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Minecraft
File:Minecraftlogo.gif File:Minecraft title.png
Minecraft Beta logo and main menu
Developer(s)Mojang
Publisher(s)Mojang
Designer(s)Markus "Notch" Persson
Jens Bergensten
Artist(s)Kristoffer Zetterstrand
(In-game artwork)
Markus "Junkboy" Toivonen
Composer(s)Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld
Engine
Platform(s)Java platform, Java applet
ReleaseClassic: May 17, 2009
Indev: December 23, 2009
Infdev: February 27, 2010
Alpha: June 28, 2010
Beta: December 20, 2010
Genre(s)Sandbox
Mode(s)Single-player, Multiplayer

Minecraft is a sandbox building[1][2] indie video game written in Java originally by creator Markus "Notch" Persson and now by his company, Mojang, formed from the proceeds of the game. The game is focused on creativity and building, allowing players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. The game is divided into two main modes – free Classic and paid Beta – where Classic is focused entirely on construction with unlimited material supply, while Beta requires players to acquire resources themselves, and contains mobs, player health, and additional features and items. The gameplay is inspired by Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper, and Infiniminer.[3][4]

The game is currently in development and Beta is the only continuously updated version of the game. Minecraft was developed for about a week before its public release on May 17, 2009 on the TIGSource forums, where it gained a considerable level of popularity. It has been continually updated and patched since then, and while it was still in alpha release, it garnered several hundred thousand sales and received critical notice and acclaim from many reviewers. It passed a million units sold on January 12, 2011,[5][6] less than a month after reaching Beta.

Gameplay

The core gameplay revolves around construction. The game world is essentially made up of cubical blocks arranged in a fixed grid pattern, that represent different materials, such as, dirt, stone, various ores, water, tree trunks, etc. While the players can move freely across the world, objects and items can only be placed at fixed locations relative to the grid. The player can gather these material "blocks" and place them elsewhere, thus potentially creating various constructions.

Minecraft has two currently available variants, Beta and Classic, both with single-player and multiplayer options. Classic is the earliest free version and initially featured only creative game mode with only building (block placement and removal) aspects of the game and unlimited block supply. The Classic was then split into single-player survival mode (referred to as "Survival Mode Test"), which contained monsters and a much greater variety of blocks and items available, as well as requiring players to mine their own blocks. As of Beta release, only creative Classic mode version 0.30 is available in single-player and multiplayer modes.

Classic survival mode served as the base for development of single-player non-free Indev ("In Development"), and later non-free Infdev ("Infinite Development") versions, each expanding the number of features. Indev and Infdev were later replaced by the non-free Alpha variant which continued to add features to the game, including multiplayer mode. As of December 20, 2010 the game entered into Beta. It includes music by Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld.[7] For multiplayer games, servers are currently hosted by individual players or groups; there are no "official" Minecraft servers yet, the only way to connect to a server is entering the hostname or IP address in-game.

Beta

File:Minecraft beta version 1 0 2.png
A screenshot of a randomly generated Minecraft Beta landscape

The Beta version of the game is a successor to the earlier Alpha version via a sequence of updates. Minecraft moved from alpha to beta status on December 20, 2010.[8] It is the only version of Minecraft continuously updated and is only available to users who have purchased the game. Beta is a survival game mode with both single-player and multiplayer variants playable as a stand-alone client and in web browsers.

The game starts by placing the player on the surface of a huge procedurally generated game world. The player can walk across the terrain consisting of plains, mountains, caves, and various water bodies. The world is also divided into climate zones ranging from deserts to snowfields. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle.

The player can acquire different resources and craft tools, weapons, armor, food, and various other items. By acquiring better resources the player can make more proficient items. For example, tools, such as axes, shovels, or pickaxes, can be used to chop down trees, dig soil, and mine ores. The game has an inventory system and the player is limited in the number of items they can carry.

