Game mode

A game mode dictates how a player may interact with a Minecraft world.

List of game modes


The number of different game modes in Minecraft depends on the exact definition of a game mode. In practice, there are most commonly considered to be four:


 * Survival
 * Creative
 * Adventure
 * Spectator

Demo Mode, which may also be counted as a game mode, is Survival with the  attribute, which defines if the game is from a trial version or not.

True game modes
The following game modes are controlled by the "gameType" variable, and all/some are accessible in-game via the command as well as the game mode switcher.

Survival
In this mode, players have to gather all their materials to build, craft items and tools and gain experience points. There is a health, hunger, and armor bar, an inventory, and also a oxygen bar when underwater, suffocating, or in lava. If a player runs out of hearts (health), the player dies and returns to the spawn point. Upon death, the player emits smoke, loses all experience and items, and a death message. Maximum reach is 5 blocks.

Creative
The player has access to an infinite amount of almost all blocks and items available, and can destroy them instantly. Players are invulnerable, unless they fall into the void, and do not have health, armor, or hunger, and can fly. The player has access to items not available in Survival mode, e.g. spawn eggs. The player cannot see command blocks if they look through the Creative GUI - they need to spawn command blocks with the or  commands. Max reach is 6 blocks.

Adventure
Players can interact with objects such as levers and buttons, and can interact with mobs. However, they can break blocks only with tools having a CanDestroy data tag, and place blocks only if the block they are holding has a data tag, making this mode good for adventure maps. Max reach is 5 blocks.

Spectator
When in Spectator mode, players can clip through blocks and fly freely. The player can't interact with blocks, entities or their inventory.

$$, the player can enter the perspective of other entities by left-clicking on them, and are invisible to all players and mobs except for other spectators. When in third-person mode, they look like a transparent, floating head with no body. The player can use the scroll wheel to adjust the speed at which they are flying, unlike flying in Creative mode.

$$ however, the player can access this game mode by typing. The Spectator game mode has slightly different mechanics from the Java version, because the feature is still in development.

Default
The "Default" game mode can be access by typing. The player can set game mode based on what default game mode is set. In a world setting, there's a dropdown to select the default game mode. The player can override the default game mode by setting the game mode to another game mode.

Invalid game mode
Any invalid game mode will be a mix of Creative mode and Survival mode. They are only accessible with third-party software so using the command will not work because the game is preventing the player from doing it.

Like in Creative mode, the player has the ability to fly, can't take any damage and they're not affected by hunger. Despite this, health and hunger bars are still visible. Tools have infinite durability and can't break.

The inventory is like the one in Creative mode, except it's broken and you will not be able to take blocks nor items from it.

Hardcore
In this mode, which plays in the same way as Survival mode, the difficulty level is permanently set to "Hard", and when the player dies, they must either delete the map or permanently switch to Spectator mode, effectively preventing them from interacting with the world ever again.

Hardcore is not technically a game mode, but rather a game mode modifier, as it cannot be enabled with the command. However, without cheating, it is possible to get only "Hardcore Survival". To obtain "Hardcore Creative" mode, the player must edit the game world with external tools, or opening to LAN, and turning on cheats. There is almost no visible difference between "Hardcore Creative" and "Non-Hardcore Creative". Because of this, "Hardcore" usually refers to "Hardcore Survival". On a server, a player who dies gets put into Spectator mode, while all other players remain in Survival mode. When looking at a Hardcore singleplayer world, the gamemode is "Hardcore Mode!" and the color is red.

Demo Mode
Demo Mode functionally serves to allow the players to try out the game before deciding to buy Minecraft. It allows players to play on a single world for a 100-minute (5 in-game days) period before the map is locked and required to be reset. The game is locked to Survival mode and cheats are off by default. While the demo version does not expire, it comes with certain restrictions, by others, as its sole purpose is to allow new players to try out Minecraft.

Demo Mode is not technically a game mode as it cannot be enabled with the  command.

Summary
Below is a brief summary of the different available features in each game mode.

Changing game mode
The command can be used to switch between true game modes. For example, puts the player into Creative mode. As hardcore is handled differently, it cannot be set via commands.

$$, a player with operator permissions on a server or cheats enabled is able to open a GUI by pressing and, which then allows the player to cycle through the four available gamemodes available with  by pressing.

$$, the gamemode can also be changed by quitting the world, going to Edit World, tapping either Creative or Survival, and then returning to the game if cheats are enabled.

Data values
In the level.dat file, Survival mode is, Creative is  , Adventure is  , and Spectator is. Hardcore is Survival with the addition of  (a normal world uses   instead). This knowledge allows hacking to change game modes by editing the world's level.dat.