Have You Discovered Minecraft?

Something happened last summer. My kids discovered Minecraft.

At first glance, it looks like a throwback to the early 1990's.  It's a very simple looking  game where players manipulate  blocks to build stuff. It's a sort of digital version of Legos.  However, for all it's apparent simplicity,  Minecraft is a wonderfully entertaining game to play, and a great outlet to express your creativity.

Besides just building, there is complex ability to create mechanical devices through something called Red Stone circuitry which is similar to wiring and circuits. There is also a complex array of things that can be built from raw materials through "Crafting". You collect simple raw resources, put them together, and make more complex things like dynamite for blowing through rock.

Another amazing thing about Minecraft is how it came to be.  It wasn't created by some big gaming company or some large studio. No, it was started by a single person with a passion for games. The person is Sweedish programmer Markus Persson.  He uses the alias "Notch" in many of his on line posting. Notch speaks about creating Minecraft on the minecraft web site. Here is a quote from his explanation.

"I realized that a game that simple yet that dynamic had a lot of potential to turn into a really great game, and kept coming up with things I wanted to change and stuff I wanted to add. I had recently quit my job as a game developer to be able to focus more on indie game dev during my free time, and I was looking for a new game to develop"

Not only is it an great game and a great story. It has generated a ton of money. At the time of this blog posting 3,379,564 users have put down the €14.95 to become a paying player That means Notch's little idie game experiment has generated over 50,000,000 Euros!

The game has also inspired songs and movies. For instance, here are some music videos that give some insight on what is inside the game. These also do a pretty good job of showing the basic concepts of the game and screen shots of what you'll see.



Not only are my kids playing the game, but they are singing the songs as well. This one gets a lot of play in my house as well. It's a parody of a Tiao Cruz song. Instead of "Dynamite", it's "TNT". Ben says "TNT is fun when you hook it to red stone and make TNT cannons".



Of course, what game is complete without a Lady Gaga Parody.



Feel like you are missing out on a whole event that was happening without you knowing it? How about this, a Minecraft Movie. I actually find this one especially entertaining. The movie has quite a bit more blood and carnage than you'll see in the game though.