Minecraft and design

For those who have been living in a mine for the last year - Minecraft is a game where you build things out of blocks. Blocks and nothing else but blocks. There are different colours and materials but there are no complex shapes, just blocks. The game has no mandatory milestones or ending, just millions and millions of blocks. It's up to the player to choose what he wants to make out of them. Minecraft is essentially a big box of legos and that's the genious of it. You have a very restricted way to create things which leads to some mind-bending creations.

Same principle often applies to design as well. If you have a very restricted toolset, you often end up creating something far beyond the capacity of the given tools. Less becomes more.

Minecraft is also interesting because it always reveals something about the player. One player creates natural landscapes where others might build castles, underground halls, complex I/O systems, rollercoasters or replicas of New York. Some players finish one project before moving on to the next, others have dozens of unfinished constructs. One thing seems to be common to all players though. They're all hooked to their virtual box of legos.