Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox video game originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson. It is maintained by Mojang Studios, a part of Xbox Game Studios, which in turn is part of Microsoft.

From its creation, Minecraft was developed almost exclusively by Notch until Jens "Jeb" Bergensten started working with him, and has since become head of its development. It features music by Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld and paintings by Kristoffer Zetterstrand. Initially released as what is now known as Minecraft Classic on May 17, 2009, the game was fully released on November 18, 2011. Since its release, Minecraft has expanded to mobile devices and consoles. On November 6, 2014, Minecraft and all of Mojang Studios' assets were acquired by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion. Notch has since left Mojang, and is no longer working on Minecraft.

Minecraft focuses on allowing the player to explore, interact with, and modify a dynamically-generated map made of one-cubic-meter-sized blocks. In addition to blocks, the environment features plants, mobs, and items. Some activities in the game include mining for ore, fighting hostile mobs, and crafting new blocks and tools by gathering various resources found in the game. The game's open-ended model allows players to create structures, creations, and artwork on various multiplayer servers or their single-player maps. Other features include redstone circuits for logic computations and remote actions, minecarts and tracks, and a mysterious underworld called the Nether. A designated but completely optional goal of the game is to travel to a dimension called the End, and defeat the ender dragon.

Purchase and availability
Java Edition can be purchased from the Minecraft website. Gift codes can be bought for others, for the same price as buying the game for oneself. The demo version can be played for free.

Bedrock Edition can be purchased in the Google Play Store, Apple App Store, Kindle Fire App Store, Windows 10 Mobile Store, Windows 10 Store, Oculus Store, Fire TV App Store, Xbox One Store and Nintendo Switch Nintendo eShop.

Minecraft: Java Edition does not run on Windows RT tablets or a Chromebook.

The discontinued Legacy Console Edition can be purchased in the Xbox 360 Marketplace, PlayStation 3 Store, PlayStation Vita Store, and the Wii U Nintendo eShop.

New Nintendo 3DS Edition can be purchased in the Nintendo eShop, though the edition has been discontinued.

Gameplay
Main article: Gameplay

A newly created Minecraft world.

Player
Main article: Player

One of the two default player characters.

The player is the person that the user controls in the world. When the user starts a game, the player is put in a world, generated by a random or specified seed, with an empty inventory. If the bonus chest option is enabled, a chest filled with basic items generates near the player. The player has a health bar with 10 hearts, and can be damaged by falls, suffocation, drowning, fire, lava, lightning, cacti, sweet berry bushes, falling into the Void, falling anvils and being hit by mobs and other players. Damage to health can be mitigated by armor or Resistance potion and health can be restored by eating food and drinking specific potions, or if difficulty is set to Peaceful, health regenerates on its own. Hunger is also a factor if the difficulty is not set to Peaceful, depleting over time and even faster while sprinting, jumping or swimming. Food replenishes the hunger level; however, eating rotten flesh and raw chicken has a chance of giving the player a hunger effect. Depending on the difficulty level, a low hunger level depletes a player's health. A player can change their skin on the profile page of Minecraft.net or in the launcher

Blocks

Main article: Block

The world of Minecraft takes place within a three-dimensional grid of cubes, with each cube being occupied by a certain type of block (not all of which are necessarily cubic). There are different types of blocks; natural blocks such as grass, stone, and ores are randomly generated within the world. There are also blocks that players can craft, such as a crafting table and a furnace. Resources can be extracted from blocks by hand or by using tools. Some of these resources are simply blocks in the player's inventory that can be placed elsewhere, while others are used as material to create other blocks or tools. Others yield no practical use whatsoever. Some blocks cannot be broken through normal survival means, e.g. bedrock, end portal frames, command blocks, and barriers.

Mining

Main article: Mining

Various ores (in proximity of lava) that can be mined with a pickaxe.

Mining is one of the main aspects of Minecraft and is done to extract ore and other materials mainly from below the surface of the map. These ores include coal, iron, gold, redstone, diamond, lapis lazuli, and emerald. Mining can involve digging a hole from the surface or going down through a cave. Mineshafts create extra areas that may contain resources, since they are usually rich in ores.

Crafting and smelting

Main articles: Crafting and Smelting

A crafting table, used to create most of the blocks and items in Minecraft.

