Not many video games have been able to unleash my creativity like Minecraft. I’ve spent countless hours chipping away at blocks and gathering resources to complete my next masterpiece. I’ve also spent just as many hours exploring its long and winding caves, vast biomes, and unique creatures along the way. Minecraft can be whatever you want it to be, it’s all up to your imagination.

Released in 2011, Minecraft is a first-person virtual sandbox that gives players all the tools they need to explore an immense world, harvest resources, and create nearly everything they can imagine. There are two main modes to the game; survival and creative.

Survival mode is simple, you’re dropped in the middle of nowhere with nothing more than your wits. Starting off, you’ll have to harvest wood from a tree, which you’ll use to make a batch of sticks. Then you’ll attach some more wood to those sticks and make a pickaxe. Using that pickaxe, you can mine some stone to help build a house. And the cycle goes on and on throughout the game. The world you are set in is wide and infinite. You’ll spend your time exploring around and harvesting what you can to help create what you need. Over time, you’ll learn more about how to find and build more complex materials and tools, combining them to craft new, intricate creations. It’s a heavy investment of time and research, but the payoff can be fulfilling and satisfying.

Creative mode, on the other hand, is essentially the game’s God mode. In this mode, you get full access to every item in the game without having to worry about such things as hostile creatures, hunger, or other things that might cut your time short in a survival world. Creative allows players to build to their hearts’ content, crafting and testing wild projects before sharing them with friends.

The game’s graphics and textures are very basic and simple. Each block in the game is made up of smaller squares, sort of like enlarged pixels. The graphics of the game are nothing revolutionary, but it suits the game well.

Minecraft’s music is also very well suited for the game. After a few minutes of just the sound of you mining, soft and soothing piano music fades to relax you. The music is very nostalgic and it is great to listen to in-game or to put on while going to sleep.

Minecraft is one of my favorite video games to play with friends or alone, but my opinions towards Minecraft is purely the result of my experience with it. If you don’t thrive off random adventures like I do or maybe you won’t feel the same sort of accomplishment after building your first house. If not, then you probably won’t enjoy Minecraft the same way. Minecraft, more than any other game I know, is not about playing it a specific way, its an open world just daring you to jump in to let your imagination take shape.