Minecraft. What's Minecraft? It is sandbox, indie, video game inspired by Infiniminer. Ninety percent of all users playing Minecraft is on a personal computer (PC) or Macintosh computer (Mac). Breaking the compound word name into its components, mine is the ability to extract ore from the earth, and craft is a skill or ability allowing one to create a new object from raw materials. Together, it is the most addictive game I've ever experienced. Minecraft is only two years old and still in its beta phase. It has approximately 3.6 million users who have purchased the game, and customers are growing by about a million sales every quarter. Today more than 14 million customers have registered an account with Minecraft (Mojang AB) from all over the world.
Thirty-year-old Swedish game developer, Markus Persson also know as "Notch," started Minecraft development around May 2009, with pre-orders for the beta release game being accepted in June 2009. After a rapid initial success, Markus started his company, Mojang AB, and enlisted the help of multiple employees including Jens "Jeb" Bergensten, who became his design "right-hand man" for Minecraft. Its official release date is planned for the middle to end of November 2011.
The game involves players creating and destroying various types of building blocks, each based off of a one meter cubed measure, in a three dimensional environment. There are different types of blocks such as grass, stone, and various ores. Players can craft other items such as furnaces and crafting tables to help them to create and survive the environment. Blocks may yield resources that can be used to produce other materials; others yield nothing as of yet. The only unbreakable block is bedrock which is used to build barriers between Minecraft and the empty void of the digital world.
The player chooses an avatar (which can be personalized) and destroys or creates blocks, forming imaginative structures and fantasy-based artwork. Through singleplayer adventure, creative modes and online multiplayer servers, one can build communities and relationships with other Minecraft fans.
Singleplayer and multiplayer modes allow creation of new worlds that are generated randomly or by command using math algorithms. Five difficulty levels exist within the game from Peaceful to Hardcore. Each player has a health bar with ten hearts, and can be damaged by falls, suffocation, drowning, fire, lava, lightning, cacti, falling into the Void, and being hit by hostile mobs. Armor may prevent damage to health, and food can restore health. If the difficulty is set to Peaceful, health will regenerate on its own. Hunger will also become a factor if the game is not in Peaceful Mode. Food will replenish health, however eating Rotten Flesh and Raw Chicken has a chance of poisoning the player. Depending on the difficulty level, a low hunger level will deplete a player's health.
The basic strategy involves surviving the first "night" in Minecraft. Daytime lasts only eleven minutes within which a player must create a secure shelter by chopping down trees. There are no tools at first; one must use fists to punch tree blocks into 'craftable' pieces. Passive creatures that roam during daytime periods are pigs, chickens that look like ducks, cows, sheep, wolves (tamable wild dogs), and squids. Each of these animals drops useful food items or miscellaneous products like feathers, wool, leather, and ink sacs. When daytime ends, creatures of the night come in search of unprotected avatars for approximately seven minutes. These creatures, called creepers, are included in all phases of play and can destroy blocks and kill avatars. Creepers, one of the most notorious mobs of the Minecraft universe, sneak up on victims and blow up like a roadside bomb. The last sound one hears before an explosion is a long sizzle sound. Other monsters to avoid are Zombies, Skeleton Archers, Giant Spiders, small venomous spiders, Endermen, and Slimes -- all of which are capable of killing avatars. They surround the avatar's shelter and remain so that the avatar cannot escape without getting hurt. These monsters burn up like vampires when the sun rises (which lasts for only about two minutes) or they may scurry away and vanish.
One thing that will not vanish is Minecraft fans. Minecraft has won numerous awards including PC Gamer's Game of the Year, 2010 Indie of the Year, GDC's Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game, the Innovation Award, and IGF's Grand Prize and Audience Award. Minecraft stimulates gaming conversation, ingenuity, and the source of never-ending creativity, excitement, and fun. With Minecraft, if players can think it, players can build it.
