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Minecraft is a popular game that focuses on creativity, building, exploring, and surviving

Minecraft is a popular game that focuses on creativity, building, exploring, and surviving

Vote: (24,874 votes)

Program license: Paid

Developer: Mojang

Version: 1.20.62

Works under: Windows

Also available for Mac Android

Vote:

Program license

(24,874 votes)

Paid

Developer

Version

Mojang

1.20.62

Works under:

Also available for

Windows

Mac Android

Pros

  • Over 400 materials to craft with, mine and have fun with
  • You can craft many diverse recipes and create tools, furniture and weapons
  • Diverse landscapes to explore and enemies to defeat

Cons

  • The lack of instruction can be annoying for new players
  • The game sometimes lags if there are many enemies around

Minecraft is an adventure and crafting game with a unique pixel aesthetic. This game has been around for many years and is still receiving updates to satisfy its large audience. You can make just about anything in this game with the large variety of blocks and crafting materials.

Aesthetic

Minecraft has a unique blocky aesthetic that brings much charm to this world. Every material you can find is a block. This includes trees, dirt, water, stone, metal and more. Even the people, animals and enemies have a blocky design that gives them a charming aesthetic. The blocky nature of everything also makes it easier to build the world of your dreams since you can stack materials on top of each other.

While everything might have a simple cubed look, the landscape is anything but small or simple. You have a large world where you can explore the hills, oceans and underground caves. This game maintains the same look regardless of where you are and it's one of the reasons why Minecraft has such a large following.

Mining and Crafting

While there is a story if you choose to dig deep enough for it, the main point of this game is mining, crafting and surviving. There are about 400 different materials in Minecraft. This includes everything from simple dirt and wood to rare gemstones and metals. One major part of the game is mining.

You'll start off with nothing but your hands. This is good enough to mine simple materials around you and you can build a simple house for yourself. The ability to mine allows you to collect materials, clear away blocks and to change the landscape around you. You can dig deep, create flat patches of land or build up the landscape however you'd like. Your ability to mine is limited until you start making tools like a pickaxe and shovel.

Crafting is another major part of Minecraft. You can put several material blocks together to create tools, furniture and more. At first you can only use simple crafting recipes. This all changes once you make the Crafting Table. This allows you to use more blocks simultaneously for advanced recipes. Crafting helps with survival, mining and enhances how much you can do with the game.

Survival is another major part of Minecraft. You must eat food to survive. You can find vegetables or hunt local animals for meat. You must also survive against enemies. While there are some enemies here and there, you will notice much more once the sun sets as you dig deeper underground. There are many monsters that will come after you. You can craft weapons and armor to improve your chances of survival.

Build Anything

Minecraft has hundreds of materials that you can use. At first you'll just be able to a simple house from dirt and wood. As you play, you'll notice your crafting gets better and your ability to mine stronger and rarer materials gets easier. You'll be able to make houses with doors, windows, pressure plates and more. There are even some materials that act like electricity that can power simple machines.

Many advanced players have created functional calculators and extensive labyrinths with the simple materials here. You can literally build just about anything once you grasp how the materials work. This includes functional machines and traps that improve your survival to creative projects to test how versatile this game is. Many players create farms to get as much food and materials as they want.

Lack of Instructions

Minecraft is all about exploration and figuring out the world. While this game has a huge audience, many new players dislike the complete lack of instructions. You aren't told how to do anything. The game doesn't tell you how to collect food, mine materials, use blocks, craft items or anything else. You won't know certain features are there unless you hit every key on your keyboard or just happen to figure it out by yourself.

While this is fun to a degree because you'll experience the thrill of discovery, it can also be annoying because even basic features are hidden from you. If you're willing to stick around and love figuring things out, then you'll find that Minecraft is a surprisingly complex game with many features and ways to play. You can also read guides about basic features and crafting recipes. The Minecraft community is always creating new guides to help players learn more about this game.

Diverse Landscapes and Mystical Crafting

There are many different landscapes and areas that you can explore. While you start off in a forest you can also find mountains, oceans, mesas, villages, caves, volcanoes and so much more. Not only that, but you can dig through the landscape to find other landscapes below the surface. There are also various creatures and people that you'll find while exploring the extremely large map. This is a game that will keep you engaged as there is always something new to explore or discover.

The enemies are diverse as well. There are creepers that explode if they get too close, skeletons that can use weapons against you, giant spiders and even zombies. While they will be scary at first, you'll likely be hunting them as you level up because they can hold rare crafting materials that you need.

There are also mystical crafting recipes that can improve your existing equipment. This can make them stronger, improve durability and so much more. You likely won't need these recipes until much later in the game, but they help you fight against the hardest enemies in the game.

Online Worlds

You can play by yourself and build your own world, or you can play online and join the worlds that other people have created. This allows you to explore new areas and to see what other people have created in this game. Joining another world is simple as long as you have a good internet connection. You can find many players online seeking new people to explore their creations.

Pros

  • Over 400 materials to craft with, mine and have fun with
  • You can craft many diverse recipes and create tools, furniture and weapons
  • Diverse landscapes to explore and enemies to defeat

Cons

  • The lack of instruction can be annoying for new players
  • The game sometimes lags if there are many enemies around

Pros

  • Highly Creative Premise
  • Large Environments
  • Total In-Game Freedom

Cons

  • Some Connection Issues
  • No In-Game Tutorials

Minecraft is a unique video game that combines open-world exploration, survival strategies, and player creativity. The world is made of blocks for a pixelated effect, and dangerous beasts emerge into the world at night. You can play with others online or build your own solo adventure with any structure you can imagine.

Over the years, Minecraft has changed quite a bit. However, the core essence of the game has remained the same. When you start a new game, you are dropped into a world that has been partially generated at random. In this world, you can mine materials by digging for them one block at a time. When you start the game, you only have your hands to work with, but you can use your hands to obtain wood from trees.

Once you've collected enough wood, you can make sticks and planks. This allows you to build a workbench and a shelter to protect you from the outside world. On your workbench, you can make more advanced tools and items. You'll eventually get to the point where you can create metal armor, weapons, and tools via smelting. All of these items are designed to help your survive and control the world around you.

The basic mode of the game is called Survival mode, and it's in this mode that you'll face dangerous monsters once the sun has set. It is possible to fight them, but you'll be better off taking shelter until daybreak. You can also play in the much more straightforward Creative mode that removes the threats so you can focus on building. Many younger players like to play in this mode since it gives them the freedom to create in a totally stress-free environment. Any child that enjoys building things out of blocks or LEGOs will enjoy the creative elements of Minecraft. Children can also enjoy Survival mode since it's rated for everyone.

One of the hallmarks of Minecraft is that you aren't given any details about what you can or should do in the game. Almost nothing is explained, so you have to discover most things on your own. Fortunately, there is a vast online network of players who have created numerous online tutorials and Wikis for the game. If you take the time to look through these resources, you'll see that Minecraft is much deeper than many would imagine. The sense of freedom that you feel when playing Minecraft is hard to find from other games.

The graphics of the game are strangely beautiful despite their obvious simplicity. It gives a sense of looking into an 8-bit video game world brought to life in 3D. Far-away landscapes are gorgeous in their detail, and watching the sun as it rises and sets is quite calming. Mining is made easier by the blocky nature of the world since it makes identifying materials faster and more intuitive. A basic soundtrack cycles through the day and night timeframe, and the game has basic sound effects that mirror the simplicity and efficiency of the visual graphics.

Pros

  • Highly Creative Premise
  • Large Environments
  • Total In-Game Freedom

Cons

  • Some Connection Issues
  • No In-Game Tutorials