minecraft is a video game with several digital distribution platforms. It is created by Markus Persson, better known by his online moniker Minecraft, who released the game in May 2009. It is a sandbox game in which the player controls a blocky character that interacts with the game's virtual world by construction and crafting. The game has since spawned several spin-off video games, toys, films, books, and comics, and a build and competitive PvP server. The player must protect their home, known as a "Mineplex", from hostile creatures by digging or building walls.

The game has spawned a competitive multiplayer server known as dedicated to competitive survival gameplay known as The Survival Server. It has been praised for its distinctive art style and gameplay, particularly its Minecraft server.

Gameplay

The primary way of playing Minecraft is to create any item in the game with the traditional construction and crafting mechanics and can be combined with an infinite number of additional items to create unique combinations of previously non-existent objects. By exploring the game world players are able to discover and complete quests that can further enhance the basic building blocks for their Minecraft world.

Developed by Mojang and released in May 2009, the game's overall visual style, the player's character's skin tone, and its visual effects and music are created with the OpenSL ES and UnrealScript programming languages. Other features, such as the battle system and the way in which the game contains many small objects which can interact with each other, are designed using basic logic and algorithms. The game follows the player's actions and there is no immediate consequences when dying. In the PvE server of The Survival Server, there are no daily or weekly missions, but there are other activities available to engage in, such as exploring and finding food. Players start with a wooden chest, with a simple tool (axe, pickaxe, or torch) to use to create objects. The player can earn more useful items by completing quests.

Characters

In Minecraft, the player controls a basic blocky-style character that can walk, climb, dig, and hover. The character has one active health point (HP), which decreases each time the player gets hit. When the character is attacked, they lose their HP and are hurt. If the player is hit three times in a row, they will die and the level will reset.

On the game map, blocks interact with each other, the player, and with the environment. In battle, blocks will act like other characters in the game, with attacking enemies dealing damage to blocks, and blocks inflicting damage on enemies. The player has two health points (HP), which recharge at a rate of 15 per second. When the player is attacked, the screen is shown as a top-down view of the surrounding area. The player can see the entire map from that location and can use basic item management features to clear out nearby trees, foliage, grass, and stone obstacles. When the HP points are depleted, the player is in a "rushed" state and is attacked by any block and any enemy in that location. When in a "rushed" state, the character takes more damage, though they can use movement to avoid damage. When the HP points are completely depleted, the character will die and their level will reset to the starting point on the map, reverting the player to their original blocky character. When the player dies, they respawn at the nearest spawn point and receive experience points based on how many time they died.

There are no artificial limits to how high the player can be. They may not spawn on top of the roof of a building, and they are not limited to a certain height while standing on top of, or under, a rock. Because the game is physics based, jumping off of high places is not always possible and makes death almost instantaneous. Players may also be hit by the top of high buildings or trees if they are not careful and falling from the top of a tall building can cause a player to die instantaneously. By jumping onto and crawling into certain objects, the player may gain a short time of invincibility that increases with the number of times they are hit, allowing them to get a head start.

Minecraft features over 200 different blocks, including building blocks, gemstones, fruit, flower petals, bricks, wood, metal, clay, and more. Blocks can be upgraded by finding and selling crafted items or by obtaining better resources. In-game resources are often located underground, or in large containers such as oil barrels.

There are many different locations in the game. Some are inhabited by mobs, which the player has to kill. Other places are inhabited by crops, though some hostile mobs may wander around the farm. Other places can be explored and encountered by the player, but the player has a limited amount of time to explore the space before running out of health and having to return to the closest spawn point.

Players are able to find weapons, armor, accessories, and trinkets. Each type of weapon has its own advantage or disadvantage, and many weapons have special ammunition that can be found in rarer, but more difficult to find, locations. Some of the weapons are hidden in the game, and are otherwise inaccessible unless a player can access a specific location. Armor is worn over the player's regular clothing, and offers health, armor, speed, durability, and movement bonuses. Players can find loots, items found outside the game which do not normally exist in the game, such as a fish or an insect, or loots that allow the player to give themselves more hitpoints, higher health, faster projectile speed, or heavier armor. Some loots also provide player equipment. Players can find skins and beards to give their character a different look. Each cosmetic skin and beard can be worn with different hats to change the appearance of the character. Players can collect letters which spell out the player's name and receive a congratulatory message.Additionally, players can find red dye and tattoos which can be used to change the color of the player's frog, an item to give the frog a red skin, and a different frog's fur color.

The player starts with a single hat, which can be used to identify the player and indicates their current blockship.