Minecraft In-Depth

Yara Raffoul

https://www.thescienceacademystemmagnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/yAtZnNL-
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Table of Contents
Abstract.............................................................................................................................4
Introduction.......................................................................................................................4
History...............................................................................................................................5
Pre-Classic Version.....................................................................................................................5
Classic Version...........................................................................................................................5
indev Version.............................................................................................................................5
infdev Version............................................................................................................................6
Minecraft Alpha.........................................................................................................................6
Java Edition................................................................................................................................6
Java Edition 1.1............................................................................................................................................6
Education Edition.......................................................................................................................6
Specifications of the game.................................................................................................7
Overview...................................................................................................................................7
Game Objectives........................................................................................................................7
Characters Description...............................................................................................................7
Player...........................................................................................................................................................7
Mobs............................................................................................................................................................7
Elements of the game.................................................................................................................9
Rules............................................................................................................................................................ 9
Setting..........................................................................................................................................................9
Weapons......................................................................................................................................................9
Elements....................................................................................................................................................10

Influence..........................................................................................................................10
Creativity.................................................................................................................................10
Collaborations and Community engagement............................................................................12
Education.................................................................................................................................12
Ecology.......................................................................................................................................................12
Physics.......................................................................................................................................................12
Chemistry...................................................................................................................................................13
Math.......................................................................................................................................................... 13
Geography and Geology............................................................................................................................14
Social Science.............................................................................................................................................14
Writing Skills..............................................................................................................................................14

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................14
Resources.........................................................................................................................14
Abstract
Minecraft a game in an open world that mimics the real world with imagination is much more
than just entertainment. This paper aims at viewing the game from different perspectives; that
of game designer, an instructor and a parent. It gradually immerses the reader into the game
by speaking about its history and then its specifications. It also dives into the benefits of
using Minecraft whether as a game or as a tool for teaching; from community engagement, to
creativity, to educational motivation, to educational simulations and so much more. This is
not a scholarly research paper that will go through updates from time to time. The next
version of the paper will include more information about the elements of the game as well as
the harms the game may induce.

Introduction
“Minecraft opens up a world of limitless possibilities. Driven by the player and created by the
fans who love it” ~Rob Manuel
Minecraft is the best selling game of all time developed by a Swedish company called
Mojang Studios. This game is a sandbox game meaning players have no set of objectives and
are free to create their own gameplay. In sandbox games players have the freedom to explore,
interact with, or modify the environment of the game without having strict rules or specific
target. This software is a very unique looking game made in pixel art which most of its
environment, a three dimensional world, is mainly made of various kinds of blocks that can
be broken and reused by the players. Minecraft is an experience rather than a game in which
players are immersed in creativity, discovery and communities. In this game players can
build their own structures using different weapons and gathered resources, learn things about
the environment and realize how to manage resources in nature, and engage in different
online groups where people share their creative work, learn from each others and play in the
same world. This game can be played in four different modes, creative mode, survival mode,
adventure mode and hardcore mode. Creative mode is where players are given unlimited
amount of resources for them to unleash their own creativity through building structures.
Survival mode is where players should gather the resources in order to use them, and should
also provide ways to eat in order to survive and defend and protect themselves against any
potential threat such as attacking mobs or drowning in the beach. Adventure mode is that
open sandbox world that transforms into a challenge where players can create challenges for
other players and create their own story. Hardcore mode is only exclusively available in the
Minecraft Java edition where the game is designed to be at its hardest of a survival mode.
Games are misinterpreted to be only useful for entertainment yet this paper shows the other
benefits of the game. This paper is a deep dive into the history, and benefits of Minecraft
along side with all the elements of the game; it is not scholarly and will always go through
updates.
Screenshot taken from a Nintendo Switch

History
Pre-Classic Version

Minecraft was developed in 2009 by a Swedish programmer and game designer Marcus
Persson, also known as Notch. It was originally called the CaveGame. which has been the
best selling game of all time since its first release. This game is inspired by the game called
Infiniminer, and was designed to have the same style of visuals of gameplay.
The first version of the game had only two kinds of blocks, the grass and the cobblestone; in
this version the world was very small and flat.

Classic Version

On May 17th 2009, Just after a week of developing Minecraft, Notch released it to the public
on TIGSource forum where he could receive feedback in order to improve the game. Persson
named his first version the classic version which later had many updates in which he added
hills, trees and lakes and new blocks such as stone, dirt, and planks. In this version he later
created the survival and creative modes; in the survival mode he created the mobs, or
enemies, such as zombies skeleton, spiders, and creepers that could kill the player. The
survival mode starts with the player having no resources at all. On the other hand, besides
these two modes he also created in this version the multiplayer option where players could
not only play together but also destroy each other’s worlds.

indev Version
On December 23rd 2009, the In Development version so called the “Indev Version” was the
first paid version to be created. In this version Persson created the ability for players to use
tools and weapons, gather and prepare food, and to make use of crafting and smelting. This
version also introduced the day and night cycle.
infdev Version
on February 27th 2010, the Infdev version was developed. “Infdev” is in short for infinit
development because in this version of Minecraft the world was then created to be infinite
where the software generated more areas as player moves farther. In this version 3D clouds,
complex caves and more items to be crafted were added.

