Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox indie video game inspired by Infiniminer,written in Java by Markus Persson and Mojang AB, and featuring music by C418 and paintings by Kristoffer Zetterstrand. It allows the player to control an avatar that can destroy or create 1 m3 sized blocks on a dynamically expanding map, and interact with the other parts of the Minecraft Environment.

This Environment which in addition to blocks also includes Plants, Mobs, and Items. Some of the uses of the game is to mine for Ore, fight hostile Mobs and Create useful Blocks(Such as Doors) and Tools by gathering various resources found in the game. However, the openness of the game model allows players to form fantastic structures, creations and artwork across the various multiplayer servers or on their own single player maps. Other Features include Redstone circuits for logic and remote actions, Minecarts and tracks, and a mysterious underworld called the "Nether".

The game is still under development; the current client version is Beta, and the current Survival server version is Beta. A Full Release version of the game is expected sometime in the near future.

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 gift codes to give Minecraft to other people, for the same price as buying the game for yourself. Minecraft Classic is available to play for free. Minecraft Classic and Minecraft Beta are available at minecraft.net; Classic must be played in-browser, but Beta can be played in-browser or downloaded.

Predecessor versions of Beta (Indev, Infdev, and Alpha) where once available on the site for paid users just as Beta is now, while Survival Test, a version of Classic, was free to all. Now all old versions of Minecraft, are unavailable from the Minecraft Website and are hard to come by on the internet.

The full version of the game is due for release on November 11, 2011 (11-11-11), though Notch later stated that Mojang "need to change the release date for Minecraft to be able to get a good venue for MinecraftCon. 11/11/11 is fully booked."



GamePlay
Minecraft's unqiue design allows players to play the game in their own way.

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 random world or one generated by a Seed and his Inventory is empty. The Player has a health bar with 10 hearts. The Player can be damaged by falls, suffocation, drowning, Fire, Lava, Lighting, Cacti, falling into the Void and Hostile Mobs. Damage to health can be lessened by Armor and restored by eating food, or if Difficulty is set to Peaceful, Health will regenerate back. The Skin can be changed if logged into a account and a new skin has been uploaded on the user's Profile page.

Blocks
Blocks are the objects that make up the game Map, and was borrowed from Minecraft's original influence, Infiniminer. There are different types of blocks, nautal blocks such as Grass, Stone, Ore, etc. that are generated in game. There are also blocks that players can craft, such as a Crafting Table and a Furnace. Most blocks can be broken by hand into a item of the block that can be placed else where, Some reqire a Tool. Others break into other objects. Some break into nothing. Bedrock is unbreakable.

Crafting


Crafting is when a player uses a crafting grid to create new Tools and Blocks, using natural resources or other processed objects. 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 4 x 4 grid in the Inventory, a Crafting Table, which has a 3 x 3 grid. Smelting requires a Furnace in addition to fuel, and processes blocks, like Iron Ore into a more useful form (e.g. Iron Ingot).

Mobs


Mobs (From Mobiles) are the animals and other creatures that inhabit the game along with the player. 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, Unarmed mob, Skeletons,has a Bow and fires Arrows, Spiders, jumps a large distance and can climb walls, and Creepers, a feared and beloved mob that blows it self near a player. Rare mobs include Spider Jockeys, which is a Skeleton riding a Spider, and Slimes, which spawns deep in the map. In the Nether; Ghasts, flying mobs that spit exploding fire balls, attack without provoking, while Zombie Pigmen, a modified Pigman with a Golden Sword, only attacks when attacked.

To aid the players there are passive mobs; Pigs, Cows, Chickens, Sheep, Squids and a tamable mob, Wolves, which will attack if not tamed but will aid in fighting mobs and follow the player if tamed. Other mobs yield resource itmes, such as Ham, Milk, Wool, Leather, and Ink Sac.

Multiplayer


The multiplayer feature was introduced June 8th 2009, 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 server: A person who destroys or defiles user creations on servers. Griefers are the reason many admins make rules, but this has been taken a step further with modifications to the Mojang server and ever plugin-based replacement servers like Bukkit, which is a replacement for hMod. Because of these plugin-based-servers, new, user-created features have shown up on minecraft. This includes features like money, cars, protection and transaction of property, and more. These features normally don't require modification to a user client and can be used by accessing the chat dialog 'T'. One popular game on the servers is Spleef (A play on the word grief), a game where the players aim is to make another player drop through the floor.

History
Also see Development Cycle

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.

Pre-Release
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 some people might have thought it was 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 of 0.0.11a to the public and the game received mention on IndieGames.com the day after that. Creative game mode allows you to build/destroy blocks in a manner in which you can build any sort of object you would like. Players are given an infinite amount of each block to build with. Minecraft classic may be played by going to the Minecraft website and clicking "Classic".

Survival Test
Survival Test was developed and released as a free version of Classic. It was the introduction of Survival Mode used in Indev to the current Beta. 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.

Indev
Indev was initially 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 put to the public at minecraft.net/indev and available only to people who had purchased the game. New features currently contained a more complex and realistic lighting scheme than Classic. Indev received 29 updates after this, gaining a few fundamental features to Minecraft as it went. During its lifespan, some updates were devoted mostly for testing new things, like Torches or Fire. As it progressed, its game play became standardized to that of modern Beta, however with much less features. Like Survival Test, if the player were to die, all was lost.

Computer
Currently in Beta, runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, but requires Java and Open GL compliant Video Card and Driver. Will have a Full Release, (Possibly 11 November 2011).

Pocket Edition
To debut on Sony's Xperia Play Android Phone, and later be released on the Android Market and Apple App Store.

Xbox Edition
To take advantage of Kinect, although optional. To be released Fall 2011.

Milestones and Awards


Minecraft was first made available for sale during June 2009 and has since sold over two and a half 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.