The Top 10 Most Challenging Achievements: Xbox 360

03. Minecraft: When Pigs Fly (40G) Use a saddle to ride a pig, then have the pig get hurt from fall damage while riding it.

The phenomenon that is Minecraft is the sort of Cinderella story that only comes around once in a generation. It's story is pretty well-known but, if you don't know, we are happy to share with you that amazing story!

The game was originally created by Swedish game developer and unlikely geek hero Markus Persson as the result of an idea that popped into his head about how even the most simple approach to game creation - with the right mechanics - could offer the player the combined pleasures of being a player while at the same time being a creator.

That was the basis for the retro spark that set into motion a coding project that eventually resulted in the creation of what is arguably the most popular game in the new century so far.

But there is a bit more to that story - for instance the creator - Markus “Notch” Persson happens to believe that 8-but game worlds can be beautiful...

If there is a secret to the success of Minecraft that secret would have to include the notion that being a creator is just as important as being a player - no perhaps it is more important. And following that logic, creating a game world in which the player is empowered AS a creator? Well, that goes without saying!

Minecraft spread like a virus, infecting platform after platform, expanding to include new characters, new mobs, new types of adventures and, eventually, came to embrace the ability to tell stories as well as provide the sort of game play mechanics that can only be described as the comfort food of video games.

When Pigs Fly?

With those concepts in mind then, consider the Achievement called When Pigs Fly - which is NOT an Achievement that was simply added to the games when the Xbox 360 project was brought out of Beta and into the mainstream gamer consciousness. Though that easily might have been the case, it wasn't.

You see Minecraft had Achievements built into it way before creating a port for Microsoft's Xbox game console was even an inkling of a whisper of an idea of maybe it would work there...

'I like achievements,” Persson exclaimed in a general media interview given when Minecraft made the leap from its traditional PC home to games console platforms.

'I've had the idea to make achievements kind of like the in-game questing,' he explains. 'So you'd be able to see the first achievement in a tree of achievements, and you unlock the top ones first before you can unlock the ones further down.

'So the first one might be to chop down a tree, or kill a chicken, and then these branch into more things you can do.

'Hopefully it would encourage people to try new areas. It could converge into a big task, like kill a dragon or something -- which would put a kind of narrative into the achievement tree.'

Was it really that simple an approach? That honest? Is Markus really saying that the point to the Achievements scheme in Minecraft is intended to help drive the intentionally limited official story model for the game? Yes, yes, and YES! Which brings us to When Pigs Fly...

It was a traditional and well-established Achievement in the Minecraft series even before the game arrived on Xbox 360, and it was one of the Achievements that struck a chord with gamers as being among the most memorable - and desired - of them all.

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg is both another Swedish gamer, and a pretty famous and entertaining social commentator on the global YouTube platform.

When Pigs Fly captured his imagination to the extent that he considered it an Achievement worthy of the sort of effort and importance that many people apply to life-changing events like religious pilgrimages!

You probably know Kjellberg better under his Pseudonym slash Nom de Haha Pewdiepie...

Under that 'nym Kjellberg has created a massive library of social commentary, Let's Plays, and feature commentary that includes a rather extensive history of Minecraft game play.

It may seem odd, but Prediepie's fixation with and fascination for both the game and the When Pigs Fly Achievement are feelings that a significant percentage of the world gamer community totally grok.

When it became Xbox LIVE Achievement WPF entered a new stage in its legendary life, which for a lot of gamers translated to raising WPF to an entirely new level!

Why does it Count?

Considering the unlikely possibilities of encountering the necessary conditions under which this one can be unlocked, in the wild, without machination of any type, you might be tempted to slot WPF under the heading of Most Frustrating Achievement - but that would be both unfair and totally not accurate!

Sure, the odds are massively against this being available in your game. We totally admit that for 99.9% of the gamers who have unlocked this one, they managed it either with the assistance of a boosting partner who has a WPF Seed available as part of their OMP maps.

We will even go so far as to admit that we suspect that the vast majority of gamers who have this one unlocked got it unlocked by outright cheating and loading one of the WPF-designed Seeds! NONE of that really matters because even if it happens to be the most boosted Achievements in the game -- if not THE most boosted Achievement -- in the end the important point is that it also happens to be one of the most entertaining and challenging Achievement too.

So how do most players get this unlocked? The most common means for unlocking this Achievement is to boost it by visiting a game world that belongs to one of your mates who HAS the saddle available in their world - along with some pigs - so that you can visit for the express purpose of unlocking this.

Here is the thing - those circumstances in no way detract from its entertainment value and in no way disqualifies the Achievement for its earned slot in this article!

The reason for that is simple really - the actual process of unlocking the Achievement is where the humor and entertainment - and challenge - are found. Because just throwing a saddle on that pig and then climbing on is NOT enough!

First of all, the Pig is not going to cooperate with you. Second - just because you HAVE a Saddle AND a Pig, and you are mounted on te back of the Pig - that doesn’t mean you have a lock on getting this one unlocked!

Check out the video embedded above to get an idea of just how this works and what we are taking about when we point out that getting the Saddle onto the Pig and yourself into the Saddle is actually the easy part!