Today’s game is Minecraft. “What is that monstrous monolith” you might be asking? Well. That’s my Childhood Minecraft world I built with my sister way way back on the earliest version of the Xbox 360 edition. I’ve been wanting to back this up for a while before that thing bit the dust. Let me tell you. It was a nightmare. I first, had to transfer it to my Xbox one. Thankfully I had already done that back in 2018. Then I had to transfer it to Bedrock edition. That butchered it a little. But that’s fine. It’s still mostly the same.
That’s where everything went to hell. My first idea was to simply just copy the save to a USB Drive, because surely that’s a feature Mojang has, right? Nope. Not at all. My next idea was to go back to Xbox One edition and see if I can back it up there. Also nope. I legit couldn’t figure out where it is in my library. I have a digital copy and from what I understand Microsoft didn’t yank it away. I have to assume I misremembered and i just had a physical copy.
So after all that I had to try some sketchy app called My Files Explorer. Thankfully it let me at the world files and back them up. Then I used something called Chunked to convert it to a 1.8.8 world. With that at least 2 of my childhood worlds were secured. Unfortunately the rest are all still stuck on the 360.
As for the world itself, it’s a lot less amazing and more so just sentimental. I have a cat pit I built to keep my pet cats. I know. I was far from a creative kid. On the plus side I gave them a TV so they wouldn’t get bored.
For the other world me and my sibling built a castle. A rather big one im proud of I might add. I remember this wall took nearly a week of building. I felt so damn proud when I finished it. Then I started building an outer tower I never finished.
There was a stable here with the first ever redstone contraption I built. It was a red stone gate on the stable. It’s sloppy. Messy. But I was damn proud of it when I first built it. It’s hard to believe this is where I got my start messing with things like that. Just an hour ago I was trying to wire up a Channel to my Jellyfin server to “recreate” a tv Channel for example.
It was weird visiting all this again. I was young when I started it. Now I’m more than old enough to have a kid of my own. It’s surreal to think about. Maybe if I ever have a child I’ll pass it down to them and see what they do with it. It’s a fun thought.
As i get older i get less creative. Id only drop the crafting table bed furnace off to mines until diamond. Then, nothing. Just no valuation in building shacks nobody ever really uses. Despite all updates MC feels empty.
Good on you guys saving your worlds, i only have sheer memories of the fun that was had.
It sucks getting older. As i was going through the world i was having a blast, but i also kept thinking to myself “Wow, i’m not sure i could do this now. I wonder where that went?”
Consider a quest-oriented modpack.
You should try Vintage Story! I find it much more like an adult oriented Minecraft with a lot more depth in terms of tools and processes. You end up with a really pretty base as you purpose-build things like a tannery, blacksmith, store-house, etc.
Don’t try to optimise your world as much as possible. That might be why Minecraft is just a two-week phase for many people. Building all the useful farms and then losing interest in playing. Just build something.
Or try Hytale for a fresh breeze
This is a really cool post. Reminds me of my old unimpressive and frankly ugly Minecraft builds. I was never an amazing builder, but I always felt pride towards what I built regardless of how it turned out. Maybe child me had a healthier mindset.
It also reminds me of my older brother’s builds, who understood the concept of block palettes in the worst way possible. Any time we built on a superflat creative world, he would always build his houses out of obsidian and replace the grass floor with diamond blocks and gold block roads in a massive square around his city. And because old minecraft worlds were pretty small, I could always see it from my cities… Thinking back, I’m 50/50 at this point on whether he actually liked how it looked or if he only did it because he knew it pissed me off lol.
I unfortunately always ended up restarting my worlds and could never stick with one for a long time (a habit I still have) so I wouldn’t be able to do this even if I still had an xbox.
I think the ugly builds in a way have come full circle to me because of nostalgia. I feel like now when i see a super massive build with like block pallets and stuff my reaction is just “oh, that’s cool”. Meanwhile with builds that are fugly, i get more of a reaction of “Now that looks like something someone had a blast building”. Bonus points if it was done co-op
I agree completely. Though its not just nostalgia, nowadays I tend to be so worried about making a decent house that I end up stressing over it and not enjoying it at all. Everything has to have a function, a proper block palette, the layout and terrain needs to look natural, etc. Waaay too much thought goes into what should have just been something simple like where to put my enchanting table and bookshelves.
So instead I’ve recently been challenging myself to build “ugly” things like nonsensical square houses and giant wool rainbows, and it’s surprisingly hard (and fun). I’m so used to building decent looking houses that I genuinely struggle to just build random crap now.
Best post ever! I have quite a few worlds from many years ago saved
