Emma's Adventures: I became a medieval poet on a fantasy Minecraft server

Emma's Adventures is a monthly column exclusively for Eurogamer supporters, written by Emma Kent, who has an uncanny knack for finding strange adventures in games. You can support Eurogamer for £3/€3/$3 a month to gain access to this plus a whole variety of things.

I'm ready to admit that Baldur's Gate 3 has given me complete and total brain worms, in many senses of the term, over the past few weeks. When I'm not playing it, I've been thinking about it. My poor family has been subjected to extensive descriptions of my cat-throwing antics and strange habit of putting bodies in my pocket to resurrect at a later point. (I ignored the expressions of mild concern on their faces.) Such has my obsession spiralled that I've been seeking out this fantasy role-playing experience in other games, where I can similarly shape my character's arc and set out on new adventures across dangerous fantasy realms.

Which brought me, somewhat unexpectedly, to Minecraft. With blocky heads and limited animations, it may seem a far cry from the meticulously mo-capped expressions and models of Baldur's Gate 3. Yet Minecraft provides an incredibly versatile platform for users to build their own world-sized stages, with players able to act out character plotlines over the course of years. One of these role-playing servers, Lord of the Craft, has been running for over 12 years - and even has its own wiki to explain its dense lore, history and family trees. And as I would discover, it is still astonishingly active: I would consistently log in to find over 160 people playing at any one time.