Ruins of the Mindcrackers is a minecraft CTM map download based on the Mindcrackers SMP server. It contains plenty of inside jokes for people who like to have ‘friends’ and ‘play with others’, but it also contains plenty of wonderful builds to explore for people who prefer to be ‘alone’ and ‘play solo’. In many respects, this is a minecraft server map for people who don’t like minecraft multiplayer, because having to deal with other people sort of ruins their day.
The map does include a monument to be completed, though the creator has gone out of their way to eliminate as much of the grind as possible, which I appreciate because I’m lazy even when I’m playing pretend. Who wants to work for achievements when you can just wander up to a chest, kick it open and claim your precious cube of wool?
That’s not to say that there aren’t difficulties involved in completing this CTM map. For instance, there are mobs. Mobs that spawn for one reason, and one reason only – to destroy you. There’s also the design of the map, which does not always work in your favor. Is it a trap? Probably. As a rule of thumb, assume that everything is a trap, and spend your life crouch crawling along the edges of ledges for fear of being caught.
Ruins of the Mindcrackers is a linear branching CTM map, which means that it pushes you in a single direction, then shoves you down several paths, providing the illusion of choice whilst in fact making you behave more predictably than the average lab rat enduring small electric shocks for a piece of cheese – because, in this case, the lab rat has hopped willingly into the electro-maze with the full knowledge that the cheese is imaginary. I’m not saying animals are smarter than humans, I’m just asking you when you last saw a cat spend twelve hours pretending to build a house.