Peter Molyneux’s been talking to Rolling Stone for their piece entitled The Wizard of Minecraft, full of fascinating answers to personal questions games journalists never thought to ask Notch. In it, he expounds on his love for the Mojang game which went some way to prompting his departure from Lionhead.
“There are game design rules that are carved in stone – about teaching people to play, having objectives, a character, an adversary,” explained Molyneux. “Minecraft threw all that away.”
Nobody tell Molyneux about the Ender Dragon – Minecraft’s rather redundant ultimate adversary.
The Godus creator went on to praise Minecraft’s simple aesthetic, which makes it modular to an almost infinite degree.
“Some people can’t see beyond the rather crude graphics,” he told the magazine. “But those are its strongest point. The fact that you quickly get the idea that you can put a block on top of another block means anybody can build anything.”
This isn’t the first time Molyneux has shouted his love for Minecraft from rooftops. In 2 Player Productions documentary The Story of Mojang, he called the game “social Lego”.
“Lego used to be a creative toy, which I don’t think it is so much any more, it’s much more prescriptive,” he said at the time. “Lego at the moment is like traditional games design: buy the box, open the box, turn to the instruction sheet, make the model, stick it on the shelf.
“That’s exactly like traditional game design: buy the game, go through the challenges. Lego used to be just a big box of bricks. You used to take the bricks, pour them on the carpet and then make stuff. That’s exactly what Minecraft is.”
Godus, too, broke traditional game design rules – but it doesn’t seem to have worked out so well for 22cans yet, does it? See our Tim’s Godus Early Access review for details.
Cheers, Gamespot.