During daytime different non-hostile animals spawn, which can be hunted for food and craft materials. Hostile mobs, such as spiders, skeletons, and zombies will spawn in unlit areas, such as during nighttime and in caves. Armor can help mitigate damage from mob attacks, while weapons can be used to kill enemies and other animals. The player has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from monsters, falls, or environmental damage (such as drowning or falling into lava) and can be replenished by eating certain food items, or by playing on the easiest difficulty, at which health regenerates by itself. Upon dying the player is teleported to the starting spawn point and items in their inventory are dropped. The items can be recovered if the player reaches them in time.

Complex systems can be built using the in-game physics engine with the use of primitive electrical circuits and logic gates. These circuits and logic gates can be implemented to create various systems, such as a simple door system to allow a door to be opened or closed upon the activation of a button or pressure plate. However, there is nothing restricting a player from developing much larger, more complex systems, such as a working arithmetic logic unit – as used in CPUs.[9]

The game world is procedurally generated as the player explores it. Although limits exist on vertical movement both up and down, Beta allows for an infinitely large game world to be generated on the horizontal plane, only running into technical problems when an extremely distant locations are reached.[† 1] [10] The game achieves this by splitting the game world data into smaller sections, called "chunks", only created or loaded into memory when the player is nearby.

Some multiplayer servers offer fan-made mods that enhance or change the gameplay, such as providing unlimited material supply, new enemies or weapons, or enhanced transportation systems.[11]

Classic

File:Minecraft classic.png
A screenshot of Minecraft Classic (single player)

The other Minecraft variant is Classic. It is only the game's base functionality, allowing players to build and destroy any and all parts of the world either alone or in a multiplayer server, without the need to worry about being attacked by computer-controlled enemies or avoiding environmental hazards like lava and steep falls. The player is given an unlimited supply of blocks with which to build and can place or remove any block instantly, regardless of their type. Some of the blocks are not available in Classic mode, and there is no environmental interaction. For example, in Beta mode, TNT will detonate after a few seconds of being hit, but in Classic mode, it will act like any other block and just break. Unlike Beta, Classic is free to play, though it is not updated. Players have created bots to help them build inside of Classic mode servers. One of the intended uses of these bots is replicating in-game structures. Classic is intended to be phased out as Beta progresses, leaving Beta as the only Minecraft game. An official version of the Classic server software is available from the Minecraft website; however, many fans have created their own custom servers with additional features, such as the ability to place water blocks.

Development

The developer of Minecraft, Markus Persson, had previously worked on games such as Wurm Online and as a game developer for King.com for over four years.[4][12] Minecraft development began on May 10, 2009, soon after Persson had quit his job at King.com in order to concentrate more on independent development.[4][13] Persson was inspired to create Minecraft by several other games such as Dwarf Fortress, Infiniminer, and Dungeon Keeper. He was still working out the basics of gameplay when he discovered Infiniminer and played with others on the TIGSource.com forums.[12][13] At the time, he had also been visualizing an isometric 3D building game that would be a cross between his inspirations and had made some early prototypes.[4][14] Infiniminer heavily influenced the style of gameplay that eventually resulted in Minecraft, including the first-person aspect of the game and the "blocky" visual style.[13]

File:Minecraft Beta 1.0.2 crafting a stone axe.png
A screenshot of the Minecraft Beta crafting screen, showing a stone axe being crafted

Minecraft was first released to the public on May 17, 2009 as a developmental "alpha" release. Although Persson maintained a day job with Jalbum.net at first, he later moved to working part time and has since quit in order to work on Minecraft full time as sales of the beta version of the game have expanded.[12] Persson continues to update the game with releases distributed to users automatically. Persson plans to continue these updates after the release of the full game as long as there is still an active userbase.[13] These updates have included features such as new items, new blocks, an alternate 'Hell' dimension (accessible through construction of a portal) which Persson terms 'The Nether', and changes to the game's behavior (e.g., how water flows). Persson plans to eventually release the game as open-source after sales have dropped off and when he wants to move onto other projects.[12]

