Minecraft Dev Makes New Game, Minicraft, in 48 Hours

Mike Kayatta

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Aug 2, 2011
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Minecraft Dev Makes New Game, Minicraft, in 48 Hours



Punch trees and rocks for materials from your browser in Markus "Notch" Persson's new, slimmer version of Minecraft.

Persson, known best as the man behind Minecraft, has created a new RPG, Minicraft, in only 48 hours. The game is a top-down action title, and plays like some sort of cross between Legend of Zelda and--you guessed it--Minecraft.

The game was created as an entry for Ludum Dare, a competition that asks game developers to code a game from scratch that accommodates a chosen theme of its selection. This contest's theme was "alone," (arguably a somewhat brilliant stroke of luck for Notch). Two days, and presumably lots of caffeine, later, Minicraft was born.

In Minicraft, you'll wail on trees, mountainsides, and hordes of the undead while crafting new gear to aid your quest of annihilating someone known only as the Air Wizard. Here's the official, slightly depressing, description of the game as posted on Ludum Dare:

"Arrow keys to move, C to attack and X to open the inventory and interact with objects in the world. The goal of the game is to kill the only other sentient being in the world, making sure you'll be alone forever."

The game is currently available for free in your browser [https://s3.amazonaws.com/ld48/ld22/index.html] or via [a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=398"]download.[/a] Voting is now open for which title will take Ludum Dare's top honors, so only time will tell if Minicraft is good enough to stand up to its stiff competition.

Source: Geek.com [http://www.geek.com/articles/games/minecraft-developer-notch-creates-minicraft-in-48-hours-20111219/]



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emeraldrafael

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Jul 17, 2010
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And this is only going to further the idea that notch is a one trick pony.

though really... i feel this shouldnt count as an entry since its pretty much teh same as something he made before and it feels like its just like plagerizing a school report by writing a report that is conveniently like one you wrote three years ago with a few words changed.
 

Scrustle

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Apr 30, 2011
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Kind of disappointing that it's pretty much a 2D top down Minecraft... And I'm kind of upset that since it's official release Minecraft has pretty much been dead in the water in terms of updates. I know Notch isn't working on it anymore, but it feels like no-one is right now.
 

Formica Archonis

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Nov 13, 2009
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I'll have to give this a try. Prelude of the Chambered was a fun little distraction, this probably will be too.



Scrustle said:
Kind of disappointing that it's pretty much a 2D top down Minecraft... And I'm kind of upset that since it's official release Minecraft has pretty much been dead in the water in terms of updates. I know Notch isn't working on it anymore, but it feels like no-one is right now.
Dunno, I'm liking my sheep finally regrowing wool (finally, all the blue and brown I need without burning through my lapis lazuli and cocoa beans) and my grove providing me with apples in addition to wood. I know Jeb's not doing TOO much what with Cobalt going alpha, and it's not as amazing as Seecret Friday used to be, but the development versions [http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Version_history/Development_versions] still have some nice little tweaks.

Besides, it's almost Christmas. My employer's using a loophole in the employment laws to force me to work a standard 40 hour week with no time and a half or vacation time, so I'm not really in the mood to demand extra work of someone else.
 

Movement_Machine

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Oct 17, 2011
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NightmareLuna said:
Yeah... Big woop over nothing. But then again, Notch completly stole Minecraft. What he did was built upon the single most liked experience from another game. He had just the good fortune to come up with it first. He is no god of games or whatever some are calling him... He just had a bit of luck.

Please can we get past him? Why not showcase some other programmer of the contest instead? Someone who is not as famous but actually made something that was intersting?
What did he steal? o_O
 

kebab4you

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Jan 3, 2010
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emeraldrafael said:
And this is only going to further the idea that notch is a one trick pony.

though really... i feel this shouldnt count as an entry since its pretty much teh same as something he made before and it feels like its just like plagerizing a school report by writing a report that is conveniently like one you wrote three years ago with a few words changed.
This, aldo not as harsh, when I saw he was making a 2-d minecraft clone as his project I got quite sadden, he can just reuse tons of old code and as such it shouldn't count as a submission.
 

Varya

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Nov 23, 2009
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Kwil said:
What's disappointing is simply that Notch is participating in the Ludum Dare competition now. With his level of fame and cult following, he's guaranteed the win. Hopefully the organizers will recognize this and push the second place game, whatever it is, equally as much.
Tis is BS, he was in Ludum dare a few months ago and didn't come close to winning. What's dissapointingnis that people diss a developer using a simillar idea to an older game of his. I mean DREAD the thought of the developers of CoD making more FPS games every year, or wait, NO what if some douche just made the same soccer game with new players each year! that would be wierd, thank God we don't have that
 

Zer_

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Feb 7, 2008
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NightmareLuna said:
Yeah... Big woop over nothing. But then again, Notch completly stole Minecraft. What he did was built upon the single most liked experience from another game. He had just the good fortune to come up with it first. He is no god of games or whatever some are calling him... He just had a bit of luck.

