Autism and Minecraft

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I'm sure we all know by now that Minecraft is a game that's stereotypically associated with people on the autism spectrum, but I wonder, why? I don't really get it because Minecraft has very little, if any, structure to it, and structure is something we tend to prefer.

I know I prefer having some structure in the games I play, because while I have played and enjoyed sandbox games in the past, I tend to get bored with them pretty quickly. I like having goals to work towards, like enemies to vanquish or a tournament to win, but Minecraft doesn't really have these things. It requires you to be creative and come up with your own goals, and when it comes to stuff like that, I just don't have the gumption to do it.

Whenever I play Minecraft, typically I'll mess around a little, dig a hole in the ground or into the side of a hill, build a crappy "house", fight zombies and creepers, then get bored and do something else. I *know* there's a lot more you can do in the game, but without any real clear cut goals, and with crappy combat, awkward movement physics, and absolutely monotonous resource gathering that feels more like work than like playing a game, I just don't stay hooked for long.

As odd as it sounds, I sort of feel like playing it right now, and maybe giving it another chance just to see what the fuss is about, but idk. Other people play it and they're like "ZOMG YOU CAN BUILD ANYTHING YOU WANT THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVARRRRR" but I'm like "hmm this is kinda neat, but it's also awkward, and boring... why do people keep playing this?"

Because its a graphics engine written in Java, how more autistic can you get? lol

Also, for MODs, I almost view it as one of those games you just mod to oblivion like... well Oblivion, Skyrim and GTA.



and on a more serious note, probably because the game is awkward and boring, I find it calming for anxiety really, basically legos for adults. Its almost an excise in mindfulness to be honest, calming music and repetitive game play

haven't played it in awhile, but for me the game is something therapeutically tranquil. you go out, hunt/gather resources, and then meticulously build/create things with them. for me, large structures require deciding on a design, choosing an optimal site, doing the quick math of blocks required per layer, building the cobblestone shell and scaffolding(most everything built starts or stays underwater so building the major structure inside the shell is far more efficient for time, and once built, the stone structure is removed. also, the shell keeps the water above completely underwater structures from nonsensically dipping or dropping into a bunch of waterfalls above.), and then to figure out a rhythm to place the blocks out in lines for perfect count(often while underwater, when placing or removing the shell, and having to use a torch every so many blocks to trip the water block at face level into momentarily becoming an air block).

one of my projects(on the ps3 edition) was creating an obsidian spire with glass tubes of lava running through it's spiky exterior(spiraling-ly gridded so that even with glass acting as windows, a normal diamond pickaxe wouldn't get through enough obsidian, or water touching and turning lava into such, before drowning), that juts out of the ocean... it's big enough to have created a black blot on the map, and it's high enough out of the water to be seen from quite a bit aways(though, it's unfinished because it's supposed to reach the clouds, and a new world was started with the ps4 edition). there's also an underwater railway within a glass tube that links it to the mainland(didn't know about nether portals upon building that, but those are fun too. just had to read that you had to do the simple math for linking the portals to the right places between both worlds).

obsidian structures are my favorite for home bases because creatures don't spawn on them, and a lost creeper won't destroy the structure from the outside if you accidentally get too close. seriously, when that game updates, you never know what kind of bad surprises are to come. like with that underwater railway(much it's rails set on cobblestone), after an update the tube was unexpectedly flooded with creepers after getting on the over powered rail(prior to that update, they wouldn't spawn on rails, so there was no need to tarnish the scenic approach to the tower with the glare of torches)... that was actually far more funny than it should have been considering the cost of time to repair(definitely learned to keep autosave disabled after that).

I was making a minecraft texture pack, a few times. It was pretty cool. I don't have a premium account though. I'm with dcj123. Mod it to oblivion till it crashes then repair it. Sadly it has some fps issues. At least on the computer I have. [/color]

The thing about Minecraft is that it pretty much is whatever you make of it. Which is exactly why it's so popular.

If you *need* "structure" in your games, then no, you're not going to find it here. Which for me is fine... usually these days "structure" = "story" which to me = "extreme boredom" (and usually also a lack of anything resembling difficulty goes with story-based games), so I'm not exactly missing that element. Generally here, instead of the game just handing you arbitrary pre-made goals, you're supposed to come up with your own. As a rule, when you're going about those, others will appear to you.

For example, the first major goal is to not have your face eaten on the first night. My usual next goal on a new world is to get a Nether portal opened up, which has very specific requirements. That means finding diamonds (usually). Which means getting far enough underground. So... first goal, find a cave that goes deep enough. But I need supplies for that. So in the process of going about that, I need to get some food going (as in, actually renewable), I need coal so I can see where I'm going, and I need iron for... basically everything. So I go after those things, right, and get them, and I start my trek into a nearby cave. I go a bit down, and not all that far in, stumble across the entrance to an abandoned mineshaft. Which is effectively a type of dungeon maze; there are various things to be found in there, but it's easy to get lost in and stuffed with cave spiders, which are poisonous (and in this game, anything poisonous is very bad news). Just finding that mineshaft gives me a new goal I can pursue later, which of course is exploring the thing. Being that those places are always filled with free minecart tracks, setting up an early track between places in the overworld that I walk between frequently is another goal that then might be a thing. Which is part of how the game concept works... I believe they call this "emergent gameplay". Instead of pre-set structure, the structure depends entirely on you and what you are doing, and new goals and whatever will come from there. But you CANNOT just sit there and expect the game to hand them to you with little dialog boxes, because it's not going to.