File:Minecraft netherscreenshot2.png
A screenshot of 'The Nether', an alternate dimension which Persson added in Minecraft Alpha version 1.2

In September 2010 Persson announced that he and a friend were starting a video game company, Mojang, with the money earned from Minecraft. This company was intended to back the development of Minecraft and an unrelated game, Scrolls, which his friend would primarily work on. As part of creating the company, Persson has hired "an artist, a web site developer, and a business guy", additional programmers, and established an office in Stockholm.[15][16] Although Persson plans to spend the majority of his time working on Minecraft while his partner spends the majority of his time working on the other game, he says that "everyone working at the company will be involved in both projects to some degree".[16] Persson said that part of his motivation behind hiring staff was that he felt he was spending too much time working on the website and reading emails rather than developing Minecraft.[16] The four additional employees hired in 2010 were Jens Bergensten, a programmer; Daniel Kaplan, the "business guy"; Jakob Porser, who will be working on the other game for Mojang; and Markus "Junkboy" Toivonen, a pixel artist.[17][18][19] The plans for Persson's new company were delayed by weeks when his account with PayPal, containing over USD $763,000 in proceeds from Minecraft sales, was frozen due to a "suspicious withdrawal or deposit".[20] On October 20, 2010, the official Minecraft website suffered a prolonged DDoS attack.[21][22]

On December 11, 2010 Persson announced, via his personal blog, that Minecraft would be entering its beta testing phase on December 20, 2010 and that the price would increase to €14.95.[23] He further stated that users who bought the game after this date would no longer be guaranteed to receive all future content free of charge as it "scared both the lawyers and the board." However, bug fixes and all updates leading up to and including the release would still be free. At the start of 2011 Mojang expanded to include Carl Manneh as a "managing director" and Tobias Möllstam as a programmer.[24]

Minecraft.net provided online systems to authenticate logins and host the player's profile including its modifiable character skin pattern and the purchased gift codes. On January 18th, 2011 Markus announced in a blog post that Minecraft's web servers would be switching to being hosted solely on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) content delivery network. Notch stated in his personal blog that their old help host was having trouble and that Mojang would be switching to using AWS as their host for both Minecraft.net and Minecraft's web functions such as logging in.[25] This was followed by a tweet the next day confirming the migration and that Tobias would be the one to setup the new servers.[26] Upon this hosting migration, both Minecraft.net and Minecraft game features experienced fluctuating down time.[27] On February 21, Mojang hired Dan Frisk to oversee the servers and backend for both Minecraft and Scrolls.

Currently, an official iOS, and Android version of Minecraft is being developed by new Mojang employee Aron Neiminen for release later in the year 2011.[28][29]

Reception

Minecraft has received favorable responses from critics, and has had notably large numbers of sales. On January 12, 2011, Minecraft passed 1,000,000 purchases,[5][6] less than a month after reaching Beta. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth.[30] As of March 7, 2011, Minecraft had over 5,000,000 registered users, and over 1,520,000 purchases.[31] In September 2010, after an impromptu "free to play" weekend, the game had a spike in sales of over 25,000 purchases in 24 hours.[32][33] The game has been praised for the creative freedom it grants its players in-game, and for how dynamic its overall gameplay is.[34][35][36] PC Gamer listed Minecraft as the fourth-best game to play at work.[37] A review of the alpha version, by Scott Munro of the Daily Record, called it "already something special" and urged readers to buy it.[38] Jim Rossignol of Rock, Paper, Shotgun also recommended the alpha of the game, calling it "a kind of generative 8-bit Lego Stalker".[39] On September 17, 2010, gaming webcomic Penny Arcade began a series of comics and news posts about the addictiveness of the game.[40] Video game talk show Good Game gave it a 7.5 and 9 out of 10, praising its creativity and customization, though they criticized its lack of a tutorial.[41]