Minecraft Alpha
The Alpha version was introduced on June 30th 2010 where players were only limited to the
survival mode whether single or multi player mode for the first time. This version added
cows, slime and chicken. On the other hand the alpha version introduced the nether, a
dangerous and scary like area in the game that contains fire, lava, other structurs and mobs.
December 2010 was the final development of the alpha version and it was the time where
Minecraft logo changed to what it currently is. The creative mode was added back to the
game alongside were introduced the beds and new blocks. The player’s character, in this
version, now gets hungry he hasn’t eaten for a while. In addition, whether patterns such as
are raining and snowing were added along with graphical effects of explosions. Moreover
new mobs were added such as enderman, silverfish, cave spider, and tameable wolves

Java Edition

On November 18th 2011, was a historical moment when Minecraft was officially released as
the java Edition of Minecraft. The version at which it was released was called the adventure
Update which focuses on exploration, combat and the ability to finish the game by traveling
to the end defeating the ender Dragon, which somehow reduces the games aspect of being a
sandbox game. In this time, a new mode was introduced to the game, the hardcore mode.
Moreover the game was updated with new features of interaction such as breeding and
brewing. Ever since it was released, Minecraft instantly became a huge success being the
most influential game ever released. In its first years of release 4 million copies of the game
were sold.

Java Edition 1.1

On January 12th 2012, a new major update was released in which new areas in the world were
introduced such as beaches. In addition 56 new languages were added. On the other hand a
new feature was added where the player can use eggs to spawn mobs.

In the year of 2014 Microsoft bought Mojang for 2.5 billion dollars and in the same year
Notch leaves Mojang and hasn’t been involved in the development of Minecraft anymore.

Education Edition
In the year of 2016, Minecraft education edition was officially released and ever since it has
been doing a great impact on education in schools that integrated it in their curriculum. In this
edition teachers can choose whether to use the game in creative or survival mode based on
which fits the curricula. On the other hand the teacher can change the rules, content and
design of the game as well as developing custom components such as new items or map
locations and changing aspects of the game to make it more suitable for a learning
environment. The way the instructors are able to make these changes are by using mods for
mild changes or by altering the code which is available for open source when it comes to
more complex or detailed aspects of the game. In addition, the instructor can control
restrictions on the game, change the location of the student and watch each students progress.

Specifications of the game

Overview
The paper previously mentions that Minecraft is a sandbox game where the players explore a
blocky infinitely generated world, discover new materials and use them to build structures
and survive.

Game Objectives
The game in general has no specific objective yet and the player chooses the direction of the
game yet in survival mode, the player should gather materials and use them to construct a
place to live, to eat, and make weapons to defend himself from mobs.

Characters Description
The characters of Minecraft are the player, the different kinds of mobs.

Player
This is the character that the player controls in order to play the game.

Mobs
These are characters are living like creatures that are controlled by AI; most of them aim at
hurting the player. The mobs spawn depending on the light level, the biom and their
surroundings. Many mob kinds despawn(stop existing) after being far from the player to a
certain distance. In addition, mobs are hurt the same way the player is hurt, such as falling,
catching on fire, and drowning. The games contains a big number of mobs, for this reason the
paper does not mention them all yet only explains about each kind of them and gives
examples of each. The different kinds of mobs are passive mobs, neutral mobs, hostile mobs,
and boss mobs.

Passive mobs
These kinds of mobs do not attempt to any form of harm to the player even if attacked by the
player. Examples of those mobs are some animals such as chicken, bat and cat and other
fictious creatures such as the Snow Golem, villager and wandering trader.

https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Mob

Neutral mobs
They are passive mobs until the player attacks them, they become hostile against the player.
Some examples of neutral mobs are some animals such as bees, pandas, and spiders and some
other mobs such as the zombified piglins, and wolves.
Hostile mobs
Those are mobs that aggressively attack the player whenever they detect that the player is
within a certain range of distance away from them. Some examples of hostile mobs are
creepers, skeletons, which and zombies.

Creeper Skeleton Which Zombie

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ns:Creeper

Boss mobs
They are the most dangerous hostile mobs, they do not spawn randomly in the game. They
are hardly confronted but confronting them gives a high reward. Some examples of them are
ender dragon and wither.

https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Mob
Elements of the game
Rules
The player should protect himself from the mobs or any natural threat such as the lava.