That being said, there IS actually an "ending" to the game; you can go after and defeat the Enderdragon if you want, which involves this long, complicated process to even locate the horrid thing (it being in another dimension). Even beyond that, there's other "end-game" content such as the underwater monuments (yeah, good luck with that one) or whatever the hell these new mansions are (havent done them yet, very recent addition).

The problem with the game, for me, has always simply been that it is, by default, too easy. So.... I force it to be harder. The game is *extremely* moddable. I usually find mods that increase the difficulty (buffing up old enemies with better stats and new powers, adding new enemies/bosses, or even something like adding roguelike-style dungeons) to the point where even one or two enemies becomes a very dangerous encounter, forcing me to be very careful. I mean, skeletons are one thing... irritating mobs that fire arrows. In a mod I'm using recently though, they fire them REALLY fast, really often, hit much harder, have better AI, and if I get close, they'll pull out an axe and actually try to run circles around me while going bonkers with the thing (axes, incidentally, can break shields). Anyone that knows me well enough knows what I personally think "difficulty" is, so the level at which I typically play the game is of a "waaaaaayyyyyyy beyond Dark Souls" level of challenge.

It's the same if you want to simply increase the complexity of the game or even give more goals... mods in this game tend to be.... big. What you'd often hear called a "total conversion" mod in other games (which these days usually just means a mod that passes a certain threshold in terms of how much it does/changes/adds), well.... think of a mod on that level, except that there's waaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy more such mods of that level with this game than you'd ever find for any other game (including Skyrim, which doesnt even come close). And that's just ONE mod. When people use mods, nobody uses JUST one mod. Haha, no. Look up some of the game's "modpacks". Most modpacks usually contain about.... 100+ mods, all at the same time. Adding some 30000 (not exaggerated number, that) items to the game is fairly average, for instance. They add SO MUCH that you're absolutely NOT going to explore 100% of everything. But you pick the modpacks based on their themes, so you find ones that keep you wanting to explore more of the game. Alot of players like the "tech" packs, for instance, which let them build crazy complicated machinery. I personally always tended to go for the more adventure-oriented ones... they'd do things like throw dungeons all over, add alternate dimensions, bosses, and even add new mechanics such as a mana count and the ability to use magic, among all sorts of other things. If I'm in the need for "goals", a mod setup like THAT is going to drown me in them by it's very nature. The entire Overworld... and usually basically everything else... is totally transformed by stuff like that. Even the game's most basic, core mechanics can be changed by mods.

And as for the building, well... that's different things to different players. Some make structures to be creative. *I* make them to be practical. New room? It probably serves a function. Something specific is probably going in there. With nastier mod setups, some sections of a base may be created purely for a defensive reason, for instance. Though even I sometimes will create something just because I bloody well feel like it (usually a tower, because towers are cool for some reason.... particularly if I have some way of getting to and from the top REALLY quickly, like some sort of warp device)


Anyway, that's some of how it tends to work. Like I said, it's all about what you, the player, make of it. The game WILL NOT create that structure/setup for you as you see in other games. Ever. Even mods almost always dont do that, because it simply wont occur to the mod makers that anyone would WANT to focus on story or whatever in this; it's just not what the game is for. I've seen soooooooo many mods.... I can think of like, ONE that actually did something like try to add a real story or any crap like that. Just one.

The ONE problem the game has... and it's a pretty bloody huge problem... is frankly the same damn problem that the entire genre has. It doesnt explain itself very well. Or at all, if you're on PC. On consoles it gives you a very half-assed tutorial that teaches you about 5% of the game. On PC.... it teaches you nothing at all. It expects that you've learned from elsewhere. It's very typical of "sandbox" games these days. You'll often miss entire features/mechanics simply because, well, how the hell were you supposed to know about them? Which also means that since you're not quite aware of everything, you'll miss all sorts of possibilities, because you cant spot them without that knowledge. There are probably very well thought-out tutorial maps made by players and such on PC, but I've not seen those myself.


Now, as for why AUTISM often goes with Minecraft? ....It's the internet. Right now, "autism" often goes with anything that a given internet moron thinks is stupid. Call of Duty is very often just as "autistic", because people are jerks like that. Same with games like Dota or League of Legends, or Street Fighter, Smash Bros., basically anything. You hear it most often with Minecraft because Minecraft is simply one of the best-known games right now that it's mentioned EXTREMELY often.

Eventually the damn internet will come up with some new, even stupider thing to replace that comparison with.

*Interesting. I think with my desire for structure, preference for goals over creativity, and tendency to be overwhelmed by things with lots of little details, maybe I'm *too* autistic for Minecraft. Imagine that. Half the internet's collective heads would be blown by that statement "too autistic for Minecraft".

