Minecraft is a sandbox video game released by Mojang in 2011. It features a procedurally generated world made out of blocks which you can destroy and place, featuring Survival and Creative modes.

Survival mode

Survival mode was added before Creative, and is the main focus of the game. One of the key parts of it is exploration and progression. You have a Hunger and Health bar. At full hunger you regenerate health, when you have no hearts you die. Each world you create has a seed, a string of numbers or letters used as a basis for generation. You can type it in yourself, or leave it blank and let the game generate a new one.

A clean and simple menu, which you are going to see hundreds of times.

You start with nothing in your inventory, and the game gives you hints on what to do. You start from hitting trees with your hand to get some wood, then craft tools, gear and anything you want using resources you gathered. The inventory has a recipe book, which gives you an idea of what you can craft.

You don’t get hurt for hitting trees, but there is a mod to enable that.

Progression is one of the main aspects of the Survival mode. You start empty-handed, but with time you get better and better gear. From wood to stone, to iron, and finally diamonds, with which you can craft the best tools and gear. There is also an enchantment system, used to improve gear you have. The game gets the more complicated the more you progress. Making a house out of dirt on your first day doesn’t take much thinking, but trying to build a mansion, or figure out how to make an automated farm needs time and planning.

Precious diamonds — the most durable resource for tools and gear.

The Minecraft world consists of Biomes — territories that resemble real life nature, each with its own purpose. Plains are great for building, because they’re flat and don’t have any mountains or forests that you need to destroy for your house. Jungle has parrots and cocoa beans for cookies. A biome system is what keeps you exploring, since you either have a preferred biome to live in, or you need a resource only found in a certain biome.

Biomes you can see: Plains, Forest, Desert, Tundra and far away Badlands.

The game has a Redstone system, basically wires that can be either turned on or off. It affects some blocks and has a purpose of automatizing doors, farming, killing mobs and even make traps for other players to walk into. If you are bored of farming — make a Redstone system do it for you, and in the end, you’ll have to press one button instead of running around your farm.

Turned on Redstone powder, a lever and an opened door.

Building and Creative mode

You can place blocks anywhere, and build anything you want. Houses, bridges, mansions, warships or real-life cities, the only limitation is your creativity, no pun intended. What’s great about building? Nobody forces you to build something huge and appalling, you are your own master and if you want to live in a box made out of dirt — it’s your call, and if you want to live on an island resort — it’s still up to you.

The world has NPC villages. You can build in them, fortify walls and protect the villagers. Or burn it… you do you.

Creative mode is for people who can’t be bothered to spend hours hoarding blocks to build. It gives you infinite resources, immortality and the ability to fly, making you the god of your own world.

The menu of the Creative mode. Pick and choose any thing you want.

Modifications

After hundreds of hours anyone gets bored of the Vanilla experience, and that’s when Modifications come to help. Thousands of mods for every taste, need and want. New dimensions, blocks, tools, mobs, complete overhauls of the game or small Quality of Life changes. Installing them is easy, and launchers like the Twitch application (formerly Curse) help you install them in a single click. Just know that here you can find mods only for the Java version, mcpedl.com is for the Bedrock Edition.

curseforge.com — the most popular place for mods of all kinds.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of Minecraft, composed by C418 is one of the greatest soundtracks ever made. Every track is memorable, inspiring and at the same time you forget it’s even playing on the background, while you are mining your second stack of iron ore, or building an enchantment room in your base. You don’t remember it’s even there, until it just stops, and you are met with silence.

The soundtrack became iconic to many, me included. I’ve played Minecraft back in 2011, when I was only 12 years old, and that soothing music was there, absorbing memories of hours spent playing. Every time I hear “Sweden” those memories of careless childhood come back to me, bringing a tear to my eye.

Is Minecraft really for me?

On 17th of May Minecraft became the best-selling game of all time, reaching 176 million bought copies. An impressive figure for a blocky pixel game, right? The secret is simple — everyone can enjoy it, no matter your age or occupation. Children, teens, adults and old people have something to do in Minecraft.

A saying “easy to learn, hard to master” greatly fits the game. If you don’t want to or can’t spend hours reading tips and tricks, it’s fine and you can still enjoy the game. In-game tutorials and achievements’ descriptions help you understand the game without having to use third-party sites. You don’t need to know how to brew potions, beat the main boss or be a genius with Redstone to have fun.

Achievements help you decide what to do next if you are lost.

The second reason for its popularity is availability. Minecraft is on PC (Java, Bedrock Edition), and Xbox, PlayStation, handheld consoles, tablets and smartphones (Bedrock Edition). Play the game in a bathtub, outside, at home, work break or on a beach, there are no limitations, just like in the game itself.

Conclusion

The ability to change your own world, a complete freedom of creativity, modifications and availability make Minecraft an excellent game and a great time killer for everyone. Every player gets his own world, experience and memories. The game grows with updates, adding more and more features every year. Minecraft’s community is helpful and welcoming, ready to give you some advice, ideas or what’s in need of improving in your world.