Survival

Survival mode is the second released game mode of Minecraft in which players must build structures and fight to survive. It is currently the main focus in the development of Minecraft, being the only playable game mode in the most recent Beta version of the game. Players can build shelters to fend off enemy mobs that will spawn to make the their lives harder.

All building blocks in the game must be earned. Players also have an inventory so they have more space to gather items, which they are able to combine together using certain arrangements to create new objects. This process is known as crafting. Players are also able to mine underground to look for precious minerals.

Survival Multiplayer (SMP)


Survival Multiplayer is currently in heavy development and is only available in Beta. However, SMP is currently in a buggy state. Players have speculated on how gameplay will turn out once the multiplayer mode is finally completed, including raiding parties, base defense mechanisms, and cooperative player towns.

History
This game mode was introduced on 4th of August, 2009 in Survival Test under Classic. During this time, players experienced permadeath, meaning they could not respawn and the level needed to be restarted unless a save file had been created.

The inventory and crafting was only introduced in the Indev version while the Infdev version features infinite map generation. This version also drops the permadeath feature allowing the player to respawn. The Alpha version improved the map generation by introducing biomes. The Nether was also added for fast travelling.

The Multiplayer variant of this game mode also took place in the Alpha version. Originally, Notch had only allowed a limited number of people from the Minecraft IRC channel to participate in the first tests of SMP. These invitees could invite other people to test out this mode; however the password was leaked and the server was quickly filled up. Notch released the first version of the SMP server software on the 4th of August, 2010. The client was updated so that players could enter the IP of a server to join it.