Even those who have never been interested in or never played Minecraft have probably heard of this unusual and fascinating game for children and adults. The construction game first appeared as an indie project, allowing players to create a huge world from cubes. It has become incredibly popular and gained fans all over the world.
The creator is the Swedish programmer Markus Persson, who wrote Minecraft in Java. The first version appeared in 2009, but it had many bugs and flaws. A stable game, distributed through Persson’s official website, was released in 2011.
The game world and the plot
Minecraft is a game where the player’s actions are limited solely by his imagination. There is no strict storyline, and gameplay is based mainly on improvisation. The primary task of the character is to survive, collect resources and build a shelter.
At the very beginning, the player can choose a number on the basis of which the system will generate a unique universe for him. The entire world consists of cubes or blocks of 16×16 pixels, and with the necessary tools, it can easily be destroyed into components and reassembled.
The character should extract and place at his discretion 3D blocks representing different elements of the landscape and resources – land, water, lava, ore, wood, and others, which makes the game similar to the LEGO construction set. The cubic world has virtually no limits and is divided into different biomes distinguished by nature and climatic features.
There are forests, swamps, plains, jungles, deserts, savannahs, and even tundra. The player can also go underground by building mines and tunnels. But you can’t dig endlessly. The world has a solid rock foundation that can only be broken in creative mode.
The player can get food and resources by gathering and hunting, or he can plant a vegetable garden and raise animals. A day in the world lasts about 20 minutes of real-time, and at night the character is surrounded by dangerous creatures and monsters.
Mode selection
There are three game modes, which differ in need to fulfill certain conditions and the number of lives of the character:
- Creative. This mode is for those who do not want to be distracted from the construction of their personal universe. In this mode, the character can move quickly in space and fly, with no need to earn experience points and keep track of health. Absolutely all blocks can be moved and changed.
- Survival. The mode allows a player to feel like Robinson, who first arrived on a desert island. The player gets experience points. He must monitor his health and try not to die of hunger. It is important to obtain items necessary for survival, build shelter, create tools, and avoid dangerous creatures as much as possible.
- Hardcore. It’s suitable for experienced players who want to add spice to the gameplay. It is the same survival simulator, only the character has only one life. After death, the created world will disappear along with the saved files, and it will be impossible to continue the game.
In Minecraft, there are single-player and multiplayer modes. Users can either survive alone or visit a friend’s world as a guest. In online mode, you can play together with friends on the same map. Players can create their own servers or directly connect to the game world via a local network.
Crafting
To create different items, the player has a special window in the inventory. The player has to put the collected ingredients in this window to make simple things. For more complex things, it is required to have a workbench used for making armor, weapons, and tools.
You will need a pickaxe, shovel, hoe, or axe to mine the ingredients. Each material has its own strength and damage rating. Iron tools will last longer than stone or wooden tools, so it is better to mine this material and build a smelting furnace. In addition, the player can brew potions to improve performance and restore health points.
Minecraft is recognized as one of the most massively replayable games in which players get maximum freedom for creativity. A significant role in the popularization and spread of the project lies in the players themselves, as they’re posting videos about the gameplay on video hostings and creating amateur modifications.
