So its basicly a sandbox building game, you start the game with nothing and go from there. There is a full day-night cycle and at night in areas that are not illuminated by torches (or lava) enemies can spawn and kill you.

You get resources by destroying certain block types to gain there raw materials, and then craft those materials into usable items.

The deeper you mine, the better materials you will find, for instance diamond can only be found at the very bottom of the world but is the best crafting material. You can make for instance a diamond mining pick that will last for a very long time and destroy rock blocks very fast.

There are all sorts of ways you can interact with the world also, for instance by harvesting tree leaves you have a chance for a tree sapling to drop. if you plant this sapling in an area with water and sunlight a new tree will grow there eventually and you can keep your wood resources near infinite by doing this. You can also create fields and grow your own food to regain health, or simply kill animals and take there meat and cook it to regain health that way.

The high level materials can be gained by combining different low level materials. for example to make glass you need to collect sand blocks with your spade, then smelt the sand into glass using your furnace (made with stone blocks). You have to harvest wood to place into the furnace first so that there is something to create heat to smelt the sand.

Bleh, im totally addicted! :)

Finally a warning, if you suffer from any kind of ocd you might want to skip this one! 

there was another block-based game where you could build your own structures and choose textures (and dig holes-- it even had a fluid engine where if you dug a tunnel and hit water, it would fill up).

that game didn't have any gameplay mechanics though, no monsters or resource management. 

roller coster video on minecraft site looks like fun 

So I was mining in the cliff above my house, my house made of wood, when I happened upon a steam of lava.

Hilarity ensues...
http://daz.quaddicted.com/images/temp/mc7.jpg

and Necros, I believe the 1st version of minecraft was simply a building simulator with no inventory management or crafting or enemies. The new alpha versions have all that good stuff :) 

it's an alpha... and it costs 10�.
it's a sad day when someone charges you to beta-- alphatest their game. 

It looks great though, despite the Valve style pay to playtest thing. Do you get access to all subsequent versions?

Daz, did you rebuild on top of the smoking ruins? 

if you pay for it now its only 10 euro's. It will be 20 once its finished. You do get access to all updates + expansions for free if you get it now.

I did manage to eventually put the fires out by running to my well with about 8 buckets and filling them with water. The trouble was that I had to stem the flow of lava first :P eventually most of the wooden walls were gone and I had a nice layer of snow on my stone floor :P all is rebuilt now and I managed to swipe some buckets of lava for my next home addition, a moat of lava! :) 

Tested it last night, it's been a long time I was looking for playing it...
More comments to come when I'll have finished the game :) 

Yeah I bought it a while back (should play again for the new stuff, but I'm afraid of wasting too much time with it again).
It's fun, I made a really high tower of solitude, once it was done I just stood at the top with my pile of useless gold, not knowing what to do more. :)
Looking forward to some kind of multiplayer with this mode. 

So... either it's really being made/finished by Gearbox or it's an amazingly good joke.

Either way hilarious. 

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/09/03/controversial-long-awaited-duke-nukem-forever-will-finally-be-released/

Shit... now I need to hurry up with rubicon 2 or else DNF might come out first! 

Not surprised about DNF, and I can't say I'm all that excited about it anymore. I'll get it, I'll play it, but the hype is just too far gone for me.

Rubicon 2, on the other hand ... I would like teaser pics please :) 

(at least about rubicon 2).

please? 

posting this as a reminder to myself to play it some day:
http://decay.half-lifecreations.com/ 

sad 

Random -- the text is from the times of india. 

I tried the demo today.. I need to go to the shops tomorrow to pick up some new pants :P

Its great, and a pretty natural evolution from the Penumbra games.

..Don't...stand...in the water 

GG Gearbox really. Reckon they'll get a half-decent shooter out of it. 

interesting anyway: http://research.cs.queensu.ca/Parallel/QuantumChess/ChessApplet2/ChessGame.html

1. Pieces randomly choose their type when you click on them once, then you click again to move (or if no legal moves are available, your turn is over.)

2. once a piece type is determined, it won't go back to a question mark until it lands on a black square.

3. you have to actually capture the king to win, rather than just mating. 

but totally missing the point of chess. 

http://thelettervsixtim.es/

Posted previously, but it was $15 which is pretty outlandish for a (nice) flash game. $5 seems reasonable.

(Also on Steam apparently) 

It's super hard!
But fun. :) 

The computer always gets the right pieces and all i get are peasants.

Maybe it would be intersting if there were specific rules that decide what piece you get. 

The world is not entirely evile;

http://kotaku.com/5633629/minecraft-creator-hiring-help-working-on-new-game