In December 2010, Good Game selected Minecraft as their choice for "Best Downloadable Game of 2010" title,[42] Gamasutra named it the eighth best game of the year as well as the eighth best indie game of the year,[43][44] and Rock, Paper, Shotgun named it the game of the year.[45] Indie DB awarded the game the 2010 "Indie of the Year" award as chosen by voters, in addition to two out of five Editor's Choice awards for "Most Innovative" and "Best Singleplayer Indie".[46] It was also awarded "Game of the Year" by PC Gamer UK.[47] The game was nominated for the "Seumas McNally Grand Prize", "Technical Excellence", and "Excellence in Design" awards at the March 2011 Independent Games Festival[48] and won the Grand Prize along with community-voted "Audience Award".[49] At Game Developers Choice Awards 2011, Minecraft won the award for Best debut game, Best downloadable game and Most Innovative game award, winning every award in which it was nominated.[citation needed]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ In a blog post, Persson explains:

    First of all, let me clarify some things about the "infinite" maps: They’re not infinite, but there’s no hard limit either. It’ll just get buggier and buggier the further out you are. Terrain is generated, saved and loaded, and (kind of) rendered in chunks of 16*16*128 blocks. These chunks have an offset value that is a 32 bit integer roughly in the range negative two billion to positive two billion. If you go outside that range (about 25% of the distance from where you are now to the sun), loading and saving chunks will start overwriting old chunks. At a 16/th of that distance, things that use integers for block positions, such as using items and pathfinding, will start overflowing and acting weird.

    Those are the two “hard” limits.

