One game to rule them all

Although there are many games our family has played together over the last year, there's one game that, once we started it early spring 2011, we've never left.. Minecraft.  It's not so much a game as an open sandbox to explore, harvest resources, and build stuff.  We aren't the only ones who love it. The game started official beta at the beginning of the year (oh yeah, it's STILL in beta), and by January 11, 2011, it had already sold more than a million units.  Not bad for a little independent developer!

What led us to this game was not the number of users or popularity, at least not directly.  Early last year I bought a 4-pack of a game called Terraria. We played the heck out of this game. My son found a wiki on it, and became an expert in the game. We kept reading here and there that it was a spiritual successor to another game called Minecraft. We'd often heard it called "a 2D version of Minecraft", or "a sidescroller/platformer version", etc.  Once we'd all maxed out our equipment, killed the toughest monsters in Terraria, we moved on and the rest is history.

I find Terraria a little easier for the younger player, at least initially. It was a perfect progression for my daughter Mary. I think had she started Minecraft first, she might've been overwhelmed.  Having mastered Terraria first though, it was an easy switch.

So check them out. Try both, they're two of our families favorite pc games this year.