Escaping the pandemic with Minecraft

Recently I finished broken sword, which is one of my girlfriend's favourite games of all time and although it's not my usual sort of game, I really enjoyed it.

It was nice playing something with a little slower pace. You know, this game was created in the 90s. It was back before we had the same fast paced and often mentally taxing mechanics that we're used to now as well as quality of life.

But yeah, it was a really nice, fun game for me- especially at the moment whilst I find myself not getting much sleep.

I'm tired from my job and you know, looking after the kiddos. It's nice to have something I can enjoy in the evening that's low-key and just, yeah. Really enjoyable.

So in realisation of this, I found myself wondering what should i play next?

Instead of what I used to do, which is looking through my backlog for a recent, newish game I'm excited about, I find myself trying to dig out games that I have the mental capacity and energy for at this moment in time.

And so here I am in the year of our lord 2026 returning to Minecraft.

I've dipped into it here and there over the years and I always enjoy it. I love hearing peoples stories about their experience with Minecraft, which has so much exciting potential for new things to happen each session.

But the strongest memory for me through Minecraft is back in the pandemic. One of my kids was in nursery and one of them in primary school at the time.

Getting plunged into lockdown was strange and chaotic. A lot of parents found themselves suddenly having to become home tutors, which not everyone is built for. It was a struggle.

Watching your kid go from spending their days with their friends and teachers in the classroom to fighting to get their voice heard in a zoom call is a bit heartbreaking.

Have you ever seen a zoom call with one adult trying to talk amongst 20 young children? Nightmare.

My son was not the biggest fan of that environment, understandably. But like the rest of his class, he was expected to still learn during a pandemic and getting him to do the work was like blood from a stone- and I don't blame him.

I found one thing that could get him actually motivated enough to finish his work.I told him if he got it all done then me and him would have time to play Minecraft together. This actually became a lovely routine with my son where we got to work on our Minecraft worlds together in the afternoon. It was a well needed form of escapeism whilst enduring a very crazy and scary time.

Not too many photos left from 2020, but I managed to dig these out. Simple stuff, yet so many great memories.

And you know, he was young then. Yeah, yeah; he's now 13 and arguably considers himself too old for Minecraft. Which I kinda get for that age. We play other games together now which is great, but I’ve started playing Minecraft again now- that I do for myself. But sometimes I find myself missing those more innocent times- not the pandemic, but the age of my kids where they weren’t so self-aware of what was seen as “cool” to play for their age group.

Going from a simple game like Bedrock Minecraft on Switch to to what I have now on my gaming PC… it’s nuts.The mods and shaders on the Java version are insane. I’m often just there stood staring in awe.

Jons house :)

Seriously, who knew rain would look so good in Minecraft?!

Interestingly, as my eldest got ready to leave for school, he passed me this morning as I was playing. He double-took a look and started asking questions about how it looks so good compared to what he remembered. Then we talked and reminisced over those times during the pandemic. The things we discovered, the stories we created. How he felt when he found out Herobrine wasn’t real (It was like Santa all over again!).

It was real nice. He’s been working on his birthday list as it’s coming up in a couple of weeks. Just before he left this morning, he ran back in and scribbled something on his list, then left for school.

A new line has been added “Minecraft - either Xbox One or Ps4. I don’t mind”.