Can you imagine how amazing the Minecraft Movie could’ve been if they just leaned into the existential horror of existing in the Minecraft world for real?
There’s a book called The Island that is my go-to reference for how you do this right.
Just imagine you wake up in a world, not knowing who you are. You’re under water. Drowning. You swim to the surface and get your first breath of air. But being alone in the ocean isn’t the only thing confusing. The water is still and silent around you. Unnervingly so. There’s no ripples or splashes, it’s just… flat. The sun is a square. The clouds are square. Deep in the back of your mind you know that’s not how the sun and clouds should look yet you can’t grasp how you know that.
You swim towards shore. An island in the ocean. And finally you’re able to take a moment to think. And then the body horror hits you. You’re made of blocks too. You can feel your hand and fingers. They exist, but the universe won’t let you open your fist. Your arm is just a rectangle. Your clothes too… flat on your body. Like an unnatural skin made of cotton. Are you a man? A woman? You can’t tell, mirrors and reflections don’t exist here.
You hit the grass in frustration and it explodes to pixelated flat seeds. Before you can even process that, the seeds leap towards you and disappear into your body like a jump scare. The seeds are gone. Yet you know you didn’t eat them. Where are they? You close your eyes and suddenly you see them. In the darkness a grid appears and in one of the slots are the seeds. By concentrating hard the seeds disappear out of the grid and back into the real world in your blocky fist.
You’re hungry now. Can you eat the seeds? No you can’t. You physically cannot move your arm towards your face. An invisible force restrains your arm. You cannot even force your head to move towards the seeds. The universe won’t let you eat.
In frustration again you punch the ground hard. It forms cracks that appear then instantly heal and disappear. You try again. Then you keep punching the ground until POP. There’s now a square hole in the ground with a tiny brown block floating up and down inside. As you lean over the hole the block leaps up into your body just like the seeds. With effort you can concentrate and manifest the block of dirt in your hand.
But like the seed it just sits there. Glued to your fist. No amount of shaking can dislodge it from your cube hand. That’s when you realize you can’t lift your left arm at all. It’s permanently stuck to your side. You can feel it’s there, but no amount of straining your muscles will let your left arm raise up. In a panic you swing your right arm instead and boom… the dirt block is gone and now exists on the grass at its original full size.
You break the block, pick it up, and place it back. You break more blocks, you place those. You can shape the world! One block at a time!
You spend so long breaking and replacing dirt blocks that you fail to notice the sun getting low. While you’re playing with dirt, suddenly you hear a squelching sound behind you followed by a groan. You spin around and see a blocky green humanoid figure, arms outstretched, shambling towards you. In the shock of seeing another human figure you ignore the obvious and race towards them looking for comfort and support. But it smacks you hard across the face. You feel bones inside you break. You’re in pain, injured, reeling in fire that radiates from within. Another smack and you feel like someone broke your ribcage.
In terror you try to run. But this is a tiny island. There’s nowhere to go but into the ocean. You turn back and prepare to get hit again… but something new happens. The zombie blinks out of existence right before your eyes. Just instantly gone! Before you can process that, something else happens. A green fuzzy thing with a horrified expression pops into existence. It sees you and walks towards you silently. Not wanting to get punched again you try to scramble away but instead bump into a new zombie that popped into existence behind you. You get hit, you feel your leg bones shatter. And before you can even process the pain… sssssssssss… BOOM!
You’re flung across the tiny island, a large crater now where the creeper blew up. You’re in so much pain now. As zombies slowly walk towards you you do the only thing left you can think of… you punch the ground. 3 blocks deep you roll into the makeshift coffin and seal up the top. Alone, bruised, broken bones, in the dark and terrified… you break down crying. You don’t know where you are, how you got here, or what’s going on. The only thing on your mind now is the most basic instinct to humanity… you must SURVIVE.