Setting
The player is placed in an infinite three dimensional blocky world that looks like the real
natural world. The world in Minecraft consists of biomes similar to the one in the real world.
There the night and day cycle and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Weapons
They are used to kill mobs and other player. Weapons can be crafted using a crafting table or
looted from a player or mob. They are durable for a certain amount of use. There are four
kinds of weapons: swords, tridents, bows, and crossbows.

Bows
They can be crafted or taken from a skeleton. They are used to fire arrows in different ways;
those arrows fly in a projectile motion that is affected by gravity and they run across several
blocks based on the amount of charge they are fired at.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/minecraft/images/a/ad/Bow.gif/revision/latest/top-crop/
width/360/height/450?cb=20110923151458

Tridents
They are the strongest weapons in the game. They are underwater themed weapons that are
only obtained from underwater zombies or from the creative mode. Tridents can be used as
regular weapons or as range weapons.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/minecraft_gamepedia/images/9/9a/Trident.png/revision/
latest/scale-to-width-down/150?cb=20200106005732

Crossbows
They are similar to the bows but can use firework as ammunition other than the arrows. They
are loaded just like the bows.
https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Crossbow

Elements

Influence
Since Minecraft is somehow a representation to the real world added with some more
fictional elements, it has a great potential towards creativity, education, collaborative work,
community engagement and psychological impact. This game allows the player to craft his
imagination by creating structures, drives the curiosity of the player into making more
researches about the game and experience and visualize what he is learning about the
environment around him. Moreover a player gets engaged in different communities to share
ideas and collaborate with others to bring ideas to life. On the other hand, Minecraft is a great
tool for visualizing and simulating lands in the real world and make decisions about them.

Creativity
“Minecraft opens up a world of limitless possibilities. Driven by the player and created by the
fans who love it” -Rob Manuel
The virtual Lego world like game, Minecraft, which exceeds realism for its simplicity and
fantacy fosters creative freedom where the player is able to build structures and create media
content. Whether in survival mode where the player gather the raw materials to reuse them or
in creative mode where the he has all the resources, the user can build different worlds and
structures such as survival houses, castles, sky bases, storage rooms, underground cities,
skyscrapers, volcanos, ships and famous landmarks. A sky base is a structure invented by
Minecraft players which is a floating structure high above the ground.
https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/
modern-mcdonalds-restaurant/

https://www.planetminecraft.com/
project/tour-aiffel-effeil-tower/

In addition to crafting structures, many online content creators have made contents based on
Minecraft. From memes, to gameplay streams to even critics on gamers streams, Minecraft
opens doors to different kinds of contents. Lydia Winters, Minecraft’s chief storyteller once
said “The reason why Minecraft has been so successful on YouTube is because YouTube
videos are a way to tell stories. So then when you have Minecraft, and you can tell any story
you want in a Minecraft world, it’s a big reason why we have so many people creating
Minecraft content.”(The Verge, Minecraft Crosses one Million Views On Minecraft). Many
youtubers make videos about different ways of playing the game or challenges they make in
the game and so many others answer with critics on these video. Other examples of YouTube
contents are Minecraft inspired shorts such as Jeff Fellman’s “What if Minecraft graphics
were rendered in Unreal Engine 5.”. In addition, Minecraft memes are flooding all over social
media whether on reddit, twitter or other platforms.

https://starecat.com/ https://imgflip.com/i/3gnpa3 https://www.pinterest.com/

minecraft-problems- pin/331014641334971190/
box-on-the-wall/
Collaborations and Community engagement
Minecraft is an easy game to interact with, so it can be used as a great tool for urban
planning by anyone. Block by Block an initiative founded as a partnership between Mojang
and the United Nation uses Minecraft to encourage young people to get involved in the urban
regeneration.

Education
“informal and alternative learning environments often work better than formal
and traditional learning environments to encourage participation and deeper
engagement in learning content.” (B. Jeffrey, K. Shelley; 2013; p.58)
Game Based learning makes the learning experience more interesting rather than having to
learn from traditional learning tools such as lectures. The article “Mining education
Implication of Minecraft” written by Youngkyun Baek, Ellen Min and Seongchul Yun speaks
about the education potential of Minecraft. The authors explain that Minecraft contains all
the five principles of effective learning which should be included in gamification (gaming for
education) which are experiential learning, motivation for inherent satisfaction, learning
through intense enjoyment, originality; and self-reliance and autonomy. Ever since Mojang
officially released the Minecraft Education edition it has been used to create the
enthusiastic engagement of school students through subjects such as science, math, social
science and writing skills as a digital immersive environment.

