Minecraft facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Minecraft
Minecraft: Bedrock Edition box art
Developer(s)	Mojang Studios
Publisher(s)	Mojang Studios Xbox Game Studios Sony Interactive Entertainment
Designer(s)	Markus Persson Jens Bergensten
Artist(s)	Markus Toivonen Jasper Boerstra Kristoffer Zetterstrand
Composer(s)	C418 Lena Raine Kumi Tanioka Aaron Cherof
Series	Minecraft
Platform(s)	Windows, macOS, Linux Android iOS iPadOS Xbox 360 Raspberry Pi Windows Phone PlayStation 3 Fire OS PlayStation 4 Xbox One PlayStation Vita Wii U Apple TV tvOS Nintendo Switch New Nintendo 3DS ChromeOS
Release date(s)	18 November 2011 Windows, macOS, Linux WW 18 November 2011 Android WW 7 October 2011 iOS WW 17 November 2011 Xbox 360 WW 9 May 2012 Raspberry Pi WW 11 February 2013 PlayStation 3 17 December 2013 EU Fire OS WW 2 April 2014 PlayStation 4 WW 4 September 2014 Xbox One WW 5 September 2014 PlayStation Vita 14 October 2014 EU Windows Phone WW 10 December 2014 Windows 10 WW 29 July 2015 Wii U WW 17 December 2015 tvOS WW 19 December 2016 Nintendo Switch 11 May 2017 PAL New Nintendo 3DS 13 September 2017 EU ChromeOS WW 8 June 2023
Genre(s)	Sandbox, survival
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Minecraft is a 2011 sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios and originally released in 2009. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being fully released in November 2011, with Notch stepping down and Jens "Jeb" Bergensten taking over development. Minecraft has become the best-selling video game in history, with over 300 million copies sold and nearly 140 million monthly active players as of 2023^[update]. It has been ported to several platforms.

In Minecraft, players explore a blocky, pixelated procedurally generated, three-dimensional world with virtually infinite terrain. Players can discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, and build structures, earthworks, and machines. Depending on their chosen game mode, players can fight hostile mobs, as well as cooperate with or compete against other players in the same world. Game modes include a survival mode (in which players must acquire resources to build in the world and maintain health), creative mode (in which players have unlimited resources and the ability to fly), spectator mode (in which players can fly, go through blocks, and enter the bodies of other players and entities), adventure mode (in which players have to survive without being able to build and place blocks) and hardcore mode (in which the difficulty is set to Hard and dying causes the player to lose their ability to play on that world). The game's large community also offers a wide variety of user-generated content, such as modifications, servers, skins, texture packs, and custom maps, which add new game mechanics and possibilities.

Minecraft has received critical acclaim, winning several awards and being cited by some as one of the greatest video games ever created; social media, parodies, adaptations, merchandise, and the annual Minecon conventions played prominent roles in popularizing the game. The game has also been used in educational environments to teach chemistry, computer-aided design, and computer science. In 2014, Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property were purchased by Microsoft for US$2.5 billion. Several spin-offs have also been made, including Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Earth, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Legends.

Gameplay

Minecraft is a 3D sandbox game that has no required goals to accomplish, allowing players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. However, there is an achievement system, known as "advancements" in the Java Edition of the game, "trophies" on the PlayStation ports, and "achievements" in Bedrock Edition and the Xbox ports. Gameplay is in the first-person perspective by default, but players have the option of a third-person perspective. The game world is composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes and fluids, and commonly called "blocks"—representing various materials, such as dirt, stone, ores, tree trunks (known as 'Logs'), water, and lava. The core gameplay revolves around picking up and placing these objects. These blocks are arranged in a 3D grid, while players can move freely around the world. Players can "mine" blocks and then place them elsewhere, enabling them to build things. Many commentators have described the game's physics system as unrealistic. The game also contains a material called redstone, which can be used to make primitive mechanical devices, electrical circuits, and logic gates, allowing for the construction of many complex systems.

