Minecraft is probably the single-most successful indie game in history. Originally designed by Markus "Notch" Persson and developed by the Swedish company Mojang, the game has sold 54 million copies across all available platforms (PC, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita). This makes it the third-best-selling video game of all time, trailing only Tetris and Wii Sports.
In the process, it has become something of a cultural phenomenon. Tycho of Penny Arcade has stated, "I have heard [Gabe] suggest that the game is crack, but it's more like all of the ingredients and equipment you need to make crack, which I'd say is worse." (). Even notoriously prickly game critic Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation seems to enjoy it:
Minecraft is a "sandbox game," meaning goals are largely self-directed rather than being driven by a plot. Upon starting Minecraft, you, represented as a blocky, bearded figure known only as "Steve?", are placed in the middle of a randomly-generated blocky world:
I wound up in a "Savannah" biome featuring rolling hills with long grass and acacia trees in this example.
Everything in the Minecraft world is represented by cubical blocks, such as, in this view, trees, dirt, sand, water, grass, and flowers. Some of these blocks can be crafted into other things. Blocks can be extracted and put into your inventory with the right tool (such as a shovel to pick up dirt).
Usually, one will start by "punching" a tree to break its trunk into woodblocks, then using the woodblocks to make, first wooden boards, then a "crafting table," which can be used to make more complicated objects.
The crafting table interface. Blocks are laid out in the 3x3 crafting grid to make other objects, such as, in this case, a pickaxe.
Your priority should be making some shelter, as Minecraft has a day and night cycle, and, after nightfall, monsters come out...everything from zombies to giant spiders, to skeletons armed with bows and arrows, to the notorious green "creepers" that approach you and explode, not only dealing damage to you but destroying everything in their vicinity, leaving a hole in the ground. You can get more wood and build a small building, dig up dirt with a shovel and use that, or dig deeper down to find stone:
Here, I've dug far enough down that I've now hit the stone, which I can dig up with my pickaxe.
Using stone and the crafting table, you can build a furnace, which can be fueled with wood or coal (when you find it) and gives you more options. For example, heating sand in a furnace turns it into the glass.
As you dig through rock, you will find ores of various metals, which can be smelted in the furnace to make metal ingots and then crafted into more items. You'll also need to worry about food, which you can either collect (such as by killing animals like cows, pigs, and chickens--make a sword to do this) or grow (breaking grass may yield wheat seeds, which can be cultivated). Eventually, by collecting and assembling enough exotic materials, you can create a portal to "The Nether," an alternate, Hell-like dimension with its own monsters, dangers, and rewards.
There is an ultimate "game" goal--to find and activate a portal to yet another alternate dimension, "The End," and defeat a massive dragon there--but many players never get that far, as the world is virtually infinite in scope (or at least very very large) and offers endless terrain to explore, mine, and build on. Many players build fantastic structures such as castles, towers, and pyramids to act as their "home base" globally.
Some players use versions of the game enhanced with modifications, or "mods," that provide additional capabilities, such as an on-screen minimap, a built-in guide to crafting recipes, or additional materials and recipes for new blocks. (As an example, the "IndustrialCraft 2" mod lets you build various types of electrically powered machinery, with electricity generated from generators, wind turbines, solar panels, or even a nuclear reactor.) Mods can alter the basic game in limitless different ways.
While playing Minecraft, you will definitely want to have a good reference handy, such as the. Happy mining! There are also several tutorials and YouTube videos to help explain things to you.
Hat tip: for the A2A.
(Recreate my sample world pictured above by using Minecraft 1.7.10, selecting "Advanced Options" when creating the world, and for the world "seed," enter "Virali Modi Hotwheels.")
Update June 2019: As pointed out, Minecraft is now the top-selling video game of all time! Good job, Notch and the crew from Mojang (now part of Microsoft)! Also, like mentions, Minecraft is now available for Wii U, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo DS. Plus, there’s a special version for the Raspberry Pi single-board educational computer that is scriptable using the Python language. (Not to be confused with the capabilities of Minecraft mods like Computercraft, which allows computers within the world that are scriptable using Lua.)
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