Minecraft is a game that takes your creativity to a whole new level as it allows you to build anything — yes, anything — from your imagination by using blocks. And that’s not all there is to this game, because it also takes you on adventures into lands so strange that even your imagination cannot create them.

You can play this game alone or online with friends, and one thing is guaranteed, you will never feel bored. Since there is so much to the game that it is impossible to write about it all here, I want to give a little history about it first, as an introduction to those who do not know anything about Minecraft. Maybe, more details can follow later.

Minecraft is a sandbox computer, console and mobile game, originally created by Markus Persson, aka Notch, on May, 17 2009. The game was free originally, but when it started to get popular, the makers started charging for it.

Minecraft’s full release 1.0, was announced on November, 18 2011, during Minecon 2011 and by September 2014 it became such a hot property that it was bought by Microsoft for $2.5 billion! After the purchase, the first update that Microsoft released was 1.9 (The Combat Update) which was and still is the most controversial update that added cool down to swords and removed blocking with a sword.

The Player vs Player (PvP) community didn’t take well to this change and most PvP servers still use the version 1.8. The next three updates weren’t that big, but the 1.13 (Aquatic Update) was a really big one, adding coral, seagrass, kelp, fish, turtles, drowned and phantoms.

The next update was version 1.14 (The Village and Pillage Update), changing everything about villagers. This update also added a lot of stairs, slabs and walls, which was huge for builders. The 1.15 (Buzzy Bees Update) wasn’t a big one, adding bees and bug fixes.

The update that is still being worked on is 1.16 (The Nether Update) which added a lot of new things in the snapshots, such as the Crimson Forest with crimson wood, Piglins and Hoglins. The Warped Forest was just the same as the Crimson Forest, but replacing everything from red to blue. This biome spawns Enderman. The Soulsand Valley, which had soulsand and soulsoil.

The final biome was The Basalt Deltas which had Basalt and Blackstone. The Mob that spawns here is the Magma Cube, with new structures such as Bastion Remnants and Ruined Portals. This update introduced a new tier of tools and armor, which is the very rare Netherite that comes from the ancient debris. The second new ore is the Nether Gold Ore.

That’s about it for Minecraft for now, but there of course will be new snapshots and updates.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 27th, 2020