I, too, get bored with Minecraft. There's no real goal to the game. I did like it at first. Exploring caves can be really fun. I find the pseudorandomness of it fascinating. Based on some formula, an entire world can be generated from a single number.

I'm working on a Minecraft clone for the Wii as we speak (or type), so I'd say that I like Minecraft.

I like it, i have a huge 3 story castle that i built. I like how the game is peaceful and predictible and straight forward

I know a lot of NTs who play Minecraft too, but I can see how the sandbox/build your own world element can appeal to people on the spectrum.

I'm curious... have you considered trying something like Terraria instead?

Terraria absolutely does have structure: Your end goal in the game is to take down the Moon Lord, the final boss. There's a general progression through the game overall that cant really be skipped very easily (or at all, in most cases)...

As an example, a new game tends to go like this early on, in terms of the goals that the game will hit you with:

1. Get basic materials to survive the first night. Make basic weapons. Maybe kill Eyes for lenses.

2. Explore the caves nearby a bit. Look for things like copper to make some basic armor. Search for treasure chests.

3. Build up your base a bit, to prepare some space for NPCs to live in (NPCs do all sorts of things for you, most often running lots of types of shops). Bases can be simple and small or complex as hell. They have ALOT more inherant practical use than those in Minecraft (which are more about the look than the function).

4. Once you've gotten at least some equipment that isnt bloody horrible, get all of the lenses that you need from the Demon Eyes.

5. Find a Demon Altar. Craft the Suspicious Eye.

6. Summon the Eye of Cthulhu, the first boss.

7. With the materials gotten from that boss, get the tools you need to destroy Shadow Orbs or Crimson Hearts, depending on which type appeared in your world.

8 . Explore the Corruption or Crimson (random as to which type you get; it's basically a type of "dungeon" area). Your goal is to find the orbs/hearts. Also, get better armor, the next bit hurts.

9. Set up an "arena" for the boss. You do NOT want to fight it on normal ground, because it'll eat your face.

10. Smash three Orbs or Hearts, summoning either the Eater of Worlds or Brain of Cthulhu (depends on Corruption or Crimson).

11. Materials gained from them allow you to progress towards the next tier of equipment (better mining tools can break more types of blocks, which is necessary to advance; better armor of course makes you less dead). Shortly after smashing the orbs/hearts, a meteor will strike somewhere in your world. Some powerful stuff can be gotten from these but dealing with them is a massive pain. They're optional, but you cannot stop one from appearing.

12. Locate the Dungeon (dont actually go inside). Set up an arena and fight Skeletron. Once he goes down, the Dungeon (which is full of useful stuff) can be explored. You need to have good equipment to deal with him though; not just because he hits hard, but also because he will insta-kill you if you do not defeat him before sunrise.

13. Fight the Queen Bee? This one's optional.

14. Head to the Underworld. Find the Voodoo Doll.

15. Summon the Wall of Flesh.



That's the route towards the game's first major goal; once the Wall is defeated, the world switches into "hardmode", and some sections of it transform, and a variety of new enemies appear, as well as new types of ores and items that you need to go further. You can start getting some pretty loopy stuff here.



Overall, the game tends to be like this. A general progression, HOWEVER, you have the option of branching off as you see fit to get other stuff. The game is extremely focused on exploration and combat; while it has Minecraft's digging/building/crafting, in an overall sense it's very similar to a Metroidvania game. It has alot of RPG elements too. Equipment has an affix system, like Diablo-style equipment (and there's an NPC that can reforge things for you, to work with that). There's an outright stupid number of items in the game to find and make (like, thousands), so every single playthrough is very different. And you can decide for yourself just how you want to approach your character's advancement, and what type of playstyle you want to use. You can use lots of melee, or maybe arrows, magic, even summoning minions. Among the gazillions of other things you can do. The game gives you TONS of reasons to want to explore, and monsters are pretty much constant. It's not like Minecraft where you can go for quite some time without running into any. Even during the day, there are things present. And sometimes events like a Goblin Invasion will happen. And there are LOTS of monster types, unlike Minecraft which actually has very few. Different biomes (or dungeon-type areas) will have different monsters in them. There are alot of bosses... the ones listed here are only the start. Overall there's a seriously absurd amount of content and things to do here.

So, it allows for alot of freedom (and building) like Minecraft, but provides a general structure of progression to go through the game, and elements of Metroidvania games are very prominent, the combat and exploration, and powering up your character. You start out pretty weak, but soon you'll start finding things that give you abilities like double jumping, wall climbing, the ability to instantly warp back home, or all sorts of things. Also unlike Minecraft once you've made a tool or piece of armor or whatever, they never break (it's hard to have a progression-based game if your helmet keeps shattering).

Currently in my own game I've defeated the Brain... which was all sorts of irritating (very nearly died there, it and it's bloody stupid teleporting attack phase)... and am now scouring the caves and other areas for items before going after Skeletron and the dungeon. And I FINALLY got the damn Goblin Tinkerer NPC, which had been one of my biggest goals due to the things he offers.