An example of Minecraft's procedurally generated terrain, including a village and the default skin Steve

The game world is virtually infinite and procedurally generated as players explore it, using a map seed that is obtained from the system clock at the time of world creation (or manually specified by the player). There are limits on vertical movement, but Minecraft allows an infinitely large game world to be generated on the horizontal plane. Due to technical issues when extremely distant locations are reached, however, there is a barrier preventing players from traversing to locations beyond 30 million blocks from the center. The game achieves this by splitting the world data into smaller 16 by 16 sections called "chunks" that are only created or loaded when players are nearby. The world is divided into biomes ranging from deserts to jungles to snowfields; the terrain includes plains, mountains, forests, caves, and bodies of water or lava. The in-game time system follows a day and night cycle, with one full cycle lasting for 20 real-time minutes.

Some of Minecraft's monsters, displayed from left to right: a zombie, a spider, an enderman, a creeper, and a skeleton. All are from the Overworld.

When starting a new world, players must choose one of five game modes, as well as one of four difficulties, ranging from "Peaceful" to "Hard". Increasing the difficulty of the game causes the player to take more damage from mobs (non-player characters), as well as having other difficulty-specific effects. For example, the Peaceful difficulty prevents hostile mobs from spawning, and the Hard difficulty allows players to starve to death if their hunger bar is depleted. Once selected, the difficulty can be changed, but the game mode is locked and can only be changed with cheats.

New players are given a randomly selected default character skin out of 9 possibilities, including Steve or Alex, but the option to create custom skins was made available in 2010. Players encounter various mobs, such as animals, villagers, and hostile creatures. Passive mobs, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, can be hunted for food and crafting materials. They spawn in the daytime, while hostile mobs—including large spiders, witches, creepers, skeletons, endermen, and zombies—spawn during nighttime or in dark places such as caves. Some hostile mobs, such as zombies, skeletons and underwater versions of zombies, burn under the sun if they have no headgear. Other creatures unique to Minecraft include the creeper (an exploding creature that sneaks up on the player) and the enderman (a creature with the ability to teleport as well as pick up and place blocks). There are also variants of mobs that spawn in different conditions; for example, zombies have husk and drowned variants that spawn in deserts and oceans, respectively.

Dimensions

Minecraft has two alternative dimensions besides the Overworld (the main world): the Nether and the End.

The Nether

The Nether is a hell-like underworld dimension accessed via either a player-built obsidian portal or one of the Ruined Portals randomly generated throughout the world. It contains many unique resources and can be used to travel great distances in the Overworld, due to every block traveled in the Nether being equivalent to 8 blocks traveled in the Overworld. Water cannot exist in the Nether, as it vaporizes instantly. The Nether is mainly populated by pigman-like mobs called piglins and their zombified counterparts, plus floating balloon-like mobs called ghasts. The piglins are considered particularly noteworthy because of their bartering system, where the player can give them gold ingots and receive items in return. The player can also build an optional boss mob called The Wither out of materials found in the Nether.

The End

The End is reached by underground portals in the Overworld. It consists of islands floating above a dark, bottomless void. A boss enemy called the Ender Dragon guards the largest, central island. Killing the dragon opens access to an exit portal, which, when entered, cues the game's ending credits and the End Poem, a roughly 1,500-word work written by Irish novelist Julian Gough, which takes about nine minutes to scroll past and is the game's only narrative text and only text of significant length directed at the player. At the conclusion of the credits, the player is teleported back to their respawn point and may continue the game indefinitely.

Game modes

Survival mode

The crafting menu in Minecraft, showing the crafting recipe of a stone axe as well as some other blocks and items in the player's inventory

In survival mode, players have to gather natural resources such as wood and stone found in the environment in order to craft certain blocks and items. Depending on the difficulty, monsters spawn in darker areas outside a certain radius of the character, requiring players to build a shelter at night. The mode also has a health bar which is depleted by attacks from mobs, falls, falling into lava, starvation, and other events. Players also have a hunger bar, which must be periodically refilled by eating food in-game (except in peaceful difficulty). If the hunger bar is depleted, automatic healing will stop and eventually health will deplete. Health replenishes when players have a nearly full hunger bar or continuously on peaceful difficulty.

