Minecraft Wiki
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This article is about general gameplay in Minecraft. For instructional material, see Tutorials.
Beta

A sunset in a taiga biome.

Gameplay in Minecraft consists mainly of adding and destroying blocks in a randomly generated world. There are several different types of blocks, some of which perform special functions like spreading or falling down because of gravity.

With these blocks, players create large constructions such as castles, roads, buildings and skywalks, along with forms of artwork. A chessboard or giant picture rarely goes amiss on a server. Not only have users designed buildings, pixel art, and caves, but also mini-sports. Using the current in-game features, users have put them to clever use. An example of a Minecraft sport is Spleef.

Notch (The Creator of Minecraft) has added a Survival and Creative modes, and is planning on adding Adventure mode and other modes to give Minecraft more gameplay. Minecraft is currently considered purely a sandbox construction game. Users who have bought the game have access to the full version of the game. This version is as bug-free as possible, and the user can still get updates. Crafting, farming, new blocks, and a more configurable map generator are all included in this version. This game used to be in Beta, Alpha, Indev, and Infdev, until the 18th of November, 2011.

Game modes

Gamemodes

Animation showing the different game modes

There are multiple modes in the game and these are survival, creative, adventure and hardcore. In the level.dat, survival mode is gametype=0, creative is gametype=1 and adventure is gametype=2. Hardcore is survival with the addition of hardcore=1 (for survival and creative, hardcore=0). This knowledge allows hacking to change game modes by editing your world's level.dat.

Survival

Main article: Survival (Game Mode)

In this mode, players have to gather all their materials to build things, craft things and gain experience points. There is a health bar, a hunger bar, an armor bar, an inventory and, when underwater, an oxygen bar. Also you will lose health depending on the height you drop from areas or being attacked by hostile mobs. When playing in survival mode, you also have a choice of four difficulty levels raning from "peaceful" to "hard".

Creative

Main article: Creative

The player will have access to an infinite amount of all blocks and items available, and can destroy blocks and items instantly. Players are invulnerable and do not have health, armor, or hunger and can fly. There are mobs in the world, as opposed to the original classic version. The player can also spawn almost any mob. The player can not eat but they can drink Milk, Water and Potions.

In Creative mode, the only way for the player to die is by falling into the Void.

Adventure

Main article: Adventure

Players can interact with objects such as levers and buttons, and can interact with mobs. However, they can not break or place blocks, making this mode good for adventure maps. [1] Although this gamemode was released, it is currently not finished, many new updates and ideas are to come, but it still functions and users can play it if they have updated their Minecraft to 1.3.1.

Hardcore

Main article: Hardcore

In this mode, which plays in the same way as Survival mode, the difficulty level is permanently set to "Hard" and the map must be deleted upon the player's death. Hardcore was introduced as part of the beta 1.9 pre-release and is playable in the full version of Minecraft.

Technically, Hardcore is a game mode modifier rather than a mode. However without cheating it is only possible to get "Hardcore Survival". To attain "Hardcore Creative" mode, the player must edit the game world with external tools. There is almost no visible difference between "Hardcore Creative" and "Non-Hardcore Creative", because in Creative mode the only way to die is to fall into the Void. Because of this, "Hardcore" usually refers to "Hardcore Survival". On a server, if someone dies, they will be banned. If everyone on a server gets banned, the world for the server will be deleted.

Table of game modes

Below is a brief summary of the different available features in each game mode. This table also includes Classic, which is the older, free version of Minecraft.

Feature Classic Survival Creative Adventure Hardcore
Premium account Not required Required for multiplayer Required for multiplayer Required for multiplayer Required for multiplayer
Available Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Multiplayer Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Crafting No Yes Partial[a] Yes Yes
Smelting No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Brewing No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Enchanting No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Inventory No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Health No Yes Partial[b] Yes Yes
Respawn after death Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Block Placing/Breaking Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Mobs No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Unlimited Blocks Yes Partial[c] Yes No Partial[c]
Day-night Cycle No Yes Yes Yes Yes
  1. Crafting can be done from the Crafting Table. And since the update 1.3.1 also from a 2x2 crafting space in the 'Survival inventory' tab
  2. In creative, health is still there but hidden from gui, you can show this by falling into the void.
  3. a b In survival, there are methods to obtain unlimited amounts of specific Renewable Resources such as wood, cobblestone, and water. In addition, the vast map area allows one to gather plenty of anything with enough effort.

References

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