References

  1. ^ VanDerWerf, Jacob (2010-08-09). "Minecraft: The Coolest Game You've Never Heard Of". FiringSquad. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  2. ^ McElroy, Griffin (2010-09-28). "Minecraft earned $350,000 in a single day". Joystiq. Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  3. ^ Persson, Markus (2009-05-26). "Credits due". Mojang.
  4. ^ a b c d Handy, Alex (2010-03-23). "Interview: Markus 'Notch' Persson Talks Making Minecraft". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2010-06-26.
  5. ^ a b Persson, Markus. "Minecraft – Statistics". Mojang. Archived from the original on 2011-01-12. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
  6. ^ a b Persson, Markus (2011-01-12). "Exclamation mark". Mojang. Retrieved 2011-01-12. Minecraft just passed one million sales.
  7. ^ Persson, Markus. "Minecraft". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-10-28.
  8. ^ Persson, Markus (2010-12-20). "Minecraft Beta". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-12-21.
  9. ^ Tito, Greg (2010-10-04). "Player Creates Working Computer in Minecraft". The Escapist. Retrieved 2011-01-04.
  10. ^ Persson, Markus (2011-03-10). "Terrain generation, Part 1". Retrieved 2010-10-24.
  11. ^ "Bukkit, Mod framework". Bukkit. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
  12. ^ a b c d McDougal, Jaz (2010-07-29). "Community heroes: Notch, for Minecraft". PC Gamer. Future plc. Retrieved 2010-08-03.
  13. ^ a b c d Persson, Markus. "About the game". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-06-26.
  14. ^ Persson, Markus (2009-10-30). "The Origins of Minecraft". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-08-03.
  15. ^ Persson, Markus (2010-09-28). "I'm sorry about the lack of updates". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-10-18.
  16. ^ a b c Persson, Markus (2010-09-06). "Hiring some people, getting an office, and all that!". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-09-06.
  17. ^ Persson, Markus (2010-11-19). "Introducing: Jens!". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-11-21.
  18. ^ Persson, Markus (2010-09-13). "Three man strong!". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-11-21.
  19. ^ Persson, Markus (2010-10-21). "Weekend activities". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-11-21.
  20. ^ Chalk, Andy (2010-09-10). "PayPal Freezes $750K in MineCraft Dev's Account". The Escapist. Themis Group. Retrieved 2010-12-21.
  21. ^ Crecente, Brian (2010-10-21). "Minecraft Apparently Under Siege By Angry Addicts Demanding More Updates". Kotaku. Retrieved 2010-11-26.
  22. ^ Bramwell, Tom (2010-10-22). "Minecraft hit by DDOS attack". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2010-11-26.
  23. ^ Persson, Markus (2010-12-11). "Minecraft Beta: December 20, 2010". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-12-21.
  24. ^ Persson, Markus (2011-01-03). "2011, here we go!". Mojang. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
  25. ^ Persson, Markus (2011-01-18). "The web server is struggling, we're migrating".
  26. ^ Mollstam, Tobias (2011-01-19). "Battle plan of cluster structure leading to world domination has been had!".
  27. ^ Mooring, Michael (2011-01-19). "When Minecraft.net was down".
  28. ^ Rose, Mike (2011-02-21). "Official Minecraft iOS, Android Release Coming Later This Year". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
  29. ^ Crecente, Brian (2011-02-21). "Official Minecraft Coming to iPhone, iPad, Android". Kotaku. Retrieved 2011-02-22. }}
  30. ^ Plunkett, Luke (2011-01-04). "Why Minecraft Is So Damn Popular". Kotaku. Retrieved 2011-01-12.
  31. ^ Persson, Markus. "Minecraft – Statistics". Mojang. Archived from the original on 2011-02-08. Retrieved 2011-02-08.
  32. ^ Persson, Markus (2010-09-18). "Free Minecraft until this gets fixed". Mojang. Retrieved 2010-09-21.
  33. ^ "24 hour sales peak". 2010-09-25. Retrieved 2010-09-15. [dead link]
  34. ^ Rossignol, Jim. "Building-block World". PC Gamer UK (204). Future plc.
  35. ^ Hindes, Daniel. "Trouble Down Mine". PC PowerPlay (169). Nextmedia.
  36. ^ Reinhart, Brandon (2010-07-28). "Is that an Equalizer in your pocket?". Valve Corporation. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  37. ^ Rossignol, Jim (2010-07-05). "50 Games to Play at Work". PC Gamer. Future plc.
  38. ^ Munro, Scott (2010-07-27). "Minecraft (Alpha Review)". Daily Record. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved 2010-08-03.
  39. ^ Rossignol, Jim (2010-08-10). "Chockablock: Minecraft Revisited". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2010-09-03.
  40. ^ Holkins, Jerry (2010-09-17). "Mine All Mine, Part One". Penny Arcade. Retrieved 2010-09-17.
  41. ^ Bendixsen, Stephanie; O'Donnell, Steven (2010-09-20). "Minecraft Review". Good Game. Season 5. Episode 32. ABC Television. {{cite episode}}: External link in |transcripturl= (help); Unknown parameter |transcripturl= ignored (|transcript-url= suggested) (help)
  42. ^ Bendixsen, Stephanie; O'Donnell, Steven (2010-12-06). "GG Awards 2010: Best Downloadable Game". Good Game. Season 5. Episode 43. ABC Television.
  43. ^ "Gamasutra's Best Of 2010: The Top 10 Games Of The Year". Gamasutra. 2010-12-23. Retrieved 2010-12-23.
  44. ^ Rose, Mike; W., Tim (2010-12-17). "Gamasutra's Best Of 2010: Top 10 Indie Games". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2010-12-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  45. ^ "The Games Of Christmas '10: Day 24". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 2010-12-25. Retrieved 2010-12-24.
  46. ^ "Winners - 2010 Indie of the Year Awards - Indie DB". Indie DB. 2010-12-24. Retrieved 2010-12-27.
  47. ^ "Minecraft – PC Gamer UK's Game Of The Year". PC Gamer. 2010-12-31. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
  48. ^ Carless, Simon (2011-01-03). "2011 Independent Games Festival Reveals Main Competition Finalists". IndieGames. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
  49. ^ "Minecraft, Amnesia Top Winners At 13th Annual IGF Awards". IndieGames. 2011-03. Retrieved 2011-03-03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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