Players can craft a wide variety of items in Minecraft. Craftable items include armor, which mitigates damage from attacks; weapons (such as swords or axes), which allows monsters and animals to be killed more easily; and tools (such as pickaxes or hoes), which break certain types of blocks more quickly. Some items have multiple tiers depending on the material used to craft them, with higher-tier items being more effective and durable. Players can construct furnaces, which can cook food, process ores, and convert materials into other materials. Players may also exchange goods with a villager (NPC) through a trading system, which involves trading emeralds for different goods and vice versa.

The game has an inventory system, allowing players to carry a limited number of items. Upon dying, items in the players' inventories are dropped unless the game is reconfigured not to do so. Players then re-spawn at their spawn point, which by default is where players first spawn in the game and can be reset by sleeping in a bed (in the overworld) or using a respawn anchor (in the Nether). Dropped items can be recovered if players can reach them before they disappear or despawn after 5 minutes. Players may acquire experience points by killing mobs and other players, mining, smelting ores, breeding animals, and cooking food. Experience can then be spent on enchanting tools, armor and weapons. Enchanted items are generally more powerful, last longer, or have other special effects.

Creative mode

In creative mode, players have access to nearly all resources and items in the game through the inventory menu and can place or remove them instantly. Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the game world at will, and their characters do not take any damage and are not affected by hunger. The game mode helps players focus on building and creating projects of any size without disturbance.

Other game modes

Minecraft includes other game modes such as spectator mode, which allows players to fly through blocks. Hardcore mode, available only in Java Edition, is a survival mode variant in which, upon death, the player may only view the world in spectator mode or return to the game's menu. Adventure mode is a survival mode variant with possible restrictions added by a creator of a map.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer in Minecraft enables multiple players to interact and communicate with each other on a single world. It is available through direct game-to-game multiplayer, LAN play, local split screen (console-only), and servers (player-hosted and business-hosted). Players can run their own servers, use a hosting provider, or connect directly to another player's game via Xbox Live. Single-player worlds have local area network support, allowing players to join a world on locally interconnected computers without a server setup. Minecraft multiplayer servers are guided by server operators, who have access to server commands such as setting the time of day and teleporting players. Operators can also set up restrictions concerning which usernames or IP addresses are allowed or disallowed to enter the server. Multiplayer servers have a wide range of activities, with some servers having their own unique rules and customs. The largest and most popular server is Hypixel, which has been visited by over 14 million unique players. Player versus player combat (PvP) can be enabled to allow fighting between players. Many servers have custom plugins that allow actions that are not normally possible.

Minecraft Realms

In 2013, Mojang announced Minecraft Realms, a server hosting service intended to enable players to run server multiplayer games easily and safely without having to set up their own. Unlike a standard server, only invited players can join Realms servers, and these servers do not use IP addresses. Minecraft: Java Edition Realms server owners can invite up to twenty people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at a time. Minecraft Realms server owners can invite up to 3,000 people to play on their server, with up to ten players online at one time. The Minecraft: Java Edition Realms servers do not support user-made plugins, but players can play custom Minecraft maps. Minecraft Realms servers support user-made add-ons, resource packs, behavior packs, and custom Minecraft maps. At Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016, support for cross-platform play between Windows 10, iOS, and Android platforms was added through Realms starting in June 2016, with Xbox One and Nintendo Switch support to come later in 2017, and support for virtual reality devices. On 31 July 2017, Mojang released the beta version of the update allowing cross-platform play. Nintendo Switch support for Realms was released in July 2018.

Customization

A smeltery within the mod Tinkers' Construct

The modding community consists of fans, users and third-party programmers. Using a variety of application program interfaces that have arisen over time, they have produced a wide variety of downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, items, and mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms. The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as mini-maps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media. While a variety of mod frameworks were independently developed by reverse engineering the code, Mojang has also enhanced vanilla Minecraft with official frameworks for modification, allowing the production of community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds. Players can also create their own "maps" (custom world save files) which often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play. Mojang added an adventure mode in August 2012 and "command blocks" in October 2012, which were created specially for custom maps in Java Edition. Data packs, introduced in version 1.13 of the Java Edition, allow further customization, including the ability to add new advancements, dimensions, functions, loot tables, predicates, recipes, structures, tags, world generation settings, and biomes‌.

