In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 23 - Chapter SS3

Crafting Games

I’ve been playing a ton of video games lately. Partly because of the global situation. That’s right, I’ve cast my beloved board games aside to play stuff on my TV. It’s been fun since I can play them alone, and I can basically play them anytime I want. Sometimes I find myself up at odd hours in the morning just gaming... It’s hard to stop playing when you can tell yourself you’ll just do one more thing...

Recently, I’ve been super into a game called Dragon Quest Builders 2. It’s a crafting and building type of game, kind of like Minecraft. You might be thinking I’m late to the party, but this is actually my second time playing it. I originally bought the game for the Nintendo Switch, and I finished it back then. But now I’ve bought the PS4 version, so I started all over from scratch. I finished the story again, so I’ve just been building freely in Terra Incognita mode. I’ve just been building stuff and breaking stuff... Building stuff and breaking stuff... Over and over again.

The first sandbox building game I ever played was the famous Minecraft, but the first time I played it, I had no idea what was going on. When I realized nighttime was dangerous, I dug a hole in a cliff and hid between the rocks like a caveman. Unlike Dragon Quest Builders, Minecraft doesn’t really have a plot, so you can do whatever you want from the start. But there’s a serious risk there because new players have no real sense of direction.

I figured... Okay, I’ll build a house! So I managed to cobble together an ugly-looking one out of dirt and wood. Then I got wool from sheep, managed to make myself a bed...and bam, the night was no longer scary. I tilled the soil, made fields to grow food in... I dug through mountains for ore to make weapons and tools. It was all pretty simple stuff. Felt awfully repetitive, but I just couldn’t stop myself from doing it. Maybe I just have the kind of personality that’s suited to it.

I deduced that the best ore must be deep underground, so I just started digging down in a straight line...only to hit an open space and fall to my death. I’ve got some good early memories of accidentally digging too deep and dying in the magma below. I’ve been watching a ton of Minecraft videos lately and some of the ideas are really astounding. It makes me wonder how people even thought of crafting this stuff... There are ways people have found to express themselves that I never thought possible.

There were even some videos that explained how to build cool stuff in step-by-step processes, so I ended up copying them. It can be a bit hard to just use your imagination, so that came in handy. But I think it’s vital for creators, and people in general, to exercise their imaginations. That’s why I’m going to go back to my PS4 and learn to expand my horizons right now. For my job, that is. It’s important.