The Last Beta Player: a Minecraft movie

This is the story of the last person to ever play Beta.

I wanted to release this on Halloween, but due to a variety of setbacks, oversights, and file corruptions, it's coming ten days late. Let me know what you all think in the comments below.

Songs are "Excuse" and "Thirteen" by C418

Thanks to @D0cSpot for helping me with this video.

#minecraft #beta #spooky #scaryminecraft #minecraftbeta #goldenage #swag #epicswag

[solstialis]

This is really good, don't want to spoil the ending in case anyone is reading the comments before they watch, but I loved it. You captured olden Minecraft horror perfectly, it was never in your face and just extremely unnerving. As someone who LOVES horror and old Minecraft, this is probably the best done I've ever seen it

[HDESROSE]

my favourite character consistent throughout the entire series of events: Permanently Low Durability Diamond Axe.

[knatkniht]

* Hears footsteps outside house *

*Immediately barrels into the horrible fucking woods in the middle of the night*

[effeilensucre]

* Is stalked by an otherwordly entity *

"Better explore the caverns of doom at night without torches !"

[The_g]

You can tell he’s used to playing modern Minecraft by the way he tries to equip an iron chestplate by holding it out and right clicking

[ethymith]

My favorite part of Beta has to be the fog. It makes builds seem so big and the world so small. Like you are actually affecting the world. In present Minecraft, you're presented a massive world with the impossible task of filling it up with your impressions (builds, creeper holes, beacons, markers etc.) on the landscape.

[thRegen]

immaculately nailed the way people built in beta, i could've sworn i saw some of those buildings on SMP servers in 2011. luv me cobble, luv me castles, luv me lack of 3d texturing. simple as.

[bumblegoot]

Something to note is that almost all of the bizarre “spooky things” that happen to the protagonist have one thing in common; they are scrapped features from the game.

The initial music as the camera pans is an actual unused Minecraft track.

The opening Reddit post is the Beta Player inquiring about a broken fog slider that isn’t working anymore. In the original versions of the game, there was obviously very little graphic settings, and I believe there was a time when fog settings were inaccessible.

The footsteps around the player’s house invoke the weird “player” or “Steve” mob that theoretically would have had more power to break blocks and interact in the world before it was scrapped.

Part of the reason mobs spawn en-masse in Beta Player’s village when they return from building seems to be that many of the torches have been removed by an unknown force. This further implies the idea of the scrapped players, but also might be a nod to the fact that torches were originally supposed to burn out after some time.

The strange village the Beta Player stumbles upon is identical to the original abandoned villages that were never officially added. The Reddit posters elaborate on this detail.

The sign being replaced continues to bring the scrapped Steve mob to mind, although at this point it’s clearly some sort of Herobrine-inspired figure as it’s starting to blatantly fuck with Beta Player, psychologically toying with them.

The weird tunnel seems like it could have theoretically been something that would be scrapped. Perhaps an older form of cave generation?

The music playing in the cave is a double reference. The track itself is another actual scrapped song, Calm 4. The event, on the other hand, seems to be a reference to an early idea from Notch about making a jukebox that randomly spawns underground, playing a music track to freak the player out. Seems like his concept works well, as the event is extremely harrowing.

Around the point the Beta Player reaches the ice lake, mobs start appearing less and less, and fishing yields no fish at all. This is the first explicit sign of actual decay that isn’t related to cut content.

And of course; finally, the climax; many seeming “other players” attempting to break into Beta Player’s home, as the jukebox plays Calm 4 again. The player panics and deletes the world, which is probably for the best.

Our final shots show no mobs. 13 plays, an empty, abandoned village, and the Beta Player’s dog has vanished.

Because of all this, I would suggest that this film is about moving on from what has been left behind. The player has been playing beta for so long that he’s created an incredible little world, but there’s no one to share it with him. The title implies he’s the last “true” beta player, and if that’s the case, then perhaps the game itself is alive, and it’s haunting is a way of forcing the Beta Player to move on from the past. The “scrapped” mechanics are the game’s way of saying “you’ve been here too long”. The unused content and development ideas of the game come to life as a metaphor for the need for the player to let go of his attachment to the beta, and eventually, he relinquishes, deleting his world, leaving it empty, for time to finally consume.

This film certainly invokes the idea of how Minecraft offers a subversion to reality in the form of a practically infinite world with a practically infinite amount of time to shape it however you want. The film is here to remind us that, no matter how much we try to escape to the past, real life has a timer, and for now, we’ve reached our limits on exploration in the universe.

This is a story about a game that realizes it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism, using it’s own unused content to scare away the last player who clings to it so that it can finally be consumed by time, freed from the stasis of one person’s imagination and at liberty to decay into nothingness, uninhabited.

At least, that’s my interpretation. Thanks for making this!

[Mage_Chartreux]

The most horrific moment was 8:38, when the player decided to use their sword to pick up the crafting bench.

[usmle]

you'd think that this would make you scared, unnerving by the quiet audio with occasional minecraft music playing. no one alive but an uncommon pig from time to time, and you, the player.
but damn this gives me so much comfort. reminiscing of the good old days when things were simple.

[YourPalKindred]

I relate so much to the feeling of isolation the older versions have. Especially building an entire village, with yourself being the sole inhabitant. It's an almost apocalyptic feeling.

[straight-up]

I don’t see this mentioned in the comments, but the little detail of the post about Calm 4 playing in beta being removed from the subreddit because it “could easily be answered by the wiki” just added to that sense of solitude felt by the person, not just the player, which I loved. Whether or not that was intentional, catching that detail added a LOT to the experience of the latter half of the vide

[Name_Pendingg]

i adore that the castle says "goodbye" in the end roll instead of "hello?"

[animeking]

I went into this video thinking it was gonna be an essay talking about how good Beta 1.7.3 is and how more people need to try it and instead I got spooked. You captured the feeling of old Minecraft horror perfectly.

[nodie]

The fact that the shots at the start have mobs moving around, but at the end we only get static and empty screenshots... damn.
Also, the first shot was filled with those mysterious buildings and the sign that had written "hello?" now saying "goodbye". Amazing details!

[CongaYT]

I'm going to try avoid spoilers writing this, but this captured the feeling perfectly.

Sometimes the horror of having someone with you is worse than the horror of being alone

[frome]

Storytelling through gameplay with a “streamer cam” but no commentary is a very interesting medium. As others have said you brought a fresh take to the Minecraft horror genre by staying true to its thematic roots. Makes me want to make something like this!

[birdmafia]

I was GLUED to the screen, bro.
Nothing has quite made me feel so uncomfortable like those last lingering shots of the world. It genuinely felt like i was seeing something I was NOT supposed to be seeing, nor was I welcome to be seeing.
Bravo, Mongster. This was an Absolutely excellent video.

[skittel]

i feel kinda bad for the guy cause he's just getting clowned and stuff on reddit because he still plays beta 1.7.3, and it's kinda true cause at some point your favorite version that you played on as a child and grew up with even if it's something underrated like releases (not betas) 1.2.5 or 1.5.2 or 1.6.2 it would get old at some point and people would care less and just laugh at you for playing such an old version even though for you it's special because you loved it so much and grew up with it

[rRadixerus]

I like that in the reddit post at the start, David asks "Could it be something to do with the memory i'm allowing the game?" which is the source of ninety percent of modded minecraft issues
Also.... laughed out loud at 6:28 after it takes about 7 seconds to find the item because the chest is so poorly organized