The Xbox 360 Edition supported downloadable content, which was available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contained additional character skins. It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combined texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface. The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike Java Edition, however, the Xbox 360 Edition did not support player-made mods or custom maps. A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016. A mash-up pack based on Fallout was announced for release on the Wii U Edition. In April 2018, malware was discovered in several downloadable user-made Minecraft skins for use with the Java Edition of the game. Avast stated that nearly 50,000 accounts were infected, and when activated, the malware would attempt to reformat the user's hard drive. Mojang promptly patched the issue, and released a statement stating that "the code would not be run or read by the game itself", and would only run when the image containing the skin itself was opened.

In June 2017, Mojang released an update known as the "Discovery Update" to the Bedrock version of the game. The update includes a new map, a new game mode, the "Marketplace", a catalogue of user-generated content that gives Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game", and more.

Development

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson at the GDC in 2016

Minecraft lead designer and creative director Jens "Jeb_" Bergensten in 2011

Before coming up with Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson was a game developer with King through March 2009, at the time serving mostly browser games, during which he learnt a number of different programming languages. He would prototype his own games during his off-hours at home, often based on inspiration he found from other games, and participated frequently on the TIGSource forums for independent developers. One of these personal projects was called "RubyDung", a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress, but as an isometric three dimensional game like RollerCoaster Tycoon. He had already made a 3D texture mapper for another zombie game prototype he had started to try to emulate the style of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Among the features in "RubyDung" he explored was a first-person view similar to Dungeon Keeper but at the time, felt the graphics were too pixelated and omitted this mode. Around March 2009, Persson left King and joined jAlbum, but otherwise kept working on his prototypes.

Infiniminer, a block-based open-ended mining game first released in April 2009, sparked Persson's inspiration for how to take "RubyDung" forward. Infiniminer heavily influenced the visual style of gameplay, including bringing back the first-person mode, the "blocky" visual style and the block-building fundamentals. However, unlike Infiniminer, Persson wanted Minecraft to have RPG elements.

The original edition of Minecraft, now known as the Java Edition, was first developed in May 2009. Persson released a test video on YouTube of an early version of Minecraft. The base program of Minecraft was completed by Persson over a weekend in that month and a private testing was released on TigIRC on 16 May 2009. The game was first released to the public on 17 May 2009 as a developmental release on TIGSource forums. Persson updated the game based on feedback from the forums. This version later became known as the Classic version. Further developmental phases dubbed as Survival Test, Indev, and Infdev were released in 2009 and 2010.

The first major update, dubbed Alpha, was released on 30 June 2010. Although Persson maintained a day job with Jalbum.net at first, he later quit in order to work on Minecraft full-time as sales of the alpha version of the game expanded. Persson continued to update the game with releases distributed to users automatically. These updates included new items, new blocks, new mobs, survival mode, and changes to the game's behavior (e.g. how water flows). To back the development of Minecraft, Persson set up a video game company, Mojang, with the money earned from the game. Mojang co-founders included Jakob Porser, one of Persson's coworkers from King, and Carl Manneh, jAlbum's CEO.

On 11 December 2010, Persson announced that Minecraft was entering its beta testing phase on 20 December 2010. He further stated that bug fixes and all updates leading up to and including the release would still be free. Over the course of the development, Mojang hired several new employees to work on the project.

Mojang moved the game out of beta and released the full version on 18 November 2011. On 1 December 2011, Jens "Jeb" Bergensten took full creative control over Minecraft, replacing Persson as lead designer. On 28 February 2012, Mojang announced that they had hired the developers of the popular "Bukkit" developer API for Minecraft, to improve Minecraft's support of server modifications. This acquisition also included Mojang apparently taking full ownership of the CraftBukkit server mod which enables the use of Bukkit, although the validity of this claim was questioned due to its status as an open-source project with many contributors, licensed under the GNU General Public License and Lesser General Public License.

On 15 September 2014, Microsoft announced a $2.5 billion deal to buy Mojang, along with the ownership of the Minecraft intellectual property. The deal was suggested by Persson when he posted a tweet asking a corporation to buy his share of the game after receiving criticism for enforcing terms in the game's end-user license agreement (EULA), which had been present in the EULA in the prior three years. According to Persson, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh received a call from a Microsoft executive shortly after the tweet, asking if Persson was serious about a deal. Mojang was also approached by other companies including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts. The deal with Microsoft was arbitrated on 6 November 2014 and led to Persson becoming one of Forbes' "World's Billionaires".

