Minecraft as a Model for Emotional Awareness

A more apt representation and simulation of how to map out the social and cultural terrain using affect theory might be from “Minecraft.” “Minecraft” is a more open-world experience than “Breath of the Wild’ as the player is responsible for maintaining and creating most of the elements that appear within the world of “Minecraft.” Unlike ‘Breath of the Wild,” the “Minecraft” terrain, and therefore the map, can be changed at a moment’s notice based on the destructive or creative nature of the person playing the game. Another fundamental difference between the two games is the map must be created in “Minecraft” (like many of the other items in the game) where the beginning of the map is earned the moment Link activates the Slate. These last two points speak to the level of agency a person has in the two games (Frasca, 2010). Players are given a quasi-open world with a finite number of quests and actions they can take to complete the final goal designed by the creators of “Breath of the Wild” to beat Calamity Ganon/Dark Beast Ganon and save Hyrule. The players of “Minecraft” are not limited by any narrative structure created by the game designers as it seems there’s not an overarching plot or narrative flow, but rather shared social experience that occurs among those that play “Minecraft” (Schifter & Cipollone, 2013). It is this distinction that can help a person create an emotion-based mental map of their world.

The first step needed for development of these type of maps is understanding the tools needed to create the map. In “Minecraft,” a player needs the right crafting recipe to produce a map, which is eight papers and one compass placed on the crafting table. In the real world, it can be talking to professionals, reading academic work, or building a support group of people that are going through similar experiences. The second step is exploring the terrain to filling in the blanks of the terrain. A player uses the game control to fill in the blanks on the map in “Minecraft” to see all of the geographical components of the terrain. A person in the real world can use journaling or use other documenting tools to see how their emotions change based on stimuli experience by the person every day. The last step in this process is to analyze the terrain. Creating a map room can provide this perceptive in the game. Talking to a professional about the experiences from the journal can help in the real world. Both maps are colored by the landscape and the person’s interpretation of what the landscape means (e.g., “will I be attacked by Creepers if I go to those blocks in the middle of the map?” or “will seeing this person make me feel too anxious or scared?”). Both maps require a keen level of insight to understand how to navigate with the least amount of harm and possibly the most sense of fulfillment possible given the nature of the terrain.