Ecology
According to an an Assistant Professor of Science in Robert Morris University, Daniel Short
“Perhaps Minecraft’s strongest application lies in the area of the biological sciences,
specifically ecology. “ (p.56) Biomes are ecosystems of plants, animals, and fungi in large
major geographic region such as mountain, desert or beach. In his article “Teaching scientific
concepts using a virtual world” short explains that that the ecology in Minecraft is somehow
similar to the ecology on earth. He begins by explaining that just like on earth, in Minecraft
the length of the tree depends on biome it is in. He continues by stating that tree shapes in the
game are made up of blocks of both the leaves and trunk that can be sheered to produce
useful tools such as a pickax or building materials such as fences just like in the real world.
The screen shots down below demonstrate that wood yields oak wood planks or wooden
sticks and out of them tools can be crafted as presented in the screenshots below.

Physics
Despite that Minecraft doesn’t always apply the laws of actual physics on earth, it still has
some elements that do teach about physics. According to short, Minecraft has a system of
dyes which can be mixed together to make new dies. An example could be yielding cactus
green dye by mixing yellow and green dye. Another realistic element, notes short, is that the
sun rises in the east and sets on the west with atmospheric refraction of red sky on sun rise
and sun set. Short mentions the fact that the game contains nonrealistic elements such as
floating blocks yet falling sand due to gravity. In addition, Minecraft contains circuit blocks
in which can be used to create logic gates. Torches can be used to create power to these
circuits and repeaters can be used to delay the output after turning on the power. Other more
advanced kinds of circuits can be crafted too, as Short notes.

https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2020/11/4c160-16056397018721.png

Chemistry
“chemistry is perhaps not the strongest component of the game”(D.Short, 2012, p.57)
Some few aspects of Minecraft are actual representations of chemistry in the real world. Just
like in real life, mentions Short, in Minecraft glass can be made by smelting sand in the
furnace. Short gives another example of crafting cake using eggs, wheat, sugar and milk,
which are the actual ingredients that form a cake. On the other hand, Short shows a
screenshot of a player who created a visual representation of the periodic table of elements
using sign posts in the game.

Math
Basic skills in algebra could be useful yet they are put forward by the game, but geometric
concepts are a must in order to build a well-formed structures. Short gives an example of how
basic algebra could be useful which is when one block of wood coming from tree yields to 4
wooden planks. By logic, it is most convenient to make calculations before using the
resources in order to know how to manage them when we are playing in survival mode. On
the other hand, the author expresses the need of geometry skills by explaining that it is
important to know measures in order to be able to make symmetric buildings and know
where to put the doors and windows.

Geography and Geology

Every landform(Cliffs, hills, mountains and ravines) in the game is generated different from a
world to another. Just like reality, beaches are next to oceans and lakes. If any landform that
contains water is surrounded by snow, it freezes.

The different types of stones and minerals are present in the Minecraft world. Playing this
game one can discover the names of different stones such as bsidian, sandstone, stone,
cobblestone and gravel and Minerals such as diamond, gold, iron, clay and lapus lazuli.

Social Science
Building historical monuments enables students to understand and examine these entities and
understanding elements in history.
Youngkyun Baek, a professor and director of Game studio at Boise State University,
demonstrates how Minecraft is a good tool for having a better understanding of historical
monuments in his article “Mining Education Implications Of Minecraft”. Baek mentions that
a detailed representation of history in games promotes students interest and engagement. An
environment where students can virtually walk around historic or present events, proves the
author, seems more appealing than traditional learning environment. A representation of the
American South in the Civil War, Baek gives as an example, is seems more interesting to
students rather than static pictures. In addition, continues Baek, when students are asked to
model a historic monument they get to understand the structure and the civilization the
students are assigned to learn about. An example the author gives is when students are asked
to model the Ancient Chinese city which enables them to understand the impact of the society
on the architecture.

Writing Skills
A good way to motivate students to writing, is by assigning them to describe their gaming
experience. According to Baek, students can be asked to write journal entries that are
imbedded in maps in the game and later can be generated as text files. Students can be asked
to write in game books that can be shared with others.

Conclusion
A game that is a whole new world full of both reality and imagination is much farther than
just entertainment, can be seen from different perspectives and be used in different ways. A
world that represents biomes and elements just like the real world along side fictional
elements like witches and potions and many mobs is a world that Minecraft fosters
motivation to learning STEM subjects, creativity, and community engagement along side
with intertainment.

Resources
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Implications of Minecraft.” Computers in the Schools. 37. 1-16.
10.1080/07380569.2020.1719802.

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Binit, Shminan, Fauzan.(2018). “The Effects of Minecraft Videogame On Creativity.

Block By block https://www.blockbyblock.org

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“20 Minecraft Memes In Honor Of The Game's 10th Anniversary.” Retrieved from:
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