Minecraft 4k

Minecraft 4k was an edition of Minecraft developed for the Java 4K contest.

The initial version, released on December 2nd, 2009, was more limited than any other edition of Minecraft ever released to the public, including the pre-classic version that is available from the Java Edition launcher. An update on December 4th changed the controls and added widescreen, more blocks, and the ability to place and destroy blocks.

The original page hosting the game was removed in November 2014. Its archive can still be accessed using the Wayback Machine, but the applet does not load. However, it is avaible on the Internet Archive here.

General
The player can place and destroy blocks. The only block the player can place is grass, reminiscent of the very early builds of Minecraft internally called RubyDung that are available from the Minecraft launcher. Leaves do not decay.

World
The same 64×64×64 block world is generated every time the game is loaded. The only blocks in the game - air, grass block, dirt, stone, bricks, wood, and leaves - are scattered throughout the world. No mobs exist.

An invisible wall surrounds the world, preventing the player from escaping, similar to invisible bedrock or an old world.

Controls
The player can move around using standard controls, as well as jump using.

Left- and right-clicking controls are reversed from traditional Minecraft controls; left-click places blocks and right-click destroys them. Middle-click also places blocks. Moving the mouse will turn the camera "smoothly", similarly to pressing in Java Edition, and cannot be changed.

The camera acts differently to Minecraft's. The camera only moves when the player moves the cursor a considerably large distance away from the center of the game's viewport. Blocks in the world are selected by the cursor, rather than the center of the viewport.

The game lacks any sort of options menu or HUD.

Graphics
The graphics appear pixelated as a result of the game rendering at a low resolution. Even when running at a higher resolution, the game does not scale the resolution properly and the noisy appearance is retained. Block textures are similar to those used in Classic, as Classic 0.30 (Creative) was the most recent version of Minecraft at the time. Most blocks appear noisier than their Minecraft counterparts, although some blocks, especially stone, are a lot different. The sky is black due to the lack of a skybox.

When hovering the cursor over a block, the outline of the block is thick and white, as opposed to Minecraft's thin gray block selection outline.

Technical aspects
There are a total of 16 block IDs in the game. However, not all of them are used by unique blocks. The remaining, unused block IDs are simply dirt blocks.