About minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox construction game, inspired by Infiniminer, Dwarf Fortress and Dungeon Keeper, created by Markus Persson, the founder of Mojang AB. The game involves players creating and destroying various types of blocks in a three dimensional environment. The player takes an avatar that can destroy or create blocks, forming fantastic structures, creations and artwork across the various multiplayer servers in multiple game modes.

Minecraft is available to players for €19.95 (~£17.21/~$26.90). Singleplayer and multiplayer, when purchased, can be played in the user's web browser, or using the downloadable client. Minecraft Classic is available to play for free. Minecraft development started around the 10th of May 2009, pre-orders for the full game started being accepted on the 13th of June 2009. Minecraft's official release date was the 18th of November 2011.

It's a game that half exists in the users own imagination, as such screen-shots and videos can struggle to give you an accurate representation of what it's like playing it.
It's like this; Right now I'm spelunking caves in a newly generated world, and I plan to link them up via tunnels to create a huge underground dungeon where I can store all my loot. Later I'll probably set up a mono-rail station above ground so I can travel by train to the various points in my underground network.

However at any point I can decide this is boring and build a concrete spider 80 foot long looming over my base. Or I could get bored of that and decide to see how much TNT I can stuff in to a mountain and detonate all at once. Or I can later decide that huge explosions are not for me and instead I will set sail at the first Lake I come across and start new buildings on its shore. Or maybe half way through the lake ride I could get bored and decide to pile sand in the middle to form my own personal island. Or I could change my mind and... and do whatever I want to do.

It's impossible to get bored playing, because you can decide at any point to do anything else in the game world. However minecraft is unique, because unlike other games where you have such a grand sense of freedom it is still quite challenging. At night monsters roam the world, and to get rare materials you have to dig down in to caverns containing unseen terrors. And unknown to you, that diamond seam you're happily digging in to contains a sizeable pocket of lava on the other side...