Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox indie video game inspired by Infiniminer, written in Java by Markus "Notch" Persson, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten, and Mojang AB. Initially released as what is now known as Minecraft Classic on May 17, 2009, the game has a large following despite the several development phases it's gone through since its initial release. It features music by C418 and paintings by Kristoffer Zetterstrand.

Minecraft focuses on allowing the player to explore, interact with, and modify a dynamically-generated map made of 1-m³-sized blocks. In addition to blocks, the environment features plants, mobs, and items. Some activities in the game include mining for ore, fighting hostile mobs, and crafting new blocks and tools by gathering various resources found in the game. The game's open-ended model allows players to create structures, creations and artwork on various multiplayer servers or their own single player maps. Other features include redstone circuits for logic computations and remote actions, minecarts and tracks, and a mysterious underworld called the "Nether".

In addition to computers, Minecraft has also expanded to mobile devices, although currently limited to Android, versions for iOS and Xbox 360 are under development. The version for Android is currently Alpha 0.1.2. Versions for iOS and Xbox have yet to be released. The computer game is still under development as well; the current client version is Beta, and the current Survival server version is Beta. The full release is scheduled to launch November 18th, 2011, during MineCon.

Purchasing and availability


The latest version of Minecraft, Beta, is currently available to players for €14.95 (≈ $21), and the complete version will cost €20 (≈ $28). Once purchased, the game can be played in a web browser or a downloadable client (the Minecraft launcher). It is also possible to buy Minecraft gift codes for others, for the same price as buying the game for oneself. Minecraft Classic is available to play for free on Minecraft.net, but must be played in-browser, unlike Beta.

Predecessor versions of Beta (Indev, Infdev, and Alpha) were once available on the site for paid users just as Beta is now, while Survival Test, a version of Classic, was free to all. All older versions of Minecraft, besides Classic, are no longer available.

Originally, Minecraft ' s official release date was planned for November 11th, 2011. It appeared to have been selected for assorted reasons, namely:
 * It was very symmetric, as the month, day, and year, were all abbreviated the same way: 11/11/11.
 * It was also the release date of other games which Notch is fond of, particularly The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

After it became apparent that the planned date was fully booked, however, Notch announced that the release would probably be pushed back a week, to the 18th. The fact that the official release only marks when the game leaves Beta probably helped with this decision, since it means the date selection is ultimately fairly arbitrary. In addition, Notch said that he would like to keep adding features to the game even after this date. Currently, Minecraft is scheduled to release in days.

Player
The player is the person that a user controls in the world. When a user starts a game, the player is put in a world, generated by a random or specified Seed, with an empty inventory. The player has a health bar with 10 hearts, and can be damaged by falls, suffocation, drowning, fire, lava, lightning, cacti, falling into the Void, and being hit by hostile mobs. Damage to health can be mitigated by armor, and health can be restored by eating food, or if difficulty is set to Peaceful, health will regenerate on its own. Hunger is also a factor if the game is not in Peaceful Mode, depleting over time and it depletes even faster while sprinting. Food will replenish health, however eating Rotten Flesh and Raw Chicken has a chance of poisoning the player. Depending on the difficulty level, a low hunger level will deplete a players health.

A player's skin can be changed on the profile page of Minecraft.net.

Blocks
Blocks are the objects that make up the game's map, and were borrowed from Minecraft ' s original influence, Infiniminer. There are different types of blocks; natural blocks such as grass, stone, and various ores are randomly generated to create a world to play in. There are also blocks that players can craft, such as a crafting table and a furnace. Resources can be extracted from blocks by hand or by using tools. Some of these resources are simply blocks in the player's inventory that can be placed elsewhere, while others are used as material to create other blocks or tools. Others still yield nothing at all. Bedrock is the only unbreakable block.

Mining


One of the original activities in Minecraft, Mining is done to extract Ore and other materials from below the surface of the map. These ores include coal. iron, gold, redstone, diamond, and lapis lazuli. These are crucial in making several useful items. Mining can involve digging a hole from the surface or going down through a cave. In Beta 1.8, Abandoned Mineshafts were added, creating extra areas to look for resources.

Crafting and smelting

 * Main articles: Crafting, Smelting



Crafting allows a player to create new tools and blocks using items from their inventory. Crafting was first implemented in Indev, and Notch has expanded the crafting recipes with new versions, blocks, and items. To craft, a player can use the 2×2 grid in the Inventory or the 3×3 grid provided by a Crafting Table. Smelting requires a Furnace in addition to fuel, and processes blocks such as Iron Ore into a more useful form (e.g. Iron Ingot).

