Our (Mostly) Great Time Experiencing Real-Life Minecraft
While in London, our family swung by Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue, which tries to merge a lil' game with a lil' reality.
In the midst of our European trip, we found ourselves in a London mall. It was not a tourist attraction. It was in the middle of nowhere. Many shops were shuttered. Nearby, a video game shop called Game UK was having a fire sale, because it, too, was going out of business. The best food we could find for the kids was a Burger King.
With only a few days in London, why spend time in a place that looks like Indiana?
To attend the Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue, of course!
If my kids are not playing Roblox, they are playing Minecraft. Minecraft has less of a grip on them these days, but they got a huge kick out of the movie, and their response to Super Nintendo World was electric. Without knowing how well Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue captured the feeling of Minecraft IRL, I suspected they’d have a blast.
I first heard of the Minecraft Experience when it bubbled up through my TikTok feed.
Well, calling it my TikTok feed is probably generous, because I’m really not the one influencing what comes through that algorithm. My children do not have direct access to TikTok, but when we’re done reading during our nighttime routine, we’ll flip through a few videos. You will not be shocked to learn the vast majority of my TikTok algorithm, then, is kids doing goofy things and adults getting hurt. (The video they’re obsessed with right now is the “turkey slurpee” meme. Somehow I missed this one.)
My nine-year-old (eight at the time) pointed at the Minecraft Experience like this:
“We’re going to be in London!” she told me.
The problem was that the Minecraft Experience was due to end well before we’d actually be visiting London. What she didn’t know, however, was that right before we left for our trip, I looked up the Minecraft Experience and saw that it was still going.
(This is where I’d like to extend a thanks to the organizers for providing tickets.)
I like surprises and I like surprising my kids. I kept the Minecraft thing in my back pocket, in the event we decided to do something else and could avoid disappointment. But it also proved useful when both kids were obsessed with the Princess Diana Memorial Playground and only agreed to leave when I revealed our Minecraft plans.
The basic setup for the Minecraft Experience is that each person in each group is handed a glowing cube to use in a variety of ways, some more successful and interesting than others. What you can do ranges from changing the color of the cube to working together to craft objects. At its best, the Minecraft Experience decently channels the key joy of Minecraft: building and cooperation with others. At its worst, you’re left fighting a cube that doesn’t seem to respond in the way you’re expecting.
You’re ushered between several rooms, each with a goal. Many of them include wall-sized screens that you’re interacting with, alongside elaborate Minecraft statues. The sheer scale of it is often entertaining all its own, even if what you’re doing is mundane.
Far and away, our favorite game involved the one where the family had to work together, because it incorporated my children’s knowledge of Minecraft (more of that finger pointing meme) and cooperation. Each group is assigned a station that reacts to the glowing cube. You’re then assigned an object to build and what resources are needed to make it come together. Collecting those resources requires spriting around the room to different stations, waiting for your cube to glow, and sprinting back.
It was absolutely chaotic and nearly resulted in several full-on collisions, but the fun was infectious and everyone was laughing. There was a “winner” (we came in second), but they don’t linger on that point. We could have spent another 15 minutes in this area alone and been fine. It felt like we were just hitting our groove when it was over, prompting a smattering of upset “awws” from basically everyone who was in the room.
It ever captures that magic again, but my kids didn’t mind. They were enamored from start to finish, even when they were confused on what they were supposed to be doing. One section had the entire room scratching their heads, though by “entire room” I guess I mostly mean the adults, because the kids seemed to figure it out. Another segment had everyone tapping at screens the size of a table that often didn’t respond.
The Minecraft Experience reminded me of Nintendo’s own theme park, in which both recognize new generations are going to need a different approach when it comes to engaging them. So much of their lives are gamified in different ways, why wouldn’t they expect that level of interaction at a theme park, too? They want to be participants.
You cannot fail at the Minecraft Experience. Nintendo, however, does let kids fail
I wrote about the shocking number of tears when we visited it last year:
“Which brings us to the most important point: the kids can fail the games! This floored me. In fact, kids were regularly failing! Do you want to take a wild guess at what happens when a kid waits in a long line in the sun, only to publicly fail a game that’s gating access to another part of the park? They’re going to cry. A lot of them are going to cry. In the time I was watching one game, every third kid was ending up in tears!”
We’re going to see more of this in the future, I’m betting. Perhaps with fewer tears.
We had a good time overall. I’d recommend it if you have young kids. While it’s currently in London, the website says they’ll be coming to other cities down the line.
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
We’re contemplating a Disney World trip next year alongside a dip into Epic Universe, but given the state of politics (and Florida especially), we’ll have to see.
If that doesn’t work, we’ve tentatively marked Japan as our international hop in the future, given how well Europe went. We’d be able to swing by Disney there.
I’m glad Minecraft runs nicer on Switch 2. I can’t stand touch controls on the iPad, but it was always a pain to play it on my Switch and groan at the frame rate.
I haven’t been to a Disney park in the U.S. but I have gone a handful of times after moving to Tokyo, both with adults and now with a toddler. It’s great, there might be language barrier on a couple rides but even still it should be a blast. Just avoid the summer months.
Best part is there’s more than Disney in the general area. Mario is at USJ in Osaka, but there’s a bunch of kid-friendly stuff around greater Tokyo. And getting around in trains with walking kids is dead easy.