I loved Minecraft so much as a kid. It was one of the only video games that I played back then.

I couldn’t quite remember how I was introduced to Minecraft. Perhaps it was one of my friends. Perhaps it was that kid that I met at the community center. All I know is that I was immediately captivated. Coming to think of it, my interest in Minecraft mostly stems from an innate desire to express my creativity. Before Minecraft, I loved building all sorts of random stuff that I saw around me with toy blocks. Minecraft was like a set of virtual toy blocks, and that was what captivated me. After I began to be drawn to programming, creativity with programming replaced creativity with Minecraft, and I no longer played Minecraft as much.

Toy blocks were really my first venture into creating things. There was one day when I was trying to build some train tracks with toy blocks. My grandfather was next to me, and I remember sitting on the carpet for hours, not even noticing that the sky had darkened and brightened again. After finishing my build, I realized what happened. I was shocked, as I was perfectly convinced that I had spent a whole day and a whole night building blocks. Oh, no! Grandfather probably also tirelessly accompanied me for the whole night without sleeping, and I was incredibly sorry. Now that I think about it, it was probably just a storm. Nevertheless, still a magical moment.

I also had a set of toy blocks at Grandfather’s home. I recall building a small town of my fluffy animal friends. I had only recently learned about WeChat (China’s most widely used social media app)’s “Moments” feature, which was similar to Instagram posts but limited so that only your friends can see them. While browsing through my Mom’s “Moments,” I saw her posting pictures of my “buildings.” So I decided to imitate, because that sounded fun. I took pictures of my just-built town and posted it with the text,

My baby’s new town!

I soon forgot about this, but a day later, Mom would tell me that the post garnered many likes. Whoa.

I digress. After discovering Minecraft, I became less interested in toy blocks. Before Minecraft, I had already read about building interesting mechanisms in books, but my parents were always hesitant about buying me hardware to play around with. Minecraft seemed perfect because it allowed me to make stuff without having to buy stuff.

There was one problem, though: Minecraft costed money. I cried for Dad to buy it on App Store, and that didn’t quite work. It would take a consecutive month of jump roping before Dad would agree to buy me the coveted game. I was ecstatic.

I built my first world on Minecraft. Or was it my first? My memories are a little bit blurry now. It was a colorful town made out of wool, packed with a public library in a small wooden hut, a roller coaster, a “computer room” (I was puzzled why my “computer” wasn’t working), and a lot more stuff. I even built a glass house on top of the sky. I remember smelting ore while listening to the virtual rain, feeling oddly comforted.

I showed my friends the map, and they all seemed impressed, which made me incredibly happy. The good days didn’t last, however. One day, I suddenly couldn’t open the world anymore. My iPad stuck on the “loading world” screen. After trying for a few days, I had to face the uncomfortable truth: my treasured world was gone. It was with sadness that I announced this dreaded message to my friends, and we decided to delete the world together, for that we were sure that it was unrecoverable. This was one of my biggest regrets. Had I saved the world, I probably would have been able to export it and load it again today. But now, I can only go by my memory.

I soon moved on from the sorrow and started another world. This time, I built an interestingly shaped house based on my imagination of what I wanted to live in. Not long after, however, the world suffered the same fate as my previous world, and I deleted it again. I lost another important piece of memory that I would never find again.

To be continued… (Nov 24, 2024)