Above is an example Multiplayer Minecraft Survival Game

You’ve heard about Minecraft, right?  It, or its lightweight version–Minecraft PE–is probably the top selling app on iPhone and Android phones.  It is quickly reviving the PC game market since its full capabilities are only available on PC/MAC versions.  There are some 14,000,0000 copies of the PC/MAC version out there!  That is certainly a lot of customers.

Anyway, it’s sort of difficult to describe what it is.  But… It has two game modes–creative and survival.

In creative mode, you–your character, that is–can build anything to your heart’s content.  Building is based on blocks or objects which can be built on blocks.  You could say that it is a 3D editor, in this regard, but its resolution is limited to its block-object oriented paradigm.

In survival mode, your character has to survive the dangers of the Minecraft world.  At night, or in the dark, monsters appear and attack.  Aside from these supernatural dangers, your character can also die from natural means–like drowning, burning, falling, or starvation.

Here’s the interesting thing in survival mode.  Minecraft has a built-in motivation for players in survival mode to do things by using the same natural instincts we have in true life–like hunger and fear of death.  For example, if you simply decide you wish to explore the beautiful surroundings of a Minecraft world, you will soon find out that day light turns to night.  When darkness comes, monsters spawn and attack.  If for some reason you get lucky and survive the night, your hunger meter will eventually drop down to nothing, and your life meter will dwindle down to nothing.  At this point, your character dies. What an awesome natural way to motivate a player to survive!

This same driving force will help the player get motivated to create tools to help with survival.  With tools, a player can mine resources like wood, stone, and various ores.  With resources, a player can build better tools and weapons.  With better tools and weapons, a player can create armor, more tools, farm, and even tracks and mining carts! At some point, a player can get certain resources which allows him to build powered mechanics to allow automated farming, doors, lights, and so forth.

Once a player has mastered the basics of survival, he can then start challenging himself by entering “hell”, also called “the nether.”  The nether is a barren hellish like underworld where there is an eerie athmosphere.  In higher game difficulties, the nether becomes inhabited by stronger and more dangerous monsters.  The surrounding is also filled with danger because there is no water there.  However, there is plenty of lava. An advanced player can learn to enchant his tools, giving him higher level of attack and defensive power–even the ability to swim in lava.  At this level, a player can learn to find his way to “the end” where he will face the big boss–“the ender dragon.”  Once at “the end” he cannot leave until he has defeated the ender dragon, or he dies and respawns in the overworld.

This is pretty much the rough path for player advancement in single player Minecraft.  But guess what?  Minecraft has a multiplayer capability. It is in the multiplayer capability where gamers have flocked.  Imagine playing survival mode in multiplayer Minecraft?  In this mode, players can fight against other players.  The demand for this kind of play has grown so much that Minecraft server hosting has become big business.  Many players have built their own servers so that they can have many other players play along with them in survival mode. Someone even created a survival modifications that mimic the “Hunger Games” type of fighting.  If you look and check around for hosted Minecraft servers, many of them have some version of “Hunger Games” running on them.  There are even ones that boast having over 500 players!

If you did a search on YouTube using “minecraft survival” as search terms, you will see many videos of people playing Minecraft Hunger games. It is amazing how this game has evolved.

I never really paid much attention to it until one time my curiosity got the most of me, and now I find myself playing it more often than some of our electronic-based entertainment systems or games. Today, I have all versions of the game:

  1. PC version from minecraft.net (buy direct form their site)
  2. Minecraft Pocket Edition (takes you to Amazon.com, just in case you decide you too wish to buy it)
  3. Minecraft Xbox 360 (takes you to Amazon.com, just in case you decide you too wish to buy it)

What has been your experience with Minecraft?  Comment below.