Minecraft is a game I and many other gamers have been obsessed with recently, because although the graphics and gameplay are quite simple, there is something very deep and fun about a game with no real objective.

Minecraft was created in May 2009 by Markus Persson and is sold through his website Minecraft.net for about $15 Australian dollars….according to his site 708009 people have purchased the game so far (as of Dec 07 2010), so he has obviously come up with something pretty special.

Minecraft is essentially a survival game. When you start the game you are dropped in the middle of a map (which is up to 8 times the size of the surface of the earth) and are given no instructions, you have about 20 minutes (before night falls) to work out that you must build a shelter and create some torches so enemies can’t spawn near you (as they only spawn in darkness)….so the first thing you do is go and chop down a tree, with the wood from the tree you can create tools, sticks and a workbench…then you must find some coal, so you need to look for a cave and mine until you find some, you can then create torches, and begin to construct a house out of mined materials….if you are quick enough and survive the first night, you pretty much spend the rest of the game mining the world for minerals and creating forts and castles to protect yourself from enemies. The great thing about Minecraft is that you can create pretty much anything you wish…I have even seen a rollercoaster and a working CPU created out of switches.

The game is set in the first person which can make for some fairly creepy moments where you are mining and turn around just in time to see a zombie attack from behind, and a recent update has allowed you to make a portal to what is called the nether (essentially hell) which is full offire and monsters.

*Images from

everyview.com, 2k3.org, arstechnica.com and mediamolecule.com

Chris Thursfield