Minecraft. It’s the independently produced game sweeping the globe. Critics are raving about it and hundreds of videos have sprouted under its name. But what exactly is Minecraft? Why is it so popular?
At first glance, Minecraft’s blocky 8-bit graphics, simplistic gameplay, and lack of a storyline surprise anyone on how it could possibly be so appealing. However, there is much more to the game than what meets the eye. Minecraft, at its diminutive two hundred sixty-three kilobytes file size, is packed with promise and potential. Minecraft’s world structure, crafting system, and unrestrictive gameplay will have even the most finicky of gamers enthralled in its design.
The premise of Minecraft is simple, yet capable of being challenging: to survive. Spawned in a random biome, the player must make the best of the resources around them to prepare for the danger-infested night that approaches. Chopping wood, mining for ore, attacking farm animals, and seeking refuge as darkness approaches are all part of this hurried procedure. And as the name of the game implies, crafting is a major element in Minecraft. The player comes equipped by a 2x2 crafting grid in which to make items from raw goods. The player must arrange certain materials into shape of the product adding a unique gameplay aspect. A workbench can be made and placed to expand the player’s crafting space to 3x3. Tools consisting of axes, pickaxes, shovels, hoes, flint and steel, buckets, compasses, clocks, and fishing rods can made to increase the efficiency of performing previous task as well as introducing new ones.
When night finally does fall after the player’s 11 ½ minutes of preparation, hostile creatures (known as mobs in Minecraft) will spawn. Swords, bows and arrows, TNT, and armor can be crafted to combat against these aggressive beings. However, they only appear in areas void of light so torches can be placed to deter their presence.
The mobs vary from the wall-scaling spider to the archery-skilled skeleton each dropping certain items when killed. If the player falls victim to the creatures instead, their carried items are scattered about point of death so storing valuables in a wooden chest is highly recommended. While many players enjoy having dangerous threats to deal with in Minecraft, there are some who prefer a more passive gameplay. For these players, a peaceful option is available to disable mobs and beds can be used to skip the pitch-black nights.
Minecraft is well-known for its complex world layout. Ecosystems (known as biomes in Minecraft) dot the map creating a natural presence about the game. Biomes range from forests to savanna with each having their own variable rainfall and temperature amounts. The majority of the Minecraft world consists of the rock layer, however. Deposits of ore and intricate networks of caves lay hidden below making the underground as much fun to explore as the surface. Ores can be smelted into metal ingots for crafting stronger tools and armor by utilizing a furnace. Certain caves contain dungeon rooms that hold reward chests for raiding. However, these dungeon rooms are guarded by a mob spawner that will endlessly spawn a specific kind of creature.
Minecraft contains many great features that make it enjoyable to play. The aspect of Minecraft that appeals the most and sets it apart from other games, though, is its freedom of creation and customization. Employing Minecraft’s rich circuitry, transportation, physics (applying only to certain blocks), blast damage, and mob systems, players can build and program anything they can dream of. The Minecraft community has constructed amazing creations of villages, roller coasters, waterslides, mob traps, TNT launchers, and chain-reaction devices. Players can also customize their player’s appearance, ingame graphics, and even enable 3D anaglpyh mode.
Unlike other games, Minecraft goes as far as to let players create modified versions of it by editing the JavaScript. Modifications can add new blocks, items, mobs, crafting recipes, devices, or even complete systems into Minecraft. Elemental arrows, beekeeping, coral reefs, fireworks, grappling hooks, NPC servants, shop systems, tamable horses, aliens, guns, planes, sushi, portable workbenches, and even a Minecraft “heaven” are just a few of the hundreds of mods produced. Those not knowing of how to program JavaScript can simply submit their suggestion onto the forums. Experts may be willing to take the idea onto the next level and turn it into a playable mod. Some mods have even been made into actual features ingame. A company and community working collaboratively to create the best game possible has many definite advantages.
Minecraft was crowned 2010 Indie of the Year due to its success. The Game Developers Conference awarded it Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game, and the Innovation Award. Additionally, it was given the Grand Prize and Audience Award at the Independent Games Festival. Over 2.6 million copies of Minecraft have been sold with over 10,000 still being bought each day despite it still being in its Beta stage.“Now that I think backward, I don’t understand why I didn’t realize this was going to be a huge success,” admitted Jens Bergensten, a Mojang game developer. Notch received the idea for Minecraft after playing Infiniminer with other members of the TIG Source forums in 2009. Without the help of any advertising, Minecraft soon became a cultural phenomenon using only word of mouth referrals and YouTube."If something ever doesn't feel fun, I'll remove it. I believe that I can combine enough fun, accessibility and building blocks for this game to be a huge melting pot of emergent gameplay," Markus “Notch” Persson, creator of Minecraft, stated.