Since the first full release of Minecraft, dubbed the "Adventure Update", the game has been continuously updated with many major updates, available for free to users who have already purchased the game. Early updates frequently introduced gameplay-altering mechanics while more recent updates tend to enhance the game through additional content or tweaks to existing features. The most recent major update to the game was "Trails & Tales", which released in June 2023 and added new creatures, biomes, and items.

The original version of the game was renamed to Minecraft: Java Edition on 18 September 2017 to separate it from Bedrock Edition, which was renamed to just Minecraft by the Better Together Update.

The Bedrock Edition has also been regularly updated, with these updates now matching the themes of Java Edition updates. Other versions of the game such as the various console editions and Pocket Edition were either merged into Bedrock or discontinued and as such have not received further updates.

On 16 April 2020, a beta version of Minecraft implementing physically based rendering, ray tracing, and DLSS was released by Nvidia on RTX-enabled GPUs. The final version was released on 8 December 2020.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition

In August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released for the Xperia Play on the Android Market as an early alpha version. It was then released for several other compatible devices on 8 October 2011. An iOS version of Minecraft was released on 17 November 2011. A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang. The port concentrates on the creative building and the primitive survival aspect of the game and did not contain all the features of the PC release. On his Twitter account, Jens Bergensten said that the Pocket Edition of Minecraft is written in C++ and not Java, due to iOS not being able to support Java. However, there now exists a way to play Java Edition on both Android and iOS devices.

On 10 December 2014, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1. In January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition. On 19 December 2016, the full version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

Pocket Edition was remade into the Bedrock Edition in 2017, enabling cross-platform play with the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch Editions.

Legacy Console Editions

An Xbox 360 version of the game, developed by 4J Studios, was released on 9 May 2012. On 22 March 2012, it was announced that Minecraft would be the flagship game in a new Xbox Live promotion called Arcade NEXT. The game differs from the home computer versions in a number of ways, including a newly designed crafting system, the control interface, in-game tutorials, split-screen multiplayer, and the ability to play with friends via Xbox Live. The worlds in the Xbox 360 version are also not "infinite", and are essentially barricaded by invisible walls. The Xbox 360 version was originally similar in content to older PC versions, but was gradually updated to bring it closer to the current PC version prior to its discontinuation. An Xbox One version featuring larger worlds among other enhancements was released on 5 September 2014.

Versions of the game for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 were released on 17 December 2013 and 4 September 2014 respectively. The PlayStation 4 version was announced as a launch title, though it was eventually delayed. A version for PlayStation Vita was also released in October 2014. Like the Xbox versions, the PlayStation versions were developed by 4J Studios.

On 17 December 2015, Minecraft: Wii U Edition was released. The Wii U version received a physical release on 17 June 2016 in North America, in Japan on 23 June 2016, and in Europe on 30 June 2016. A Nintendo Switch version of the game was released on the Nintendo eShop on 11 May 2017, along with a physical retail version set for a later date. During a Nintendo Direct presentation on 13 September 2017, Nintendo announced that Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition would be available for download immediately after the livestream, and a physical copy available on a later date. The game is only compatible with the New 3DS and New 3DS XL or New 2DS XL systems and does not work with the original 3DS and 3DS XL or 2DS systems.

On 20 September 2017, the Better Together Update was released on the Xbox One, Windows 10, VR, and mobile versions of the game, which used the Pocket Edition engine to enable cross-platform play between each of these versions. This version of the game eventually became known as the Bedrock Edition. Shortly after, the Bedrock Edition was also ported to the Nintendo Switch.

On 18 December 2018, the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and Wii U versions of Minecraft received their final update and would later become known as Legacy Console Editions.

On 15 January 2019, the New Nintendo 3DS version of Minecraft received its final update, effectively becoming discontinued as well.

The PlayStation 4 version of Minecraft was updated in December 2019 and became part of the Bedrock Edition, which enabled cross-platform play for users with a free Xbox Live account.