Crafting allows players to create new tools and blocks using items from their inventory. Subsequent versions often contain crafting recipes for new blocks and items. To craft, a player can use the 2×2 grid in the inventory or the 3×3 grid provided by a crafting table. Smelting requires a furnace in addition to fuel, and processes blocks into a more useful form such as iron ores into iron ingots.

Brewing and enchanting

Main articles: Brewing and Enchanting

An Enchantment Table with glyphs being absorbed into it.

Brewing creates potions from various ingredients and water using a brewing stand. They are stored in a glass bottle and then consumed by the player or thrown at other mobs to generate a certain effect based on the ingredients used to create the potion. Enchanting is also used to upgrade armor, tools, or weapons with an enchanting table. More powerful enchantments can be accessed by gaining experience and placing bookshelves around the enchanting

Mobs

Main article: Mobs

A creeper in a forest. Creepers stalk the player and then explode once they get near.

Mobs (short for "mobiles") are the animals and other creatures that inhabit the map. Hostile mobs attack the player while passive mobs do not. Neutral mobs attack when provoked.

The Overworld contains many passive mobs that may be killed for food or bred with one another; these include:

Pigs: drop porkchops upon death and can be ridden using a saddle.

Cows: drop beef upon death and can be milked using a bucket.

Sheep: drop mutton and 1 wool upon death and can be shorn to produce 1–3 wool.

Chickens: drop chicken meat and feathers upon death and lay eggs.

Horses: drop leather upon death and can be ridden using a saddle, traveling much faster than pigs.

Bats: ambient mobs that fly around caves.

Common hostile mobs found throughout the Overworld include:

Zombies: attack by melee damage.

Skeletons: have a bow and infinitely many arrows.

Spiders: jump large distances and can climb walls.

Witches: use potions.

Creepers: explode when near the player.

Endermen: tall, black creatures with purple eyes and turn aggressive when the player looks at them.

The Overworld also contains some rarer mobs that spawn only on occasion or in specific biomes:

Spider jockeys: a skeleton riding a spider.

Chicken jockeys: a baby zombie riding a chicken.

Slimes: spawn deep within the map and in swamplands.

Villagers: inhabit villages and can trade with the player.

Parrots: can imitate the sounds of nearby mobs.

Wolves: can be tamed by the player and attack enemy mobs if the player engages or is attacked by them

Mooshrooms: mushroom variants of cows that spawn in mushroom field biomes.

Some mobs can be found exclusively in the Nether, including:

Ghasts: flying mobs that shoot exploding fireballs at the player.

Zombified piglins: wield golden swords and attack in hordes if provoked.

Wither skeletons: tall, black variants of regular skeletons that wield stone swords and drop coal and, occasionally, wither skeleton skulls that can be used to summon the wither.

Blazes: shoot fireballs at players and hover above the ground.

Magma cubes: similar to Overworld slimes.

The End contains the ender dragon, which is the main boss mob in Minecraft and allows the player to exit back to the Overworld when it dies.

Withers are the second boss mob in Minecraft, and are created by the player by placing wither skeleton skulls on top of soul sand in a specific pattern. When spawned, they shoot wither skulls at nearby non-undead mobs.

The Nether

Main article: The Nether

The Nether.

The Nether is a dimension in Minecraft, accessible from the Overworld by a nether portal. It consists of five biomes, those being the Nether Wastes, the Basalt Deltas, the Crimson/Warped Forests and the Soul Sand Valleys: each biome has unique generation and terrain. It is populated by zombified piglins, blazes, ghasts, wither skeletons, magma cubes, piglins and hoglins.

The End

Main article: The End

The End.

The End is another dimension of the game where the player battles the ender dragon. The End is accessible by entering an end portal found in a stronghold. The End is composed of end stone and is inhabited by endermen. It also contains tall obsidian pillars on top of which are end crystals that heal the ender dragon. Once the ender dragon is slain, the exit portal is created in the center of the map, and an end gateway portal is created near an edge of the map, which transports the player to the expansive outer end islands.

Multiplayer

Main articles: Server and Multiplayer

PvP on a multiplayer server.

Minecraft multiplayer servers have developed to include their own rules and customs, guided by their administrators and moderators. The term griefer, meaning a player who causes grief, is a typical term on the Internet but has taken up its definition on Minecraft servers: a person who destroys or defiles other users' creations on servers.