Mobs


Mobs (Short for Mobiles) are the animals and other creatures that inhabit the map. The player is technically a mob, although mob usually refers to the hostile mobs that roam the map at night and in dark places of the map. These include zombies, which attack by melee; skeletons, which have a bow and fire arrows; spiders, which jump large distances and can climb walls; and creepers, feared and beloved mobs that explode near the player. Rare mobs include Spider Jockeys, which are skeletons riding spiders, and slimes, which spawn deep in the map. The Nether features ghasts, flying mobs that spit exploding fire balls and attack without provokation, and Zombie Pigmen, modified Pigmen with a Golden Sword which only attack when attacked.

To aid the player there are passive mobs: pigs, cows, chickens, sheep, squid, and one tamable mob type, wolves, which will attack when provoked if not tamed but will aid in fighting mobs and follow the player if tamed. Passive mobs other than wolves yield resources when killed, such as porkchops, milk, wool, leather, and ink sacs.

Multiplayer

 * See also: Server and Multiplayer



The multiplayer feature was introduced on June 8, 2009 for Classic, and later as SMP (Survival Multiplayer) on August 4, 2010, and has been a popular part of the game ever since. Minecraft multiplayer servers have developed to include their own rules and customs, guided by their administrators and moderators. The term griefer, meaning a player who causes grief, is a typical term on the internet, but has taken up its own definition on Minecraft servers: a person who destroys or defiles other users' creations on servers.

Griefers are the reason many server administrators make rules, but this has been taken a step further with modifications to the Mojang server and even plugin-based replacement servers such as Bukkit. Because of these plugin-based servers, new user-created features have shown up in Minecraft. This includes features like money, vehicles, protection, RPG elements and more. These features normally do not require modification to a user's client and can be accessed by using chat commands. The chat screen is brought up by pressing.

One popular game on multiplayer servers is Spleef (a play on the word "grief"), a game where the player's aim is to make another player drop through the floor by destroying blocks beneath the opponent's feet. This is typically played in a designated area.

History

 * See also: Development Cycle and Version history

Creation
Notch got the idea for Minecraft after playing Infiniminer with other members of the TIG Source forums in 2009. Other influences include Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper, and Notch's own previous project, RubyDung.

When he first started working on Minecraft, Notch had planned for it to just be a small project. For instance, when Notch uploaded the first YouTube video of Minecraft on May 13, 2009, he had not yet decided on a name, and simply referred to it as a "cave game". The name "Minecraft: Order of the Stone" (a reference to Order of the Stick, a web comic and "one of the best things on the internet") was announced the next day, and then shortly after, it was shortened to "Minecraft" as it was much simpler and to prevent people from confusing it with Order of the Stick. The game was finally released for an "early private singleplayer alpha" on May 16, 2009.

Classic


The day after the private release, May 17, 2009, Notch released 0.0.11a to the public, and the game received mention on IndieGames.com the day after that. Creative game mode allows the player to build and destroy blocks, allowing the creation of all sorts of objects. Players are given an infinite amount of each block to build with. Minecraft Classic may be played by visiting Minecraft.net and clicking "Classic".

Survival Test
Survival Test was released as a version of Classic on September 1, 2009. It was the introduction of Survival Mode. In it, the player now had to mine blocks, face Mobs, and had a health bar. If the player were to die, the map was lost, and unless backed up, the user would have to start over with a new map.

Indev


Indev (short for "in development") was released on December 23, 2009 after Notch received requests to let the community try out new features he was implementing in Survival Test. Indev version 0.31 was released to the public on minecraft.net/indev and available only to people who had purchased the game. When a new game was started, the player would spawn in a prefabricated wooden house.

Updates introduced a more complex and realistic lighting scheme than Classic. Indev received more updates after this, adding a few fundamental features to Minecraft as it went. During its lifespan, some updates were devoted mostly to testing new things, like Torches or Fire. Unique to Indev was level types, similar to Biomes and the Dimensions. For example, Floating Islands and the Sky Dimension, and Hell and The Nether. Like Survival Test, if the player were to die, all progress was lost.

Infdev
Infdev (short for "infinite development") was released on February 27, 2010, featuring automatically expanding maps. It contained other upgrades too, including new recipes, 3D clouds, a new terrain generator, a more realistic fluid system, and more complex caves.

Alpha


Alpha was released on June 28, 2010, and would see many major features added to Minecraft. Multiplayer for Survival was created, Redstone Circuits were added to the game, as well as boats, new music, new mobs, and a Difficulty setting. Most of these features were added without announcement in "Seecret Friday Updates".

