Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox video game originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson, maintained by Mojang AB, and part of Xbox Game Studios, part of Microsoft. From its creation, Minecraft was developed almost exclusively by Notch until Jens "Jeb" Bergensten started working with him, and has since become head of its development. It features music by Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld and paintings by Kristoffer Zetterstrand. Initially released as what is now known as Minecraft Classic on May 17, 2009, the game was fully released on November 18, 2011. Since its release, Minecraft has expanded to mobile devices and consoles. On November 6, 2014, Minecraft and all of Mojang's assets were acquired by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion.

Minecraft focuses on allowing the player to explore, interact with, and modify a dynamically-generated map made of one-cubic-meter-sized blocks. In addition to blocks, the environment features plants, mobs, and items. Some activities in the game include mining for ore, fighting hostile mobs, and crafting new blocks and tools by gathering various resources found in the game. The game's open-ended model allows players to create structures, creations and artwork on various multiplayer servers or their own single player maps. Other features include redstone circuits for logic computations and remote actions, minecarts and tracks, and a mysterious underworld called the Nether. A designated but completely optional goal of the game is to travel to a dimension called the End, and defeat the ender dragon.

Purchase and availability


Java Edition can be purchased from the Minecraft website. Gift codes can be bought for others, for the same price as buying the game for oneself. The demo version can be played for free.

Bedrock Edition can be purchased in the Google Play Store, Apple App Store, Amazon App Store, Windows Phone Store, Windows 10 Store, Oculus Store, Fire TV App Store, Xbox One Marketplace and Nintendo eShop.

Minecraft will not run on Windows RT tablets or a Chromebook.

Player
The player is the person that the user controls in the world. When the user starts a game, the player is put in a world, generated by a random or specified seed, with an empty inventory. If the bonus chest option is enabled, a chest filled with basic items generates near the player. The player has a health bar with 10 hearts, and can be damaged by falls, suffocation, drowning, fire, lava, lightning, cacti, sweet berry bushes, falling into the Void, falling anvils and being hit by mobs and other players. Damage to health can be mitigated by armor or Resistance potion, and health can be restored by eating food and drinking specific potions, or if difficulty is set to Peaceful, health will regenerate on its own. Hunger is also a factor if the difficulty is not set to Peaceful, depleting over time and even faster while sprinting, jumping or swimming. Food will replenish the hunger level; however, eating rotten flesh and raw chicken has a chance of giving the player a hunger effect. Depending on the difficulty level, a low hunger level will deplete a player's health.

A player can change their skin on the profile page of Minecraft.net or in the launcher.

Blocks
The world of Minecraft takes place within a three-dimensional grid of cubes, with each cube being occupied by a certain type of block (not all of which are necessarily cubic). There are different types of blocks; natural blocks such as grass, stone, and ores are randomly generated within the world. There are also blocks that players can craft, such as a crafting table and a furnace. Resources can be extracted from blocks by hand or by using tools. Some of these resources are simply blocks in the player's inventory that can be placed elsewhere, while others are used as material to create other blocks or tools. Others yield no practical use whatsoever. Some blocks cannot be broken through normal survival means, e.g. bedrock, end portal frames, command blocks, and barriers.

Mining


Mining is one of the main aspects of Minecraft and is done to extract ore and other materials mainly from below the surface of the map. These ores include coal, iron, gold, redstone, diamond, lapis lazuli, and emerald. Mining can involve digging a hole from the surface or going down through a cave. Mineshafts create extra areas which may contain resources, since they are usually rich in ores.

Crafting and smelting


Crafting allows players to create new tools and blocks using items from their inventory. Subsequent versions often contain crafting recipes for new blocks and items. To craft, a player can use the 2×2 grid in the inventory or the 3×3 grid provided by a crafting table. Smelting requires a furnace in addition to fuel, and processes blocks into a more useful form such as iron ores into iron ingots.