Please can we get past him? Why not showcase some other programmer of the contest instead? Someone who is not as famous but actually made something that was intersting?
The developer of Minecraft, Markus Persson aka Notch, had previously worked on games such as Wurm Online and as a game developer for King.com for over four years. Minecraft development began on May 10, 2009, soon after Persson had quit his job at King.com in order to concentrate more on independent development. Persson was inspired to create Minecraft by several other games such as Dwarf Fortress, Infiniminer by Zachtronics Industries, and Dungeon Keeper by Bullfrog Software. He was still working out the basics of gameplay when he discovered Infiniminer and played with others on the TIGSource.com forums. At the time, he had also been visualizing an isometric 3D building game that would be a cross between his inspirations and had made some early prototypes. After discovering Infiniminer, Notch declared "My god, I realized that that was the game I wanted to do". Infiniminer heavily influenced the style of gameplay that eventually resulted in Minecraft, including the first-person aspect of the game and the "blocky" visual style.
He started conceptualizing the game before he played Infiniminer. After playing Infiniminer he saw exactly what he wanted to make. To say he stole the idea is freakin' ignorant. Using your logic, then every FPS in history stole their idea from id Software. I don't think Notch is some sort of deity, he's just someone who took a neat idea and made it awesome.
 

SmugFrog

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Sep 4, 2008
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This is the second time I've seen Notch mentioned in The Escapist news about a limited-time create a game competition.

As much as I like Notch and Minecraft, it kind of saddens me that instead of reporting on the "best of" a competition like this, we're informed about a known developer that is competing in a competition with hundreds of others.

Notch already has plenty of publicity.
 

Formica Archonis

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Nov 13, 2009
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SmugFrog said:
This is the second time I've seen Notch mentioned in The Escapist news about a limited-time create a game competition.

As much as I like Notch and Minecraft, it kind of saddens me that instead of reporting on the "best of" a competition like this, we're informed about a known developer that is competing in a competition with hundreds of others.

Notch already has plenty of publicity.
But how many people wouldn't know about Ludum Dare at all if not for Notch's fondness for it?
 

kebab4you

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Formica Archonis said:
SmugFrog said:
This is the second time I've seen Notch mentioned in The Escapist news about a limited-time create a game competition.

As much as I like Notch and Minecraft, it kind of saddens me that instead of reporting on the "best of" a competition like this, we're informed about a known developer that is competing in a competition with hundreds of others.

Notch already has plenty of publicity.
But how many people wouldn't know about Ludum Dare at all if not for Notch's fondness for it?
So very true but I would still rather have them report about the best games, either that they try themselves or that´s ranked 1->5.
 

weirdee

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Apr 11, 2011
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The main issues I have with the game are that you can't make torches (turning the underground portion into an exercise of equal parts tedium and sheer terror as you tote a large unwieldy lantern around without any means to fight back against the hordes of death while you're holding it), and cloth seems to be largely useless, unless you can craft it into a torch and I haven't figured it out yet. Dirt also doesn't really serve a purpose and chests seem to only be useful for dumping old tools in them after you don't have any use for them.

Oh, and of course, the permadeath, but I find that my ability to avoid being killed is pretty fly so it wasn't an issue for me.

The good things about the game are that he actually put some really cool overall mechanics in it that I hope make it into the main game. A few notable aspects are that tools are actually useful because their functions can't be replicated by punching the block manually, being able to lift things with the power glove instead of having to destroy them to pick them up again, and making ore blocks spiky harbingers of death to ensure that you don't just plow recklessly into the darkness (the equivalent of just digging straight down) make things smoother, and in the latter case, more interesting.

I'd like to point out that with the monsters being slimes and zombies kind of reminds me of Terraria in some sort of funny coincidence.
 

JesterRaiin

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Apr 14, 2009
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NightmareLuna said:
Notch completly stole Minecraft. What he did was built upon the single most liked experience from another game. He had just the good fortune to come up with it first. He is no god of games or whatever some are calling him... He just had a bit of luck.
Ah. Jealousy. Sweetest poison of all. ;]

Movement_Machine said:
What did he steal? o_O
Haven't you heard ? Notch, wearing full ninja costume, armed with katana and sh*t broke into main building of Blizzard, killed corporate fullborgs doing as many backflips as possible, and stole code that was supposed to be new engine for upcoming Duke Nukem Forever game. Then, posing as big breasted blonde stewardess he hijacked a plane full of Bethesda programmers, had them replace some textures in this code and finally sold it as "Minecraft".
Considering cries of butthurt haters that was the case, i am sure of it ! :)

OT : Funny, little game. As usual, it seems that good idea beats fancy graphics and effects. :)
 

Phlakes

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Mar 25, 2010
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NightmareLuna said:
Yeah... Big woop over nothing. But then again, Notch completly stole Minecraft. What he did was built upon the single most liked experience from another game. He had just the good fortune to come up with it first. He is no god of games or whatever some are calling him... He just had a bit of luck.

Please can we get past him? Why not showcase some other programmer of the contest instead? Someone who is not as famous but actually made something that was intersting?
Minecraft is a very detailed, balanced, and fun game. I've spent lots and lots of hours in it, and maybe twice as many playing on servers with friends. He didn't get lucky, he did the same thing every developer has done since the industry was established, and a good job at that.

If you don't like the game, good for you, opinions are opinions are opinions, but by your definition, every game of any (sub)genre is stolen from the last game of that (sub)genre, no matter how it changes or builds on it. And if that's the problem you make it out to be, then every game since the first generation is at the level you put Minecraft.

So no.