The Halloween Update on October 31, 2010 was a major update, adding Biomes, The Nether, new mobs, blocks, and items, and other changes.

Beta
Beta is the current development phase for Minecraft, and was released on December 20, 2010. Features that have been added include a new logo and launcher, achievements and statistics, weather, Smooth Lighting, dyes, more plant types (two new types of trees and Tall Grass), wolves and squid, beds, and other blocks and items.

The Adventure Update is a major set of updates, focusing on exploring and combat. Features added include new geographic features, Rivers, Ravines, new mobs, new biomes, larger biomes, NPC Villages, Strongholds, Abandoned Mine Shafts, an improved combat system including critical points and Experience, new blocks and items and a new Creative Mode. Features still to be implemented include New Nether content, NPC Villagers, The End, and a use for experience points. The first part of the update, Beta 1.8 was released on September 14th, 2011.

Starting on September 9th, 2011, developmental versions where "leaked" by Mojang. These versions consist of the minecraft.jar and the server. Beta 1.9 has not yet been released, but 5 pre-releases have been made available for users to test and report bugs back to Mojang. On October 18 a code freeze went into effect, which meant that Mojang shifted all Minecraft devolopment focus to fixing bugs and preparing the game for release.

Pocket Edition
Minecraft Pocket Edition was released on August 16, 2011 and is designed for mobile platforms, with gameplay similar to Classic. It was depuded on Sony's Xperia Play Android phone. The game was developed by Mojang employee Aron Nieminen. A version for all supported android phones was released on October 7, 2011 after the exclusivity agreement between Sony and Mojang expired and the touch screen controls were added.

Minecraft 1.0

 * ''See also: Upcoming: Minecraft 1.0

The full release of Minecraft is scheduled to launch November 18th, 2011, during MineCon. The release is set to feature many bug fixes and finalized features introduced in the Adventure Updates.

Xbox Edition
Announced by Mojang on June 7, 2011 at E3, Minecraft Xbox Edition is a remake of the PC version on the Xbox 360 and is currently being developed by 4J Studios. It is designed to be able to use Kinect, although optional and to be released Spring 2012.

Pocket Edition for iOS
A version of Minecraft Pocket Edition iOS is planned to be released.

Official Modifications
The game officially supports changing most of its various textures through Texture Packs. These have to contain a certain structure of files and folders, contained in a .zip archive file and placed in the texturepack folder of the .minecraft folder. The texture packs, well as the folder can be accessed at the main menu. The extent to which the textures are changed is dependent on how many files are contained in the texture pack.

Notch has always planned to add a mod API, and announced official plans to support one in the game on April 26, 2011. Although the code for the API exists in the game and the button on main menu to access texture packs is labeled "Mods and Texture Packs", as of yet it has not been implemented.

Unofficial User Mods
Minecraft can be modified by replacing or adding Java class files to minecraft.jar. This is popular but not supported by Mojang as these can break the game if the mod is outdated, defective, or is conflicting with another mod. These mods have been found to impress Notch, an implementation of Hippoplatimus' Piston Mod was added in Beta 1.7.

Third Party Programs
There as many programs designed for Minecraft. These include 3D map editors and viewers, game modifiers, various informational programs (such as Crafting Recipes), and server wrappers, and other specialty programs. As with mods, these too are not supported by Mojang.

PC
Currently in Beta, runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, started through the launcher or browser. Will have a full release on or around November 18, 2011.

Pocket Edition
Minecraft Pocket Edition is designed for mobile platforms, with gameplay similar to Classic. It features 36 blocks, a local WiFi Multiplayer and is currently available on the Android Market. A similar iOS version will also be released.

Xbox Edition
Announced by Mojang on June 7, 2011 at E3 and is being developed by 4J Studios. To take advantage of Kinect, although optional. To be released Spring 2012.

Other Versions
Other versions of Minecraft include Minecraft 4k and the PC Gamer Minecraft Demo. 4k is a simple version of Minecraft in the style of other Java games Notch that has entered in contests. PC Gamer Demo is a version of Beta 1.3 with helpful dialogs and a 100 minute play time limit.

Milestones and awards


Minecraft was first made available for sale during June 2009 and has since sold over three million copies. It has also won numerous awards including:
 * PC Gamer's Game of the Year
 * 2010 Indie of the Year
 * GDC's Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game, and the Innovation Award
 * IGF's Grand Prize and Audience Award.