Brewing and enchanting


Brewing creates potions from various ingredients and water using a brewing stand. They are stored in a glass bottle and then consumed by the player or thrown at other mobs to generate a certain effect based on the ingredients used to create the potion. Enchanting is also used to upgrade armor, tools, or weapons with an enchanting table. More powerful enchantments can be accessed by gaining experience and placing bookshelves around the enchanting table.

Mobs


Mobs (short for "mobiles") are the animals and other creatures that inhabit the map. Hostile mobs will attack the player while passive mobs will not. Neutral mobs will only attack when provoked.

The Overworld contains many passive mobs which may be killed for food or bred with one another; these include:


 * Pigs: drop porkchops upon death and can be ridden using a saddle.
 * Cows: drop beef upon death and can be milked using a bucket.
 * Sheep: drop mutton and 1 wool upon death and can be shorn to produce 1–3 wool.
 * Chickens: drop chicken meat and feathers upon death and lay eggs.
 * Horses: drop leather upon death and can be ridden using a saddle, traveling much faster than pigs.
 * Bats: ambient mobs that fly around caves.

Common hostile mobs found throughout the Overworld include:


 * Zombies: attack by melee damage.
 * Skeletons: have a bow and infinitely many arrows.
 * Spiders: jump large distances and can climb walls.
 * Witchs: use potions.
 * Creepers: explode when near the player.
 * Endermen: tall, black creatures with purple eyes and turn aggressive when the player looks at them.

The Overworld also contains some rarer mobs, which only spawn on occasion or in specific biomes:


 * Spider jockeys: a skeleton riding a spider.
 * Chicken jockeys: a baby zombie riding a chicken.
 * Slimes: spawn deep within the map and in swamplands.
 * Villagers: inhabit villages and can trade with the player.
 * Parrots: can imitate the sounds of nearby mobs.
 * Wolves: can be tamed by the player and will attack enemy mobs if the player engages or is attacked by them
 * Mooshrooms: mushroom variants of cows that spawn in mushroom field biomes.

Some mobs can be found exclusively in the Nether, including:


 * Ghasts: flying mobs that shoot exploding fireballs at the player.
 * Zombie pigmen: wield golden swords and attack in hordes if provoked.
 * Wither skeletons: tall, black variants of regular skeletons that wield stone swords and drop coal and, occasionally, wither skeleton skulls which can be used to summon the wither.
 * Blazes: shoot fireballs at players and hover above the ground.
 * Magma cubes: similar to Overworld slimes.

The End contains the ender dragon, which is the main boss mob in Minecraft and allows the player to exit back to the Overworld when it dies.

Withers are the second boss mob in Minecraft, and are created by the player by placing wither skeleton skulls on top of soul sand in a specific pattern. When spawned, they will shoot wither skulls at nearby non-undead mobs.

The Nether


The Nether is a dimension in Minecraft, accessible from the Overworld by a nether portal. It consists mainly of netherrack along with pockets of magma blocks and soul sand and generates expansive lakes of lava. It is populated by zombie pigmen, blazes, ghasts, wither skeletons, and magma cubes.

The End


The End is another dimension of the game where the player battles the ender dragon. The End is accessible by entering an end portal found in a stronghold. The End is composed of end stone and is inhabited by endermen. It also contains tall obsidian pillars on top of which are end crystals that heal the ender dragon. Once the ender dragon is slain, the exit portal will be created in the center of the map, and an end gateway portal will be created near an edge of the map, which takes the player to the expansive outer end islands.

Multiplayer


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 servers: a person who destroys or defiles other users' creations on servers.

Griefers are the reason many server administrators make rules, but this has been taken a step further with modifications to the Minecraft server and even plugin-based replacement servers such as Bukkit. Because of these plugin-based servers, new user-created features have shown up in Minecraft. This includes features like money, vehicles, protection, RPG elements and more. These features normally do not require modification to a user's client and can be accessed by using chat commands. With the default controls, the chat screen is brought up by pressing.

