Minecraft; I remember begging my mum to buy it for me when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I remember the first world I had made; I spawned in a Taiga biome. I remember making my first house, and I remember finding a nearby lava pool! (Unrelated. My house didn't burn down!) As a now 21 year old, I've been looking back on Minecraft with a soft, yet yearning heart. I really wanted to play it again. And it's not like I haven't touched it for a decade; I've been playing it on-and-off since! But the same loop of events happens again and again; I make a new world, play for a few hours; give up; and the cycle repeats. Did you know that I've never actually killed the Ender Dragon? I've helped people do it, but I'm always dead when the final blow hits, so I've never felt like I've really done it. I've also been watching a lot of Hermitcraft lately, and whenever I do it makes the urge to play Minecraft even worse!

So I decided to put my foot down; I want to play Minecraft, and I don't want to abandon the world!

I wanted to play a lightly modded world; something that is still very much Vanilla, but with a few tweaks. At first, I used Fabulously Optimized, which is just Vanilla but with a bunch of performance tweaks. However, after about a day or two (realtime) I swapped to Low Res Trailer Recreation after watching this Youtube video by lowresbones! It's a modpack which makes the game look more like the trailer. I did however, edit the modpack slightly to my preferences! I removed Better Combat (didn't like how it felt) and AmbientSounds & Sound Physics Remastered (really triggered the auditory processing disorder). I also added a few personal mods I really liked; Customizable Player Models (I gave myself a tail :3), Villager Names, FallingTree (timber) and Name Tag Tweaks.

So yeah! Basically Vanilla but with a few tweaks. I've also been playing on Easy, though I have turned to Peaceful a couple times when I just wanted to relax.

Let's get into the world!

I spawned in a super expansive snowy plains biome. If you look on the right side there's an igloo - it didn't have anything, but I did take the bed! Behind me (also to the right a bit) is a massive mountain; and foreshadowing, remember the part that it's massive. I ask my friends in VC where I should go, and they suggested that I make my house on top of the mountain! I make the climb up, and on the other side is a big, nice empty area... and also, a village!

(Sorry for the weird resolution, had a Discord stream open of my friend!)

I thought it would be cute to have my house overlooking the village! I set up home here.

By day 6, I have a home built! It's very simple, just an L-shaped rectangle, but I don't have many resources right now. Also a new skin of my fursona.

I had a really weird, sort of funny experience. I kept hearing a zombie under my house, so I decide to dig underneath of it to see if I can't find it. I dig for about 20 or so minutes before I give up and ask my friend to jump into VC to help locate it. If you didn't know, my ears can't pick up directional sound well (sound from right; brain thinks it's elsewhere). He tells me to stop, turn to the right slightly and dig. We find the cave in under 30 seconds.

Something else... I noticed the cave had light coming from outside. I walk outside the cave.

Oops.

I now put a roof on my house; if you look at my pickaxe, you can even see a little farmland! And with a little more work...

A proper-looking home! It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than the day 6 house.

I decide at this point to do some exploring! You can't see it in screenshot #1, but just over the drop-off is a big frozen river. I decide to cross it, and I find... another village! I would soon come to learn that there's 3 villages in about... a 200, 300 block radius, from my spawn.

This was the point where I played with Customizable Player Models, and I gave myself a tail and glasses. Aren't they so cute?

I go mining for a bit! I descended into the big mountain I'm living on top of - there's a big maw you can enter! I find lots of ore, and even an underground ruined portal! This is the point where I swap modpacks.

I forgot to take pictures, but I've been working on the village that's super close by. I've been fixing up the paths, adding some fences so they don't walk into the massive hole, I then covered the massive hole... just little things!

If you look close, there's a goat on top of my house! How silly...

I decide to make a mineshaft from the top of my mountain to bedrock. It's very annoying to go up and down the mountain, too, so I decide to make a dual staircase. It goes down, stops at the bottom of the mountain, and then goes to bedrock. Here's a screenshot of the big maw with the WIP staircase! Do you remember when I mentioned how massive the mountain was? If you're familiar with world generation, you might already know what future me has in store...

Oh! At the same time, I also made a little storage house and a little barn for my cows. I want sheep eventually, but I literally haven't seen a single sheep anywhere.

Anyway, I continue to make my mineshaft to bedrock! I've been using stairs, too. So while it takes longer to mine all of this out, it'll be super fast in the future! While I'm mining, I notice a certain, different kind of block. Something that you only find in the deep dark. I shrug it off; probably just a randomly generated biome. But then, when I need to mine through it... I notice there's a cave down there. I mine, carefully, so I can enter it safely, and...

Oh no. For 29 days, unknowingly, I have been living on top of an Ancient City. In hindsight, it was very obvious. Big mountains with big entrances into a big cave commonly have ancient cities at the bottom of them. However, it took me making a mineshaft to bedrock to notice!

I'm a huge wimp though so I turn on Peaceful to loot it. Don't judge me. I ignored the city, mined down lower, got the Darkness effect and decided that I wasn't going to deal with the 200BPM heart rate that afternoon.

I steal all the loot for myself! There was a really nice pair of Diamond Leggings in there!

I return to the surface at this point and I decide to do some more exploring. I find a Pillager outpost, and...

(Me and the bad bitches I pulled by being a silly kitty.) I have 6 new friends.

Anyway, that's it from me! I'm at... I think day 31-ish? I forgot to check before I closed Minecraft, hehe. This took about 2 or 3 real-time days so far, and it's been a lot of fun. I've only found one diamond myself, and I haven't even entered the Nether yet, so I have a LOT to do! I know I'm going about this super slow, but that's okay. I really want to enjoy my time with the game again!

I don't know if I'll make a follow-up post. Maybe I'll do one once I reach 100 days, so you can all see my progress. I definitely think this world has really revitalized my love of this game. I hope I get to beat the Ender Dragon this time, too! I'm really excited for that.

Anyway, thanks for reading! （＾∀＾●）ﾉｼ