Picture Of A Game Setting You Wish You Lived In

When it comes to escapism there's one game more than any other that epitomises time spent in a virtual world and that is Minecraft. I can't remember when I first bought the game or how long I have spent playing the game, but I do know from my main save file I have spent 42 real world days playing which is about 5 months if you play every day for about 7 or 8 hours a day.

I've gone through many save files over the years on Minecraft starting over. This one in particular managed to survive my frequent purges because it was started in 2017 when my symptoms of Sarcoidosis first set in. I reach a point where walking up a flight of stairs was exhausting, I would have to stop half way and rest. My range of physical activity diminished due to breathing difficulty and chronic pain. I ended up spending most of my time sat at my computer, even then I would take episodes of breathlessness.

Minecraft was the one thing that kept me sane during that time because it was one of the few things I could do without much physical effort. When I started corticosteroid treatment I spent the most time in the game, I would set an audio book up to play and just start building.

The screenshot above is taken from an area of that save file that is a relatively new addition; a few years after my Sarcoidosis diagnosis and treatment, when the pandemic hit I found myself once again in need of escape so I started building again, repetition is a feature in a lot of my builds mainly because it's somewhat therapeutic and because it requires the least amount of thought, you just have to build one module and then do it over and over again. I still find myself dipping into this world from time to time, mostly for nostalgia, although it wasn't built during a happy period of my life, it did provide an escape and that in turn still provides a modicum of comfort to me. If I had to choose any game world to live in, it would be this one.