Minecraft: Story Mode

Minecraft: Story Mode is an ongoing episodic point-and-click narrative-driven graphic adventure video game based on the sandbox video game Minecraft, released in October 2015 across multiple platforms, with a Windows 10 release on December 16, 2015, as well as a PlayStation Vita and Wii U release arriving at a later date. The game is being developed by Mojang AB, the developer of Minecraft, in collaboration with Telltale Games. Music for the game is being composed by Anadel, an atmospheric folk band based in California. The game follows the episodic format that Telltale has used for its previous titles, where player choices and actions have siginificant effects on later story elements.

Gameplay
Minecraft: Story Mode is an ongoing episodic point-and-click narrative-driven graphic adventure video game similar to Telltale's previous titles such as Tales from the Borderlands. The player is able to collect items, solve puzzles, and talk to non-player characters though conversation trees to learn about the story and determine what to do next. Like other Telltale Games, decisions that the player makes will have an impact on story elements in future episodes. However, unlike Telltale's previous games that carry more mature or emotional overtones including the death of major characters, Story Mode is known as a family-friendly title, so the decisions are still pivotal and emotional but do not involve mature imagery or themes. Elements of crafting and building, central to Minecraft, are included in the gameplay, following a similar approach. The game features combat and other action sequences, carried out through both quick time events similar to Telltale's other episodic games, and more arcade-like controls, such as steering around debris on a road. The game also mixes new characters with original themes to make an entirely original Minecraft experience.

Voice cast




Jesse and Friends
Patton Oswalt as Jesse (male), a huge fan of everything going on in Minecraft, as well as the main character

Catherine Taber as Jesse (female)

Dee Bradley Baker as Reuben, Jesse's pet pig

Brian Posehn as Axel, who is fiercely loyal to his friends, but can appear to act impulsive.

Ashley Johnson as Petra, who is tough, shrewd, and very protective of her friends.

Martha Plimpton as Olivia, who is assertive and smart, but lacks patience.

Scott Porter as Lukas, a member of the Ocelots who later befriends Jesse and his / her group.

Order of the Stone members
Dave Fennoy as Gabriel the Warrior, a powerful warrior who appears at EnderCon

Grey Griffin as Ellegaard the Redstone Engineer, who is very smart, but whereabouts are slightly hazy

Corey Feldman as Magnus the Rogue, who is hard to find but is also an impressive griefer who appreciates the "art" of it

John Hodgman as Soren the Architect, who is the hardest to find and whereabouts have not been known for a while

Paul Reubens as Ivor, a former member of the Order who distrusted Soren after the command block incident, and has vowed to demolish the world of Minecraft

Other characters
Billy West as the narrator, Siggie, and the fanboy

G.K. Bowes as Maya, Ivy, and the fangirl

Phil LaMarr as Gill, a member of the Ocelots.

Matthew Mercer as Aiden, Otis, Schoolboy, TNT Dustin and Griefer #2

Jason Topolski as Usher, Disco Mickey and Griefer #5

Erin Yvette as the announcer of the Endercon building competition, Mabel, Farmer Gloria and Griefer #1

Lydia Winters as herself

Owen Hill as himself

Ursula Taherian as Nohr

Sam Riegel as Griefer #3

Michael Gambino as Calvin and Griefer #4

A.J. Riebli III as the announcer of the Death Bowl

Development
The idea for Minecraft: Story Mode came around the end of 2012 when Telltale was engaged in work for Tales from the Borderlands, an episodic series based on the Borderlands series. The idea of developing stories around other established video game franchises led the team to brainstorm the idea for a Minecraft-related game, given that the game was essentially a "blank canvas" for storytelling, according to Job Stauffer, and would create an interesting challenge. Telltale began negotiations with Mojang at GDC 2013, and began work on the title shortly thereafter. Stauffer noted that Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang was not a factor in the game's development, as their interaction with Mojang began well before Microsoft's offers.

Telltale opted to create a new main character of Jesse for Minecraft: Story Mode instead of using the default "Steve" and "Alex" characters from Minecraft, feeling that they did not want to attempt to rewrite how players already saw these characters in the game. Other primary characters in the game are loosely designed around archetypes of common player-characters for Minecraft, such that those that engage in building, fighting, or griefing other players. The game will not attempt to provide any background for some concepts in Minecraft, such as the creepers, as to avoid the various interpretations that fans have done for these elements, though they will be elements of the game's story.

Stauffer stated that the game's story would be aimed as family-friendly, similar to The Goonies or Ghostbusters; their intended content would be equivalent to a PG-13 or PEGI-12 rating. A number of the voice actors are alumni of such films of the 1980s such as Corey Feldman who starred in The Goonies, and the game includes various references to these types of films. Stauffer reflected that while Telltale's more recent games like The Walking Dead were more mature stories, their original adventure games like Sam & Max and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People were written as family-friendly, and that they consider their approach to Story Mode as "part of our DNA". The story was aimed to be accessible to both existing players of Minecraft - both novice and advanced players - and to new audiences outside of the game.

Minecraft: Story Mode was formally announced in December 2014 as a collaboration project between Mojang and Telltale Games; the announcement was presented as an interactive adventure game named "Info Quest II". Its first trailer was released during the Minecon convention in early July 2015. Telltale has confirmed that they will release the game for the Wii U, representing the first time a Minecraft game has been released on a Nintendo platform.

On August 24, 2015, Winters posted on Twitter that she had completed voiceover work for the game, but didn't specify if she voiced a character or did some narration for the game.

On August 28, 2015, it was announced that the player will be able to choose the appearance of the main character, Jesse.

On October 7, 2015, Anadel, an atmospheric folk band based in Napa, California, announced that they had composed the music for the game.

Episodes
The game is separated into five episodes, released in intervals.

Achievements
As of Episode 4, there are 26 achievements in Story Mode, worth 800 Gamerscore on Xbox and Windows 10.

System requirements
According to this page:

Supported languages
According to the Steam page, the following languages are available in the game: