A journey without a particular destination can be the most fun of all, and this is how Malua Bay’s Jacob Zimmermann sees his favourite hobby, block-building video game Minecraft.
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“Minecraft doesn’t really have an objective, you are free to wander and with your imagination you can create anything you want; there is no limit,” Jacob said.
Eleven-year-old Jacob, who is in year six at Sunshine Bay Public School, was shown the game by a friend about two years ago.
This led to his keenness for Minecraft, which could be loosely defined as an electronic version of Lego.
It has two modes, as Jacob explains.
“There is creative, where you have unlimited resources,” he said.
“You make up whatever you want and you can fly, and there is survival, where you have to gather your resources and fight monsters, like zombies, creepers which explode when you’re not watching, spiders, squid and skeletons with bows and arrows.”
Not surprisingly, he prefers creative.
“I like to make worlds,” he said.
Jacob plays Minecraft on either an iPhone or the Playstation on the family’s big-screen television.
With three siblings, Jacob doesn’t have to play alone, and can split the screen into quarters so Bethany, 13, Jessie, eight, and Timothy, five, can join in.
Jacob spends as much time watching Minecraft videos on YouTube as playing the game itself.
“It is inspirational to see what is possible to build,” he said.
He’s built a castle, a dam, a doughnut shop, a roller-coaster, “lots and lots of houses”, and a park.
The game may be fairly new (it was first released in 2009) but some of the building materials Jacob uses are pretty old-school.
“You can use wood, stone, clay, wool, bricks, dirt, iron blocks, diamonds and obsidian (among others),” he said.
While he’s a Minecraft devotee, his enthusiasm for it does have its limits.
“I don’t play it every day, but I would if I had the choice,” he said.
“I sort of get sick of it after a long time playing it.”
Will it inspire him to become a builder?
“A construction designer, maybe, but not a builder,” he said.
The Bay Post/Moruya Examiner profiles the hobbies of people in our community every week in the feature “Get on your hobbyhorse”. Do you have an interesting hobby? Contact journalist Josh Gidney at josh.gidney@fairfaxmedia.com.au or on 4472 6577.