One popular game on multiplayer servers is Spleef (a play on the word "grief"), a game where the player's aim is to make another player drop through the floor by destroying blocks beneath the opponent's feet. This is typically played in a designated area and is usually run automatically using server plugins.

Many popular multiplayer servers exist which may contain custom minigames or large Survival or Creative worlds.

Minecraft Realms
Minecraft Realms is an official subscription-based server hosting service that allows players to create and manage their own private Minecraft servers. Hosted by Mojang, Realms provides an easy and fast way to create servers and allows the owner to manage them from inside the game, without prior knowledge of the concepts for hosting on the Internet. However, Realms are not intended for large public servers, but for groups of friends or as a family server. Private Realms servers are easy to set up and available 24/7 as long as the owner pays for it.

Bedrock Edition


The Bedrock Edition (also known as the Bedrock Platform, Bedrock Codebase or Bedrock Engine) refers to the multi-platform family of editions of Minecraft developed by Mojang AB and Xbox Game Studios. Prior to this term, as the engine originated with Pocket Edition, this entire product family has been referred to using as "Pocket Edition", "MCPE", or "Pocket/Windows 10 Edition".

Minecraft, with no subtitle, is the title of all Bedrock editions of Minecraft. Before the Better Together Update, it had different subtitles on different platforms including Pocket Edition (for all mobile platforms), Windows 10 Edition, Gear VR Edition, and Fire TV Edition.

The Bedrock Edition was initially launched exclusively for the Xperia PLAY on Google Play for US $6.99 on August 16, 2011. It was later released for other Android devices on October 7, 2011, and iOS on November 17, 2011. On September 13, 2012, the Pocket Edition was made available for purchase on the Amazon Appstore. The Windows Phone version was released on the Windows Store on December 10, 2014, for which the Pocket Edition 1.0.0 release and newer are only available for Windows 10 Phone and newer. Since then, four adaptations of Pocket Edition have been released; for Windows 10 on July 29, 2015, the Samsung Gear VR on April 27, 2016, the Apple TV on December 19, 2016, and the Amazon Fire TV on December 19, 2016. As of September 24, 2018, the Apple TV Edition has been discontinued.

Java Edition
The original platform for Minecraft, running on Windows, macOS, and Linux and started through the launcher. The game was initially released for an "early private singleplayer alpha" on May 16, 2009, followed by a number of development stages (notably Classic, Indev, Infdev, Alpha, Beta) with the game finally being released on November 18, 2011. The Java Edition has seen many significant updates since its official release.

Legacy Console Edition
Legacy Console Edition refers to the edition of Minecraft for consoles. The game had been continuously updated by its developers, 4J Studios.

The Legacy Console Edition was initially released on the Xbox 360 on May 9, 2012 followed by the unveiling on June 7, 2011 at E3 and the release date announcement on March 22nd through PlayXBLA's Twitter account. Console Edition was further released on the PlayStation 3 on December 17, 2013 (announced August 20, 2013), the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, the PlayStation Vita, the Wii U, and the Nintendo Switch. As of December 10, 2019, all versions have been discontinued.

New Nintendo 3DS Edition
Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition was released on September 13, 2017. It is a unique port developed by Other Ocean Interactive. It is available on the Nintendo eShop, but only for the New 3DS and New 2DS. Multiplayer is limited to local play. This edition was discontinued on January 15, 2019.

Education Edition
Minecraft: Education Edition is an educational version of Minecraft specifically designed for classroom use. It is developed by Mojang AB and Microsoft Studios and contains features that will make Minecraft easy to use in a classroom setting. The full game was released on November 1, 2016.

