Archaeologist's Guide Diary

An Unexpected Circumstance (Archaeologist’s Guide to Minecraft Diary, Ep. 1)

Heather Christie

This is part of a solo journaling RPG exercise that takes my gameplay from my Archaeologist’s Guide to Minecraft series on YouTube and writes about the experience from the perspective of my character in the game. If you’d like to see the gameplay, too, check out the link to the episode at the end of the post!

Day 1

A brand new minecraft world! The player stands on the edge of a wide bend in a frozen river. Small hills of sand appear on the other side. Most of the areas to the left and right are covered with spruce trees, and there is snow everywhere. A large hill rises in the distance on the right side of the image.

I’m not sure what’s happened. Suddenly I’m on some sort of beach, with snow and trees everywhere… I don’t know where I am or how I got here, which isn’t good. I don’t know where I came from – also not good.

Maybe I came from somewhere along the river? And my boat… broke? But surely there’d be some sign of that – like debris or something washed up on shore.

Somehow I’m dressed for the weather, so that’s helpful. And I’m not soaked through… also helpful, but maybe that means I didn’t come from the river. But if I didn’t come from the river, how’d I get here?

Right, I need food, I need shelter, and I need some way of surviving. Maybe there’s a village nearby?

Let’s get some tools first. Could be something hostile between me at the nearest village, or there might not be a village nearby at all. Better safe than sorry.

I’m not a fan of wooden tools. I’ve used them a bit, but I always prefer at least stone. Iron’s much better. Some folk I’ve met in the past have used diamond, but diamond tools are a bit expensive… or were, at least. I suppose I have no idea how easy it is to get diamond tools here. But I don’t quite have access to stone yet, so a wooden axe and pickaxe it is.

In the middle of a snowy spruce biome, a minecraft player shows their crafting menu. There are three spruce logs in one corner of their inventory, a wooden axe in the first position on their hotbar, a wooden pickaxe in the second and a single spruce sapling in the fourth (the third slot is empty).

I managed to find a ravine, which is great for upgrading my tools, but I lost my footing and fell down into the thing – definitely not my finest moment! I did get enough stone for the tools and also a furnace, which is helpful (lots of stone in a ravine). Also made a shovel – I figured it’d help for getting out of this mess. I’m a bit injured, for anyone who’s wondering, but I think my pride is more hurt than my legs.

There’s also a lot of copper in this area, which is good to know. I’ve never known much use for copper myself outside things like spyglasses or lightning rods. Some folk like to melt it into blocks to build things out of, which I might try if I can survive long enough. But for now I’ve just gotten a few chunks of the raw stuff – if I want more, it seems like I can get it pretty easily here.

The minecraft player sits at the bottom of the ravine. Their inventory now shows a stone axe, a stone pickaxe, a stone shovel, a spruce sapling a crafting table and three raw copper. They are looking up at the top of the ravine and beginning to mine their way out.
Definitely annoyed at myself for this one…

There’s a wolf pack that roams the area – I’ve seen them wandering in an out of the trees. Good to know as a possible threat, but I’m wondering if I might also be able to tame a few. It’d be nice to have some company, and also some protection. I also found a patch of pumpkins and some brown mushrooms, so I took a couple to start my own garden (hopefully). I didn’t want to take the entire patch – I’m a big believer in only taking what you need and replanting what you can – but I have enough to start a garden myself.

I’ve been trying to find some higher ground to spot a town or a village or something nearby, but no luck. On the village, that is – I’ve definitely found higher ground. There were some cows around, but that was about it – couldn’t even find some sheep to make a bed.

The sun is setting.

Where I come from, at least, monsters come out at night. My town is pretty well-protected – we have a lot of light along the streets and outdoor spaces, and there are walls around with guards to keep the skeletons and zombies and such away. But outside those walls, out in the wilderness, it’s a different story. I don’t know if monsters also threaten these lands after sunset, but I’d rather not be somewhere vulnerable when I find out.

The Minecraft player (ArchaeoPlays) stands in a 2x3 hole surrounded by dirt. A single torch sits in the foreground over a furnace, and there is a crafting table next to it. The player is looking at the camera.
Not the finest shelter I’ve ever built, but it’ll do for now.

I’ve quickly dug a small hole into the nearby hill. I don’t have a bed, as I said, but hopefully I can wait out the night in relative safety here. It’d be nice to find a village tomorrow, or at least some sheep. But if not, I might just need to find a spot to call my own and try my best to survive.

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Published by Heather Christie

ArchaeoPlays is an archaeologist, gamer and YouTuber. Across their 20 years as a museum educator, they became keenly aware of the difficulties the field can have when talking to the public about what’s been found. That led them to combine their gaming hobby with archaeology as a less-traditional medium for archaeological education, one that brings in new audiences and especially those who are unable to access the information otherwise. Archaeo publishes videos on YouTube that teach archaeology through Minecraft. They are also the Lead Researcher for Carved in Stone: A Storyteller's Guide to the Picts, which is an illustrated guide to the world of the Picts, an early medieval Scottish society, in the late 7th century CE.

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