Minecraft Education

Minecraft Education (known as Minecraft: Education Edition until December 2022) is an educational version of the game, designed specifically for use in educational establishments such as schools, and built off of the Bedrock Edition codebase. It is available on Windows 10, MacOS, iPadOS, and ChromeOS. It includes a Chemistry Resource Pack, free lesson plans available online, and two free companion applications: Code Connection and Classroom Mode.

An initial beta test was carried out between 9 June and 1 November 2016. The full game was then released on Windows 10 and MacOS on 1 November 2016. On 20 August 2018, Mojang announced that it would bring Education Edition to iPadOS in Autumn 2018. It was released to the App Store on 6 September 2018. On 27 March 2019, it was announced that it would be operated by JD.com in China. On 26 June 2020, a public beta for the Education Edition was made available to Google Play Store compatible Chromebooks. The full game was released to the Google Play Store for Chromebooks on 7 August 2020.

Minecraft China

On 20 May 2016, Minecraft China was announced as a localized edition for China, where it was released under a licensing agreement between NetEase and Mojang. The PC edition was released for public testing on 8 August 2017. The iOS version was released on 15 September 2017, and the Android version was released on 12 October 2017. The PC edition is based on the original Java Edition, while the iOS and Android mobile version is based on the Bedrock Edition. The edition is free-to-play and had over 300 million players by November 2019.

Other PC versions

Apart from Minecraft: Java Edition, there are other versions of Minecraft for PC, including Minecraft for Windows, Minecraft Classic, Minecraft 4K, and a version for the Raspberry Pi.

Minecraft for Windows

Minecraft for Windows is exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems. The beta release for Windows 10 launched on the Windows Store on July 29, 2015.

After nearly one and a half years in beta, Microsoft fully released Minecraft for Windows on December 19, 2016. Called the "Ender Update", this release implemented new features to this version of Minecraft like world templates and add-on packs. This version has the ability to play with Xbox Live friends, and to play local multiplayer with owners of Minecraft on other Bedrock platforms. Other features include the ability to use multiple control schemes such as a gamepad, keyboard, or touchscreen (for Microsoft Surface and other touchscreen-enabled devices). Virtual reality support has been implemented, as well as the ability to record and take screenshots in-game via the Windows built-in GameDVR.

As of 7 June 2022, the Java and Bedrock Editions of Minecraft for Windows were merged into a single title for purchase; those who owned one version would automatically gain access to the other version. Both game versions would otherwise remain separate.

Minecraft 4K

Minecraft 4K is a simplified version of Minecraft similar to the Classic version that was developed for the Java 4K Game Programming Contest "in way less than 4 kilobytes". The map itself is finite—composed of 64×64×64 blocks—and the same world is generated every time. Players are restricted to placing or destroying blocks, which consist of grass, dirt, stone, wood, leaves, and brick.

Raspberry Pi

A version of Minecraft for the Raspberry Pi was officially revealed at Minecon 2012. The Pi Edition is based on an alpha version of Pocket Edition with the added ability of using text commands to edit the game world. Players can open the game code and use the Python programming language to manipulate things in the game world. It also includes a scripting API to modify the game, and server software for multiplayer. The game was leaked on 20 December 2012, but was quickly pulled off. It was officially released on 11 February 2013. Mojang stopped providing updates to Minecraft: Raspberry Pi Edition in 2016. It is preinstalled on Raspberry Pi OS and can be downloaded for free from the official Minecraft website.

Music

Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. The background music in Minecraft is instrumental ambient music. On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack titled Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011. On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which includes the music that was added in later versions of the game. A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015.

Rosenfeld's music remained the only music in the game until in 2020, "The Nether Update" invited a new composer, Lena Raine. since then, Minecraft has invited more composers with Raine remaining as the new primary composer, such as in 1.18 "Caves & Cliffs" soundtrack, along with Kumi Tanioka, 1.19 "The Wild Update" soundtrack with Samuel Åberg, and 1.20 "Trails and Tales" Soundtrack, with the addition of Aaron Cherof's music. Gareth Coker also composed some of the music for the game's mini games from the Legacy Console editions.

Variants

For the tenth anniversary of the game's release, Mojang remade a version of Minecraft Classic in JavaScript and made it available to play online. It functions much the same as creative mode, allowing players to build and destroy any and all parts of the world either alone or in a multiplayer server. Environmental hazards such as lava do not damage players, and some blocks function differently since their behavior was later changed during development.