Other
There are a number of other versions of Minecraft. Minecraft 4k is a simple version of Minecraft in the style of other "4k" Java games (everything is packaged in 4 kilobytes) that Notch has entered in contests. The Pi Edition was a free ported version of the 0.5.0 version of Pocket Edition for the Raspberry Pi. which was intended as an educational tool for novice programmers. It allowed users to manipulate the game code and supported multiple programming languages, however was discontinued in January 2016.

Add-ons
Add-ons are the first step towards bringing customization to all editions of Minecraft and are officially supported by Mojang/Minecraft. Currently, add-ons are only supported on Bedrock Edition platforms, which includes the Windows 10, Gear VR and Fire TV editions. They currently allow players to transform the look of their worlds and change the behavior of mobs.

Resource packs
The game officially supports changing most of its various textures, sounds, and texts through resource packs. Resource packs must contain a certain structure of files and folders placed in the .minecraft/resourcepacks folder. Installed resource packs, as well as the folder which resource packs are placed in, can be accessed in the options menu. The extent to which the resources are changed is dependent on how many files are contained in the resource pack.

Data pack
Data packs provide a way for players to further customize vanilla worlds in a similar way to resource packs. Unlike resource packs, which modify the game's resources, data packs can be used to override or add new advancements, functions, loot tables, structures, recipes and tags without any code modification.

Skins
A skin refers to the texture that is placed onto a player model or mob. The skin is divided into areas that act as the surface area of the character (for example, the front head area, left leg area, etc.). A skin will only allow solid color; transparency is not allowed on the skin file except on the second layer, which is transparent by default; playing offline, pixels can be left free resulting in "holes" in the skin. The second layer can be used to give the character glasses, hats, or other accessories. Players can also change the arm size to be slim or normal. The slim variant is 3 pixels wide while the normal variant is 4 pixels wide.

Bedrock Edition
$$, there are many more types of skin customization. Players can add 3D custom hair, eyes, mouths, arms, legs and more. Players can also change the size of a character. Players can also get many different accessories for the skin. However, the player cannot do this with a custom skin and players can only do that with an in-game skin. Players can also buy accessories and skins $$. Having a skin that is smaller than normal or larger does not affect the hitbox size, but can still give an advantage in multiplayer servers because if how much harder it is to see them. Some of the skins also do not show their armor or hand-held items.

Legacy Console Edition
In Legacy Console Edition, the player cannot import custom skins, but they can use or buy already in-game skins. These skins are able to have 3D accessories and the sizes can vary, but the player cannot choose them. The player also cannot change the arm size. Some skins do not show armor or hand-held items.

Java Edition
$$, there are no special features in the skins. This version has only the features listed in the first part of this section.

Capes
Capes are an extremely rare vanity item can be equipped to the back of a player. The player can have a custom cape using mods or hacks, but only the player or sometimes other players using the mod/hack can see it. $$, players start off with a cape that is not equipped by default. $$, some skins come with capes.

Capes will also flail around when the player runs. When the player equips an elytra, the texture of the elytra will change to an equipped cape.

Unofficial mods
Minecraft can be modified by replacing or adding Java class files to minecraft.jar $$. This method of making modifications is not supported by Mojang as it can break the game if the mod is outdated, defective, or in conflict with another mod. Some such modifications impressed Notch or Jeb sufficiently that they were added to the game and the authors were credited under Additional Programming. Some examples of mods being implemented into the main game include Hippoplatimus' Piston Mod and horses from Dr. Zhark's Mo' Creatures mod were added in Beta 1.7 and 1.6.1 respectively.

Third-party programs
There are many programs designed for Minecraft. These include 3D map editors and viewers, game modifiers, various informational programs (such as crafting recipes), and server wrappers, and other specialty programs. As with mods, these too are not supported by Mojang.

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang
Minecraft: The Story of Mojang is a 2012 documentary created by 2 Player Productions about the history and development of Mojang AB. It was directed by Paul Owens and produced by Paul Levering, Peter De Bourcier and Burnie Burns, with additional funding given through a Kickstarter campaign. The movie was announced on February 21, 2011, was streamed on Xbox Live on December 22, 2012, and publicly released on other platforms, including The Pirate Bay, the next day.

