Java Edition Infdev

Infdev (or  Inf inite Dev elopment) was the fourth phase in the development cycle of Minecraft and is only playable in single-player Survival mode.

Infdev succeeded Indev when Notch decided to rewrite the game's code to allow terrain to be "infinite" and procedurally generated rather than finite. This principle of how maps are generated is similar to how current Minecraft levels are. Ever since Infdev, maps generated terrain theoretically 8 times the size of the Earth. Infdev was also the first appearance of the Far Lands. The edge of the map limits the world to 64,000,000 blocks by 64,000,000 blocks, or 4.096 billion square kilometers. For comparison, the Earth has a total surface area (including ocean) of 510 million square kilometers.

Features



 * Massive brick pyramids spawn very rarely in early versions of Infdev. These pyramids reached from near the top of the world down to the ground. The base of the pyramid does not replace normally generated terrain except for water and air.  The tops of these pyramids were commonly cut off.  Little information is known about this structure because it is so old, and rare. The structure was used possibly for testing.
 * Infdev also includes the Far Lands. The Far Lands are not exclusive to Infdev, however Infdev is the first appearance of them. The giant distortion wall at 12,550,820 and past that most people thought of as The Far Lands was removed in Beta 1.8, however the term has been used since to describe the far areas of the map and their strange shaky physics, as well as the end of the map at plus or minus 32 million.
 * Infdevmobs.pngite map generation
 * More craftable items
 * 3D clouds
 * Much more complex cave systems
 * Dynamic fluid system.
 * Signs, ladders, and doors
 * Minecarts and their rails (powered, detector and activator rails will come later)
 * Dungeons

Alpha replacing Infdev
Because Infdev's main purpose was to catch an infinite terrain version up to par with Indev's content, that purpose was filled around June 2010. Infdev was replaced by the name of Alpha as a sign of progression towards release. Infdev no longer gets updated, and its link has been removed from the Minecraft website.

Infdev, along with Indev, were still available on Minecraft.net up until September 2010, and to play Infdev now, players must use the option for playing another version of the game in the new launcher.

Alpha's transition was an arguably "gradual" one, as the version Alpha v1.0.0 was originally an Infdev version, which was only defined as being Alpha v1.0.0 upon the release of Alpha v1.0.1.

Trivia

 * Infdev was given its name as a play on words from Indev (which stood for In Development); the "Inf" stands for Infinite.
 * Infdev is silent since the Infdev resources are removed from minecraft.net/resources. But this does not happen to Indev.
 * Breaking a block when directly on top of it will not show the breaking animaton in Infdev.
 * In early versions of Infdev, you start with 990 Wood Planks and 999 Glass Blocks. (This has long since been removed.)
 * In the terrain.png (the file with all of the textures) remnants of the Cog texture can be seen.
 * In the same file, a strange and out of place texture can be seen below the sapling, it appears to be a jumble of red, orange, and white pixels. It was later replaced with a solid red square, with the words "fire tex" written in it.
 * In the versions misc. folder, the textures for the Cog can be seen under the names of; gear.png and gearmiddle.png
 * The was a rumor that in the files, an unused level type called the "Sky Islands" are found in the files, which might've been a new file type for Indev, (Possibly the Floating world type.)