Mine for blocks in the expansive, voxel-based world in Minecraft to craft useful objects

Create masterpieces ranging from lavish homes to magnificent monuments in the game

Fight dangerous creatures that come out when it's dark and explore the many caverns of the underworld

It is a wonder that the 2nd best-selling game in the world is a sandbox game made out of cubes and the first selling game is an arcade puzzle game made out of cubes. This lead one to think that it’s may not be really the looks that count but the game play.

And that’s where Minecraft excels in, the game play.

The game is all about building with cubes. Building to survive, building to create, building to provide adventure and building just for the sake of building because you don’t have any other thing better to do.

But hey, since Marcus Persson and Mojang released it way back 2009, and the digital gaming public where drawn to it like peas to a pond, somehow, the tesseractic block- like add, remove and replace concept of building things most people experienced in their formative years have something to do with the game being very very popular.

So let’s take a look at Minecraft, what it is, what it does and why it’s so addictively fun for the young, the old and the young at heart.

Minecraft is basically an open world RPG game where the player can make his or her own adventure but with the option of completing the main quest of slaying the Ender Dragon in the Ender World. Since it is an open world game, whether you complete that or not does not matter because the main objective of the game are the cubes and what you can do with it.

Everything is made out of cubes or blocks even sand as to why they should have called it open-world “block-box” and not sandbox in the first place. They however called it “Mine”, because you have to do just that, dig for resources then craft these into usable tools and objects that you can use in the game. There are supposed to be 4 game modes but depending on the version of the Minecraft you are playing, depends. They are Survival, Creative, Adventure and Spectator.

When you start the game, you can choose which mode you want to play in and the game will generate a basic map for you. Again, it depends on the game mode since Adventure Mode has lots and lots of custom made maps made available to your game which you can choose from. These maps have been created by fellow players who have a thing for modding and level design.

The Creative Mode is where players build worlds unhampered by time or survival constraints. One can build buildings, castles, houses, space ports, roads, bridges and even terrain like mountains, rivers and the like. Skies the limit when it comes to ones imagination as long as everything you build and everything around you is made of cubes.

Spectator mode or should we say "specter mode" is when you fly around like a ghost and observe everything in the game. One can even teleport to other game worlds. You cannot however interact with characters, animals and all those blocks around you. You’re just that, a ghost or should I say, A block of ghost.

Finally, the Survival Mode and Hard Core Survival Mode. It’s where adventure mode was patterned from. Unlike adventure though, you use default maps and default interactive events and settings. The objective is to build as fast as you can and survive! Take note however that if you use Hard Core Survival Mode, should you perish, you will be permanently banned from the map and sometimes, even the server simply because…You’re Dead!

In Minecraft, you will meet different kinds of Non-Player Characters or Mobs. Some of them are harmless and even require butchering to provide as food like the pig, the chicken and the sheep. Others are dangerous and must be defended against. These are the monsters that spawn in dark places and at night. Yes, there is a full day’s cycle as you can see that square of a sun rise and fall from the sky. It is wise to build a form of shelter like a house or a bunker and craft the necessary weapons and tools as fast as you can during daylight for when evening falls and the wind starts to howl, the Zombies, Skeletons, Giant Spiders, Exploding Creepers, the Witch, the EnderMan and whatever denizen from Tales of the Creep will come out to party and when they see (or smell?) you, they come running to Mama for that square chunk of human flesh you call yourself.

Torches are a necessity so you have to craft them with charcoal and wooden sticks. You collect items like wood, dirt/soil, sand, flint and other resources in order to build your shelter, craft your tools with the crafting table and do whatever you need to do. There are a lot of ridiculous things people do in-game that one cannot even imagine in real life.

Your health-bar or heart-line as represented by a line of hearts starts to decrease when you take damage from falls, monster attacks and even hunger. Your Hunger-Bar (they sure look like chicken legs) will remind you when you need to get a bucket from Colonel Sanders. As for the torches, place them on strategic locations and inside your in-game adobe or base so no heathen can materialize beside you or a specific area that you choose. They will however be able to chase you even if you head for a well-lighted area in the middle of the night.

Minecraft can be played multiplayer via game sever or LAN where players can interact with one another and can even team-up or go PvP against each and every one.

The game has gazillions of tutorials everywhere from books to websites and You Tube videos. Better to look this up before roaming around the game. The music and sounds are fine and the cubes are even gorgeous.

Finally, Minecraft is an awesome and addictive game to play because it brings game elements together that remind us of all those stories we heard as a child, of the dark, the big bad wolf, the Boogeyman, and sitting in a sandbox or a playpen and wondering what to do with all those Lego Blocks. Admit it or not, it’s all tucked up there in your head and Minecraft the game, knows how to reach it.