Minecraft: The Movie
Minecraft: The Movie is an upcoming live-action American-Swedish film based on the video game of the same name. It was originally being directed by Rob McElhenney and written by Jason Fuchs, but have now been replaced by Peter Sollett and Allison Schroeder. Originally planned to be released on May 24, 2019, it is now scheduled to be released on March 4, 2022.

Minecraft: The Island
Minecraft: The Island is a novel by American author Maximillian Brooks. It was published by Del Rey Books on July 18, 2017.

Minecraft: The Crash
Minecraft: The Crash is a novel by Trinidadian author Tracey Baptiste. It was published by Del Rey Books on July 10, 2018.

Minecraft: The Lost Journals
Minecraft: The Lost Journals is a novel by American author Mur Lafferty. It was published by Del Rey Books on July 9, 2019.

Minecraft: The End
Minecraft: The End is a novel by American author Catherynne M. Valente. It was published by Del Rey Books on December 3, 2019.

Minecraft: The Voyage
Minecraft: The Voyage is an upcoming novel by American author Jason Fry. It is scheduled to be published by Del Rey Books on May 5, 2020.

Minecraft Mini-Series
The Minecraft Mini-Series is an action/adventure animated web series based on Mojang AB's Minecraft. The series is produced by Mojang AB and Microsoft Studios in collaboration with Atomic Cartoons and Mattel Creations, with Christopher Keenan serving as executive producer, and premiered on October 26, 2017 on the Mattel Action YouTube channel, with the final episode being released on May 10, 2018.

Dark Horse Comics series
Minecraft is a graphic novel series based on the video game of the same name, published by Dark Horse Comics in partnership with Mojang AB.

Minecraft: Woodsword Chronicles
Minecraft: Woodsword Chronicles is a series of children's books written by Nick Eliopulos and illustrated by Luke Flowers and Alan Batson.

Minecraft: Story Mode
Minecraft: Story Mode was an 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, a Wii U release on January 21, 2016, an Apple TV release on August 24, 2016, a Nintendo Switch release on August 22, 2017 and a Netflix released on November 27, 2018. The game was developed by Mojang AB, the developer of Minecraft, in collaboration with Telltale Games. Music for the game was 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 significant effects on later story elements. The game is discontinued as of June 25, 2019 due to the closure of Telltale Games on October 11, 2018.

Minecraft: Story Mode - Season Two
Minecraft: Story Mode - Season Two was an episodic point-and-click narrative-driven graphic adventure video game based on the sandbox video game Minecraft, released in July 2017 across multiple platforms, with a Nintendo Switch release on November 6, 2018. The game was developed by Mojang AB, the developer of Minecraft, in collaboration with Telltale Games. Music for the game was 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 significant effects on later story elements. The game is discontinued as of June 25, 2019 due to the closure of Telltale Games on October 11, 2018.

Minecraft Dungeons
Minecraft Dungeons is an upcoming action/adventure role-playing game developed by Mojang AB, Xbox Game Studios and Double Eleven. It is slated for a April 2020 release for PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 and Xbox One.

Minecraft Earth
Minecraft Earth is an augmented reality mobile game.

LEGO Minecraft
In December 2011, Mojang submitted the concept of Minecraft merchandise to LEGO for the Lego Cuusoo program, from which it quickly received 10,000 votes by users, prompting LEGO to review the concept. On January 24, 2012, LEGO Cuusoo announced the concept was approved and they would develop sets based around Minecraft. In February 2012, the first LEGO Minecraft set of Micro World was showcased and made available for pre-orders, with a release set for mid-2012.

