When i was 13 or so I had just gotten my first tablet. Or rather it was a general use family tablet mostly used by my brother and I to download and play mobile games. The leap between pre-installed demos of Splitnter Cell and a knockoff Sims clone, to a seemingly infinite catalog of games you could pick and install to your machine was pretty insane for my child brain, and I downloaded Minecraft Pocket Edition Lite.

The Lite version of Minecraft PE is now discontinued. It wasn't much more than a demo really, offering something like 30 blocks total. I remember excitedly thinking that a zombie was a fellow player who somehow got into my world and then naturally dying to it. I remember building big purple and yellow wood blocks and breaking stone with my bare hands and doing general dumb child stuff.

The Winchester House was built in the years from 1886 to 1922 (that's nearly half a century there) by Sarah Winchester, widow of firearms Magnate William Winchester (if the Winchester Rifle reminds you of anything, it was marketed as "The Gun That Won the West"). The house, at its largest, had approximately 500 rooms - and the need for the 'at its largest' modifier is apparent in that, the house kept being remodeled and rebuilt over all those years, ending only with Sarah's death in 1922. It is widely called 'the mystery house' due to its abnormal and frankly nonsensical architecture, with staircases that lead up to the ceiling, doors that open to a drop from the second floor (no railings or any kind of protection) and a general layout that I am certain must confuse even the guides that probably work there.

I consider myself a relatively good Minecraft builder. Nowadays I can whip up quick medieval houses with arches and long pointy roofs and clocks on the wall and interesting uses of pumpkins or dried coral blocks for texturing (yes I am bragging, I am a Leo). But at 13, when the internet was a much smaller place and my brain was a much smaller brain, I played the game more intuitively. A house isn't a home until there's a crafting table next to a furnace. A 3x3 room made of dirt with a singular window would lead with a ladder down to the furnace and chest and single bed on the side room.

The comfort of the 'hole' base would later lead to constant expansions, usually as needed and without plans - most of the time I would use the tunnels I had already dug while strip mining as corridors to the next room that I would dig. First maybe a farm would be needed, with artificial lighting (torch spam on the wall, or for the real fancy ones glowstone or Jack O' Lanterns).

The base would undergo constant change and construction, eventually equipped with a chest room, a bedroom with a single bed and maybe even wool carpet, a room for your dog, random mining spots, another chest room that you built when you forgot about the first one's existence and other little fun things. I don't think I am speaking for myself only when I say that it felt like no one had any idea for how a house 'should' look like and the practicality of rooms and corridors. Building was more organic than anything changing according to what chore you felt like doing that day. The only person able to navigate your base was you (and maybe your sibling who had spent too many hours backseat gaming after their turn on the computer was done).

I want to mention a third house - our grandpa's house in my village. I believe he built a large part of it himself, and although I respect his hard work the layout itself makes no sense. The front door opens to a small room that looks straight into the bathroom, toilet smack dab in the center of the room on a lifted platform to assert dominance. In the kitchen / living room you can only view the TV from sideways since there wasn't the option to put the couch opposite, because that's where the stove is. There is a tiny room with nothing but a couch and a wardrobe behind it that leads to a smaller outside area between the walls. The only way you can access the second bedroom (the one I used to sleep in) is to go through the other bedroom (where my siblings used to be).