Around 2011, prior to Minecraft's full release, there had been collaboration between Mojang and The Lego Group to make a Lego brick-based Minecraft game to be called Brickcraft. This would have modified the base Minecraft game to use Lego bricks, which meant adapting the basic 1×1 block to account for larger pieces typically used in Lego sets. Persson had worked on the preliminary version of this game, which he had named "Project Rex Kwon Do" based on the joke from Napoleon Dynamite. Lego had greenlit the project to go forward, and while Mojang had put two developers on the game for six months, they later opted to cancel the project, as Mojang felt that the Lego Group were too demanding on what they could do, according to Mojang's Daniel Kaplan. The Lego Group had considered buying out Mojang to complete the game, but at this point Microsoft made its offer to buy the company for over $2 billion. According to the Lego Group's Ronny Scherer, the company was not yet sure of the potential success of Minecraft at this point and backed off from acquisition after Microsoft brought this offer to Mojang.

Virtual reality

Early on, Persson planned to support the Oculus Rift with a port of Minecraft. However, after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2013, he abruptly canceled plans noting "Facebook creeps me out." A community-made modification known as Minecraft VR was developed in 2016 to provide virtual reality support to Minecraft: Java Edition oriented towards Oculus Rift hardware. A fork of the Minecraft VR modification known as Vivecraft ported the mod to OpenVR, and is oriented towards supporting HTC Vive hardware. On 15 August 2016, Microsoft launched official Oculus Rift support for Minecraft on Windows 10. Upon its release, the Minecraft VR mod was discontinued by its developer due to trademark complaints issued by Microsoft, and Vivecraft was endorsed by the community makers of the Minecraft VR modification due to its Rift support and being superior to the original Minecraft VR mod. Also available is a Gear VR version, titled Minecraft: Gear VR Edition. Windows Mixed Reality support was added in 2017. On 7 September 2020, Mojang Studios announced that the PlayStation 4 version of the game would be getting PlayStation VR support in the same month. The only officially supported VR versions of Minecraft are the PlayStation 4 version, Minecraft: Gear VR Edition and Minecraft for Windows 10 for Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

Applications

The possible applications of Minecraft have been discussed extensively, especially in the fields of computer-aided design (CAD) and education. In a panel at Minecon 2011, a Swedish developer discussed the possibility of using the game to redesign public buildings and parks, stating that rendering using Minecraft was much more user-friendly for the community, making it easier to envision the functionality of new buildings and parks. In 2012, a member of the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, Cody Sumter, said: "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a CAD program." Various software has been developed to allow virtual designs to be printed using professional 3D printers or personal printers such as MakerBot and RepRap.

In September 2012, Mojang began the Block by Block project in cooperation with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft. The project allows young people who live in those environments to participate in designing the changes they would like to see. Using Minecraft, the community has helped reconstruct the areas of concern, and citizens are invited to enter the Minecraft servers and modify their own neighborhood. Carl Manneh, Mojang's managing director, called the game "the perfect tool to facilitate this process", adding "The three-year partnership will support UN-Habitat's Sustainable Urban Development Network to upgrade 300 public spaces by 2016." Mojang signed Minecraft building community, FyreUK, to help render the environments into Minecraft. The first pilot project began in Kibera, one of Nairobi's informal settlements and is in the planning phase. The Block by Block project is based on an earlier initiative started in October 2011, Mina Kvarter (My Block), which gave young people in Swedish communities a tool to visualize how they wanted to change their part of town. According to Manneh, the project was a helpful way to visualize urban planning ideas without necessarily having a training in architecture. The ideas presented by the citizens were a template for political decisions.

A yarn Minecraft sheep

In April 2014, the Danish Geodata Agency generated all of Denmark in fullscale in Minecraft based on their own geodata. This is possible because Denmark is one of the flattest countries with the highest point at 171 meters (ranking as the country with the 30th smallest elevation span), where the limit in default Minecraft was around 192 meters above in-game sea level when the project was completed.

Taking advantage of the game's accessibility where other websites are censored, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders has used an open Minecraft server to create the Uncensored Library, a repository within the game of journalism by authors from countries (including Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam) who have been censored and arrested, such as Jamal Khashoggi. The neoclassical virtual building was created over about 250 hours by an international team of 24 people.

