Day one of the Lacto Ovo Pacifist Challenge, Michael Deering's June 2015 Minecraft Hardcore Challenge. The food rules are strict this month: no meat, no fish, no mushrooms and no rotten flesh. Nobody may harm a mob, passive or hostile, directly or indirectly, and nothing comes out of a village, dungeon or temple except one trade for one gold ingot. The end goal is a pretty house on the plains. Basket plays in a team of four with Scoti_Garbidis, pikerize and pulse2010, in hardcore on Minecraft 1.8.6.
Four holes in the plains
The team spawns together on open grassland, and there are houses close by. "Right over there is the village, and we're gonna get a little farther away from it before we dig in." Everyone digs a hole straight down and the holes get joined up underground. Then they wait. "We gotta wait till it says day one." The main worry in the dark is friendly fire. "Don't anybody hit each other."
Wood, apples and saplings
When they break out, the plains run straight into steep, rocky hills. The rules start shaping every choice right away. Eggs are allowed, so cake is back on the menu: "We can use the eggs to make the cake, right?" "Yeah, we're ovo lacto." Someone isn't sure about tools at all. "I don't even think I should make an axe. Just the thought of using it to attack something may overcome me."
The chat fills with Getting Wood lines for all four players. Basket chops oak, sets down a crafting table and makes wooden tools, then punches through leaves for apples and plants oak saplings for a tree farm. The house is already on someone's mind: "We might use it for decorating our little house on the prairie."
A cave above the village
From the top of the hill, the village sits out on the plains below a waterfall. The plan is to keep the digging well away from it. "When we dig in, we should dig away from the town." The team heads into a cave in the hillside, and Basket mines coal and cobblestone and trades the wooden pickaxe for a stone one.
Pacifists after dark
Then a shout on the call: "Oh, creeper!" The rules get spelled out fast. "We can't directly or indirectly harm stuff." Another voice calms things down: "Settle down guys. We're pacifists. We know how this works." The sky turns red, and the four of them meet in a torch-lit stone room with a crafting table. Another question comes up: "We can't kill the skeleton, right?" The answer is to dig straight down with ladders.
Seeds and a ladder shaft
Food is the hard part this month, so farming starts early. The chat shows Scoti_Garbidis earning Time to Farm, the achievement for making a hoe. A try with bone meal doesn't do much. "We only got two pieces of wheat." Basket keeps digging down beside the ladder shaft, picking up coal and iron ore on the way. "As long as you're still doing the side by side next to me, Basket, we should be alright."
Iron by morning
At a furnace under the crafting table, Basket smelts the iron and crafts an iron pickaxe. Word comes down the call: "It's day." The last shot is a teammate standing in the torch-lit tunnel. No death lines show up in chat, and Basket is still alive. The house on the plains hasn't been started. The credits follow, with no gameplay after them.