Griefers are the reason many server administrators make rules, but this has been taken a step further with modifications to the Minecraft server and even plugin-based replacement servers such as Bukkit. Because of these plugin-based servers, new user-created features have shown up in Minecraft. This includes features like money, vehicles, protection, RPG elements and more. These features normally do not require modification to a user's client and can be accessed by using chat commands. With the default controls, the chat screen is brought up by pressing T.

One popular game on multiplayer servers is Spleef (a play on the word "grief"), a game where the player aims to make another player drop through the floor by destroying blocks beneath the opponent's feet. This is typically played in a designated area and is usually run automatically using server plugins.

Many popular multiplayer servers exist that may contain custom minigames or large Survival or Creative worlds.

Minecraft Realms

Main article: Realms

Minecraft Realms is an official subscription-based server hosting service that allows players to create and manage their own private Minecraft servers. Hosted by Mojang Studios, Realms provides an easy and fast way to create servers and allows the owner to manage them from inside the game, without prior knowledge of the concepts for hosting on the Internet. However, Realms are not intended for large public servers, but for groups of friends or as a family server. Private Realms servers are easy to set up and available 24/7 as long as the owner pays for it.

Editions Bedrock Edition

Main article: Bedrock Edition

Notch with the Pocket Edition of Minecraft.

The Bedrock Edition (also known as the Bedrock Platform, Bedrock Codebase or Bedrock Engine) refers to the multi-platform family of editions of Minecraft developed by Mojang Studios and Xbox Game Studios. Prior to this term, as the engine originated with Pocket Edition, this entire product family has been referred to using as "Pocket Edition", "MCPE", or "Pocket/Windows 10 Edition".

Minecraft, with no subtitle, is the title of all Bedrock editions of Minecraft. Before the Better Together Update, it had different subtitles on different platforms including Pocket Edition (for all mobile platforms), Windows 10 Edition, Gear VR Edition, and Fire TV Edition.

The Bedrock Edition was initially launched exclusively for the Xperia PLAY on Google Play for US$6.99 on August 16, 2011. It was later released for other Android devices on October 7, 2011, and iOS on November 17, 2011. On September 13, 2012, the Pocket Edition was made available for purchase on the Amazon Appstore. The Windows Phone version was released on the Windows Store on December 10, 2014, for which the Pocket Edition 1.0.0 release and newer are available only for Windows 10 Phone and newer. Since then, four adaptations of Pocket Edition have been released; for Windows 10 on July 29, 2015, the Samsung Gear VR on April 27, 2016, the Apple TV on December 19, 2016, and the Amazon Fire TV on December 19, 2016. As of September 24, 2018, the Apple TV Edition has been discontinued. Java Edition

Main article: Java Edition

The original platform for Minecraft, running on Windows, macOS, and Linux and started through the launcher. The game was initially released for an "early private singleplayer alpha" on May 16, 2009, followed by several development stages (notably Classic, Indev, Infdev, Alpha, Beta) with the game finally being released on November 18, 2011. The Java Edition has seen many significant updates since its official release.

Legacy Console Edition

Main article: Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition refers to the edition of Minecraft for consoles. The game had been continuously updated by its developers, 4J Studios.

The Legacy Console Edition was initially released on the Xbox 360 on May 9, 2012 followed by the unveiling on June 7, 2011 at E3 and the release date announcement on March 22nd through PlayXBLA's Twitter account. Console Edition was further released on the PlayStation 3 on December 17, 2013 (announced August 20, 2013), the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, the PlayStation Vita, the Wii U, and the Nintendo Switch. As of December 10, 2019, all versions have been discontinued.

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

Main article: New Nintendo 3DS Edition

Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition was released on September 13, 2017. It is a unique port developed by Other Ocean Interactive. It is available on the Nintendo eShop, but only for the New 3DS and New 2DS. Multiplayer is limited to local play. This edition was discontinued on January 15, 2019.

Education Edition

Main article: Education Edition

Minecraft: Education Edition is an educational version of Minecraft specifically designed for classroom use. It is developed by Mojang AB and Xbox Game Studios and contains features that make Minecraft easy to use in a classroom setting. The full game was released on November 1, 2016.

Other

There are a number of other versions of Minecraft. Minecraft 4k is a simple version of Minecraft in the style of other "4k" Java games (everything is packaged in 4 kilobytes) that Notch has entered in contests. The Pi Edition was a free ported version of the 0.5.0 version of Pocket Edition for the Raspberry Pi, which was intended as an educational tool for novice programmers. It allowed users to manipulate the game code and supported multiple programming languages, however was discontinued in January 2016.