While I've been playing BTW actively this month, I only just today had reason to experience the early-game again for the first time since Hardcore Of Darkness was added. I started in a jungle, went through an incredibly successful first day without losing a shank of hunger, and found an excellently defensible position on a mountain side. I spent half the night productively, and was about to construct my 4th stone pickaxe, when I figured I should block the entrance, a 2x1 hole where a door might later be.
[spoiler in case someone still wants to experience the Dark themselves...]
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Scanning my inventory, I placed down a dirt slab on the bottom, leaving the hole 1.5 high... but, trying to think carefully, I noted that very lucky skeletons or spider could still fire on me. So I made my mistake: I stopped thinking about the metabehavior of minecraft, and placed a dirt slab on the top part of the hole as well, leaving a 1x1 shaft of air in the center.
And then the lights went out. The gloom descended immediately. While I could see the terrain through the hole made by the slabs, they let in no light whatsoever. The sounds began to circle around me... I tried to hold my cool. Kneeling at my Japanese table in broad daylight IRL, I thought cockily, "Oh, I've read about this. It's just a status effect or something." I knew I just had to dig up one of those dirt slabs, so I started clicking in the presumed area. But it DIDNT WORK. What did I really know about Steve's nyctophobia? Oh gods, is it lowering my mining speed? Why won't these slabs break! Am I even touching dirt!? I frantically tried to locate my crafting table by luck, but couldn't reach it. The sounds kept increasing in intensity... what is in here with me? Charlie, is that you!? Throwing resources to the wind, I opened up my inventory in the pitch black, threw together another crafting table, and created a shovel just as my gloom became dread. SOMETHING IS IN HERE. I tried to dig up the slabs with the shovel but still couldn't seem to hit them. In utter terror I decided to plow through about 7 random dirt blocks before finally, finally seeing the precious light.
And then the lights went out. The gloom descended immediately. While I could see the terrain through the hole made by the slabs, they let in no light whatsoever. The sounds began to circle around me... I tried to hold my cool. Kneeling at my Japanese table in broad daylight IRL, I thought cockily, "Oh, I've read about this. It's just a status effect or something." I knew I just had to dig up one of those dirt slabs, so I started clicking in the presumed area. But it DIDNT WORK. What did I really know about Steve's nyctophobia? Oh gods, is it lowering my mining speed? Why won't these slabs break! Am I even touching dirt!? I frantically tried to locate my crafting table by luck, but couldn't reach it. The sounds kept increasing in intensity... what is in here with me? Charlie, is that you!? Throwing resources to the wind, I opened up my inventory in the pitch black, threw together another crafting table, and created a shovel just as my gloom became dread. SOMETHING IS IN HERE. I tried to dig up the slabs with the shovel but still couldn't seem to hit them. In utter terror I decided to plow through about 7 random dirt blocks before finally, finally seeing the precious light.