Minecraft Books
The Official Minecraft Books are a series of guidebooks for Minecraft, written for new and inexperienced players while being high-quality enough for collectors. The books are written by various authors; a few of them being well-known Minecraft personalities such as Jordan Maron and Paul Soares Jr. Originally published by Scholastic beginning in 2013, publishing rights were later transferred to Del Rey Books in 2016, who have continued publishing various Minecraft books to this day.

Awards


Since release Minecraft has won numerous awards including:
 * PC Gamer's "Game of the Year"
 * Independent Games Festival's Grand Prize and "Audience Award"
 * Good Game's "Best Downloadable Game of 2010"
 * Rock Paper Shotgun's "Game of the Year"
 * Indie DB's "Indie of the Year", "Most Innovative and Best Singleplayer Indie"
 * Game Developers Choice Awards's "Best Debut Game", "Best Downloadable Game" and "Most Innovative Game Award"

References in popular culture
Many references have been made in culture in response to the popularity of Minecraft, this includes many memes and also references in these video games, TV shows and movies.

Video games

 * In Super Meat Boy, Steve? is an unlockable character. He is known as Mr. Minecraft in this game.
 * In Battlefield Heroes, players could get a Royal Minecraft T-Shirt or a National Minecraft T-Shirt from the 29th to the 31st of July, 2011.
 * In Team Fortress 2, there is a hat called Top Notch that resembles Notch's avatar in a cubic form. Notch is the only person to have this hat.
 * In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Binding of Isaac, an item called the "Notched Pickaxe" can be found and used, referencing the game's creator Notch, and the pickaxes which feature prominently in Minecraft.
 * In ChopLifter HD, there is a hidden island with Steve and chickens in the "Operation Charlie Takedown" mission. When he is saved, players unlock an in-game achievement. It should be noted that Steve is called "Blockhead" in this game.
 * In the PlayStation 3 game, PixelJunk Shooter 2, there's a small Creeper in the title screen hidden among other enemies native to Shooter 2.
 * In Borderlands 2, there is a hidden section of the game with blocks in the style of Minecraft's stone and ore blocks, which are breakable. There are also enemy Creepers in this same area.
 * In Torchlight 2, there is an area called "Notch's Mine." In it are Creepers, that can be killed for loot. There are also hidden swords in the game with the same graphics as swords in Minecraft.
 * In Patch 1.13 of Awesomenauts, a new skin for the character Clunk was added known as Creeper Clunk. It is unlocked by killing a player using the Creeper Clunk skin.
 * A vehicle card in Dusk of D.A.W.N. is called "Mine Craft". The description at the bottom says "The Mine Craft is truly top-notch". Notch's Twitter picture is hidden on the card.
 * One of the many paths in The Stanley Parable will eventually take the player to a Minecraft world.
 * In Plague Inc, a popular multiplatform game, there is a chance a message in the news will appear with the headline: "Top notch mine opens in Sweden" and the caption "Miners and crafters look forwards to the opening of a new, top notch diamond mine which is expected to revitalize the Swedish economy". This is a reference to the value of diamonds, Notch, Mojang's headquarters in Sweden, and the game itself.
 * In Terraria, there is a wearable creeper costume.
 * In Stealing The Diamond, players need to choose "Sneak In" and use a "Pick". A creeper will show up and explode.
 * In Ark: Survival Evolved, Ovis will commonly make a variety of sheep sounds.

TV shows and movies

 * In season 17 of South Park, the 2nd episode depicted a kid teaching Minecraft to adults.
 * In the The Walking Deceased movie trailer, the Minecraft zombie sound can be heard at 0:30.
 * In season 25 of The Simpsons, the 17th episode had a couch gag known as SimCraft, complete with Bartender Moe as a creeper blowing up the house.
 * In Season 3 Episode 10 of Rick and Morty, the title characters mention or are seen playing Minecraft throughout parts of the episode.
 * In Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg), the opening scene in the Oasis shows a Minecraft planet.
 * In season 10 of Adventure Time, there is a complete episode named Diamonds and Lemons shows the characters in a Minecraft-like universe.