A creator surprised the gaming world by playing Minecraft on a completely unfamiliar screen that is actually only intended for receipts.
YouTuber Smill played Minecraft in a way that hardly anyone would have thought was possible. Instead of a classic monitor, he used a simple cash register printer as his screen. The game ran normally on the PC, but every second a screenshot was taken, converted to black and white and immediately printed on paper. This created a kind of “flipbook” of the Minecraft world, with extremely reduced graphics and a frame rate of only about 0.5 frames per second. Despite this handicap, the experiment ran to the end. Smill fought his way to the Ender Dragon and defeated Minecraft with his printer monitor.
The Technology Behind The Crazy Setup
However, the project was a major technical challenge: monochrome, tiny resolution, barely recognizable details. The inventory was often just a black spot, and dark caves were a visual guessing game. Colors and resolution had completely disappeared. Even navigating the game became a test of patience. Added to this was the enormous consumption of paper: every move in the game generated a new sheet. An atypical but creative challenge with a lot of material and a good dose of madness.
Creativity Knows No Bounds
In a world where graphics have to be ever sharper and more spectacular, monitors bigger and frame rates higher than ever, this printer challenge proves something else: creativity knows no bounds. Minecraft perfectly reflects this setup. It strips the game of everything that modern gaming is all about and reduces it to its essence: blocks, creativity, and a dash of challenge. Who would have thought that Minecraft would also work well on a simple thermal printer, or at least half as well? The appeal doesn't lie in perfection, but in absurdity, and Smill sums this up perfectly with this challenge.
Would you try an experiment like this yourself, or have you seen similar crazy projects? Write your opinion in the comments.