Minecraft
Minecraft is a sandbox indie game originally created by Swedish programmer
Markus "Notch" Person and later developed and published by Mojang. It was publicly
released for the PC on May 17, 2009, as a developmental alpha version and, after gradual updates, was published as a full release version on November 18, 2011. A version for
Android was released a month earlier on October 7, and an iOS version was released on
November 17, 2011. On May 9, 2012, the game was released on Xbox 360 as an Xbox
Live Arcade game, co-developed by 4J Studios. All versions of Minecraft receive periodic updates.
The creative and building aspects of Minecraft allow players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world. Other activities in the
game include exploration, gathering resources, crafting, and combat. Gameplay in its
commercial release has two principal modes: survival, which requires players to acquire
resources and maintain their health and hunger; and creative, where players have an unlimited supply of resources, the ability to fly, and no health or hunger. A third gameplay
mode named hard-core is the same as survival, differing only in difficulty; it is set to the
most difficult setting and respawning is disabled, forcing players to delete their worlds
upon death. Minecraft received five awards from the 2011 Game Developers Conference: it was awarded the Innovation Award, Best Downloadable Game Award, and the
Best Debut Game Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards; and the Audience
Award, as well as the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, from the Independent Games Festival in 2011. In 2012, Minecraft was awarded a Golden Joystick Award in the category
Best Downloadable Game. As of February 3, 2014, the game has sold over 14 million
copies on PC and over 35 million copies across all platforms. Minecraft is an open
world game that has no specific goals for the player to accomplish, allowing players a
large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. However, there is an
achievement system. The gameplay by default is first person, but players have the option to play in third person mode. The core gameplay revolves a