Despite its unpredictable nature, Minecraft has become a popular game for speedrunning, where players time themselves from being dropped into a new world to reaching The End and defeating the Ender Dragon boss. Some speedrunners use a combination of mods, external programs, and debug menus, while other runners play the game in a more vanilla or more consistency-oriented way.

Education

Minecraft being played in an educational setting

Minecraft has also been used in educational settings. In 2011, an educational organization named MinecraftEdu was formed with the goal of introducing Minecraft into schools. The group works with Mojang to make the game affordable and accessible to schools. The version of Minecraft through MinecraftEdu includes unique features to allow teachers to monitor the students' progress within the virtual world, such as receiving screenshots from students to show completion of a lesson. In September 2012, MinecraftEdu said that approximately 250,000 students around the world have access to Minecraft through the company. A wide variety of educational activities involving the game have been developed to teach students various subjects, including history, language arts and science. For an example, one teacher built a world consisting of various historical landmarks for students to learn and explore. Another teacher created a large-scale representation of an animal cell within Minecraft that student could explore and learn how cell functions work. Great Ormond Street Hospital has been recreated in Minecraft, and it proposed that patients can use it to virtually explore the hospital before they visit it in real life. Minecraft may also prove as an innovation in computer-aided design. Minecraft offers an outlet of collaboration in design and could have an impact on the industry.

With the introduction of redstone blocks to represent electrical circuits, users have been able to build functional virtual computers within Minecraft. Such virtual creations include a working hard drive, an 8-bit virtual computer, and even a smaller-scale version of Minecraft that is playable and able to be built completely in survival mode with no external modifications. In at least one instance, a mod has been created to use this feature to teach younger players how to program within a language set by a virtual computer within a Minecraft world.

Another computational mechanic in Minecraft is the command block, a block that is only accessible in creative mode and can alter game logic. It has been used to create emulators for the Atari 2600 (including one by YouTube personality SethBling) and the Game Boy Advance.

In September 2014, the British Museum in London announced plans to recreate its building along with all exhibits in Minecraft in conjunction with members of the public. Microsoft and the non-profit organisation Code.org had teamed up to offer Minecraft-based games, puzzles, and tutorials aimed to help teach children how to program; by March 2018, Microsoft and Code.org reported that more than 85 million children have used their tutorials.

Clones

Following the initual surge in popularity of Minecraft in 2010, other video games were criticised for having various similarities to Minecraft, and some were described as being "clones", often due to a direct inspiration from Minecraft, or only a superficial similarity. Examples include Ace of Spades, CastleMiner, CraftWorld, FortressCraft, Terraria, BlockWorld 3D, Total Miner, and Minetest. David Frampton, designer of The Blockheads, reported that one failure of his 2D game was the "low resolution pixel art" that too closely resembled the art in Minecraft, which resulted in "some resistance" from fans. A homebrew adaptation of the alpha version of Minecraft for the Nintendo DS, titled DScraft, has been released; it has been noted for its similarity to the original game considering the technical limitations of the system. In response to Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang and their Minecraft IP, various developers announced further clone titles developed specifically for Nintendo's consoles, as they were the only major platforms to not officially receive Minecraft at the time. These clone titles include UCraft (Nexis Games), Cube Life: Island Survival (Cypronia), Discovery (Noowanda), Battleminer (Wobbly Tooth Games), Cube Creator 3D (Big John Games), and Stone Shire (Finger Gun Games). Despite this, the fears of fans were unfounded, with official Minecraft releases on Nintendo consoles eventually resuming.

Markus Persson made another similar game, Minicraft, for a Ludum Dare competition in 2011.

Minecon

Minecon is the annual official fan convention dedicated to Minecraft. The first Minecon was held in November 2011 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The event included the official launch of Minecraft; keynote speeches, including one by Persson; building and costume contests; Minecraft-themed breakout classes; exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft-related companies; commemorative merchandise; and autograph and picture times with Mojang employees and well-known contributors from the Minecraft community. In 2016, Minecon was held in-person for the last time, with the following years featuring annual livestreams instead.

See also

In Spanish: Minecraft para niños