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Background:
Minecraft is a sandbox building indie video game written in Java originally by Swedish creator Markus "Notch" Persson and now by his company, Mojang, formed from the proceeds of the game. It was released on May 17, 2009, with a Beta on December 20, 2010. Official releases for iOS and Android are currently in development to be released later in 2011 along with a full version of the game; the Android release will be temporarily exclusive to the Xperia Play.A version of the game for the Xbox 360 with Kinect support is under development by 4J Studios.
The game is focused on creativity and building, allowing players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. The game has two variants – free Classic and paid Beta – where Classic is focused entirely on construction with unlimited material supply, Beta requires players to acquire resources themselves, and contains mobs, player health, and additional features and items. The gameplay is heavily inspired by Infiniminer by Zachtronics Industries, Dwarf Fortress by Bay 12 Games and Dungeon Keeper by Bullfrog Productions.
The game is currently in development and Beta is the only continuously updated version of the game. Minecraft was developed for about a week before its public release on May 17, 2009, on the TIGSource forums, where it gained a considerable level of popularity. It has been continually updated and patched since then, and while it was still in alpha release, it garnered several hundred thousand sales and received critical notice and acclaim from many reviewers. It passed a million units sold on January 12, 2011, less than a month after reaching Beta. By August 5, 2011, the game had sold 3,000,000 units.
The core gameplay revolves around construction. The game world is essentially made of cubical blocks arranged in a fixed grid pattern which represent different materials, such as dirt, stone, various ores, water, and tree trunks. While the players can move freely across the world, objects and items can only be placed at fixed locations relative to the grid. The player can gather these material "blocks" and place them elsewhere, thus potentially creating various constructions. Currently, there are no set goals to achieve in Minecraft, so the game cannot be won.
Minecraft has two currently available gameplay modes, Survival and Creative, both with single-player and multiplayer options. Classic is the earliest free version and initially featured only creative game mode with only building (block placement and removal) aspects of the game and unlimited block supply. The game was then split into single-player survival mode (referred to as "Survival Mode Test"), which contained monsters and a much greater variety of blocks and items available, as well as requiring players to mine their own blocks.
The game starts by placing the player on the surface of a huge procedurally generated game world. The player can walk across the terrain consisting of plains, mountains, caves, and various water bodies. The world is also divided into biomes ranging from deserts to snowfields. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle. Throughout the course of the game the player encounters various non-human creatures, referred to as mobs. During the daytime, non-hostile animals spawn, which can be hunted for food and crafting materials. Hostile monsters, such as large spiders, skeletons, zombies and the dangerous exploding "creeper" will spawn in unlit areas, such as in caves or during the night.
Complex systems can be built using the in-game physics engine with the use of primitive electrical circuits and logic gates. For example, a door can be opened or closed by pressing a connected button or stepping on a pressure plate. Similarly, larger and more complex systems can be produced, such as a working arithmetic logic unit – as used in CPUs.
The game world is procedurally generated as the player explores it. Although limits exist on vertical movement both up and down, Beta allows for an infinitely large game world to be generated on the horizontal plane, only running into technical problems when extremely distant locations are reached. The game achieves this by splitting the game world data into smaller sections, called "chunks",only created or loaded into memory when the player is nearby.
Survival:
In this mode, the player has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from monsters, falls, or environmental damage, such as drowning or falling into lava. The player also has a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating various food (porkchops, bread, etc.) in-game. Armor can help mitigate damage from mob attacks, while weapons can be used to kill enemies and other animals. Health replenishes when the player has a full hunger bar or by playing on the easiest difficulty, where the health bar regenerates by itself. Upon dying, items in the player's inventory are dropped and the player is respawned at current spawn point, which by default is where the player started, but can be set by "sleeping" in in-game beds. The items can be recovered if reached before they despawn.
The player can acquire different resources and craft tools, weapons, armor, food, and various other items. By acquiring better resources, the player can make more effective items. For example, tools such as axes, shovels, or pickaxes, can be used to chop down trees, dig soil, and mine ores respectively, and tools made out of better resources (such as iron in place of stone) perform their tasks more quickly. The game has an inventory system and the player is limited to the number of items they can carry, specifically, 36 spaces.
Creative:
In creative mode, the player does not take damage, is not affected by hunger, and can fly freely around the game world. The player has access to unlimited resources or items through the inventory menu, and can place or remove them instantly. All creatures in the game, including hostile ones, may still spawn under proper conditions but they cannot damage the player.
Classic:
Older versions of
Minecraft are also available for players. Unlike newer versions of
Minecraft, Classic is free to play, though it is no longer updated. It functions much the same as Creative mode, allowing players to build and destroy any and all parts of the world either alone or in a multiplayer server. There are no computer creatures in this mode, and environmental hazards such as lava will not damage the player. However, some blocks function differently as their behavior was later changed during development. For example, in Classic mode, TNT will act like any other block and break when hit, but in newer versions it will detonate after its fuse is lit.
Players have created bots to help them build inside of Classic mode servers. One of the intended uses of these bots is replicating in-game structures. Classic is intended to be phased out as Beta progresses, leaving Beta as the only
Minecraft game. An official version of the Classic server software is available from the
Minecraft website; however, many fans have created their own custom servers with additional features, such as the ability to place water blocks.
Reception:
Minecraft has received favorable responses from critics, and has had notably large numbers of sales.
The game has been praised for the creative freedom it grants its players in-game, and for how dynamic the overall gameplay is.
PC Gamer listed
Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work.
A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the
Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it.Jim Rossignol of Rock, Paper, Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego
Stalker" On September 17, 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game. Video game talk show
Good Game gave it a 7.5 and 9 out of 10, praising its creativity and customization, though they criticized its lack of a tutorial.
In December 2010,
Good Game selected
Minecraft as their choice for "Best Downloadable Game of 2010" title, Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the game of the year. Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 "Indie of the Year" award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for "Most Innovative" and "Best Singleplayer Indie" It was also awarded "Game of the Year" by
PC Gamer UK. The game was nominated for the "Seumas McNally Grand Prize", "Technical Excellence", and "Excellence in Design" awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival and won the Grand Prize along with community-voted "Audience Award". At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won the award for Best debut game, Best downloadable game and Most Innovative game award, winning every award for which it was nominated.
On May 5, 2011, Minecraft was selected as one of the 80 games that will be displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of "The Art of Video Games" exhibit that will open on March 16, 2012.
