I often like to watch Minecraft YouTubers. They often inspire me to play and build new things in my forever world. My building style has evolved based on different YouTubers, including Grian and Fwhip. But lately I’ve been watching someone who atually influences my play-style.
Ethos is an old-school technical player. Mumbo Jumbo likes to play around with redstone. Fwhip likes to try and build whole fantasy worlds that look beautiful. Grian likes to screw around and prank his friends. Then there’s ItsMarloe. Somehow, this YouTuber is different.
ItsMarloe plays slow and steady. His videos are peaceful, and chilled out. He talks in a calm voice as he goes through his plans to expand his world. And when things go wrong he’s very relaxed about it. They feel like happy accidents rather than mistakes.
In other words, he’s the Bob Ross of Minecraft.
I wrote last week about how I used his mod list to start a new world with Bok’s Banging Butterflies. The mod list he uses adds to the ambience, making it so that being in your Minecraft world feels relaxing. He plays slow and steady, often making several trips back to his main base in order to obtain resources he forget. He never runs, only walks, using the time to take in the world around him.
This has led to less stress in my own playthrough of the game. I’m the kind of gamer who can get frustrated, and it sometimes leads to me ragequitting. Now I just take all these happy accidents on the chin. They’re a learning experience, a new influence on my world, and one I can actually get creative about.
Now I don’t get annoyed when a creeper kills me. Instead, I turn that new creeper hole into a small pond, a reminder of a significant event, and a new story element added to the world. The Bob Ross of Minecraft has turned me into a calm gamer, and I’m all the happier for it.
