What is MINECRAFT??

Minecraft

Minecraft is a sandbox indie video game written in Java originally created by Markus "Notch" Persson, and now by his company Mojang AB. It is heavily inspired by Infiniminer.
From its creation, Minecraft was developed almost exclusively by Notch until Jens "Jeb" Bergensten started working with him, and has since become head of its development. It features music by Daniel "C418" Rosenfeld and paintings by Kristoffer Zetterstrand. Initially released as what is now known as Minecraft Classic on May 17, 2009, the game was released as Minecraft 1.0 on November 18th, 2011. Since it's release, Minecraft has expanded to mobile devicesand a version for Xbox 360.
Minecraft focuses on allowing the player to explore, interact with, and modify a dynamically-generated map made of one-cubic-meter-sized blocks. In addition to blocks, the environment features plants, mobs, and items. Some activities in the game include mining for ore, fighting hostile mobs, and crafting new blocks and tools by gathering various resources found in the game. The game's open-ended model allows players to create structures, creations and artwork on various multiplayer servers or their own single player maps. Other features include redstone circuits for logic computations and remote actions, minecarts and tracks, and a mysterious underworld called the Nether. Ultimately, the goal of the game is to travel to an alternate dimension called the End, and defeat the Ender Dragon.

Player

The player is the person that the user controls in the world. When the user starts a game, the player is put in a world, generated by a random or specified seed, with an empty inventory. The player has a health bar with 10 hearts, and can be damaged by falls, suffocation, drowning, fire, lava, lightning, cacti, falling into the Void, and being hit by hostile mobs. Damage to health can be mitigated by armor, and health can be restored by eating food, or if difficulty is set to Peaceful, health will regenerate on its own. Hunger is also a factor if the game is not in Peaceful Mode, depleting over time and even faster while sprinting. Food will replenish health, however eating rotten flesh and raw chicken has a chance of poisoning the player. Depending on the difficulty level, a low hunger level will deplete a players health.
A player's skin can be changed on the profile page of Minecraft.net.

Mining

Main article: Mining

Various Ores (in proximity of lava) that can be mined

As the game's name would suggest, mining is one of the main aspects of Minecraft. Mining is done to extract ore and other materials from below the surface of the map. These ores include coal, iron, gold, redstone, diamond, lapis lazuli, and emerald. These are crucial in making several useful items. Mining can involve digging a hole from the surface or going down through a cave. In Beta1.8, Abandoned Mine Shafts were added, creating extra areas to look for resources.

Crafting and smelting

Main articles: Crafting and Smelting

A Crafting Table

Crafting allows players to create new tools and blocks using items from their inventory. Crafting was first implemented in Indev, and Notch has expanded the crafting recipes with new versions, blocks, and items. To craft, a player can use the 2�2 grid in the inventory or the 3�3 grid provided by a crafting table. Smelting requires a furnace in addition to fuel, and processes blocks such as iron ore into a more useful form (e.g. iron ingot).

Mobs

Main article: Mobs

A creeper in daylight

Mobs (Short for Mobiles) are the animals and other creatures that inhabit the map. These include zombies that attack by melee; skeletons that have a bow and arrow, spiders that jump large distances and can climb walls, and creepers that explode when near the player. Rare mobs include Spider Jockeys, skeletons riding spider; Endermen, that are tall, black creatures with purple eyes and turn aggressive when the player looks at them, and slimes, which spawn deep within the map. The Nether features ghasts; flying mobs that spit exploding fire balls and attack without provocation, and Zombie Pigmen; modified Pigmen with a Golden Sword and are neutral. In 1.0.0, blazes were added in the Nether (which shoot fireballs and fly) and Magma Cubes, which are similar to slimes but jump a bit higher). In The End, Ender Dragons exist; they are the first and currently only boss in Minecraft.
To aid the player there are several passive mobs: pigs, cows, chickens, sheep, and squid, and two tameable mob types, wolves and ocelots. Wolves will attack enemy mobs if the player engages them. Cats, or tamed ocelots will keep creepers at bay and can't take fall damage. Passive mobs other than wolves yield resources when killed, such as beef, porkchops, chicken, wool, leather, and ink sacs. If killed when on fire, the meat drops are changed to steaks, cooked porkchops and cooked chickens.
There is currently only one NPC mob; villagers, which spawn and move about within their NPC Village.

Multiplayer

Main articles: Server and Multiplayer

Early SMP

The multiplayer feature was introduced on June 8, 2009 for Classic, and later as SMP (Survival Multiplayer) on August 4, 2010, and has been a popular part of the game ever since. Minecraft multiplayer servers have developed to include their own rules and customs, guided by their administrators and moderators. The term griefer, meaning a player who causes grief, is a typical term on the internet, but has taken up its own definition on Minecraft servers: a person who destroys or defiles other users' creations on servers.
Griefers are the reason many server administrators make rules, but this has been taken a step further with modifications to the Mojang server and even plugin-based replacement servers such as Bukkit. Because of these plugin-based servers, new user-created features have shown up in Minecraft. This includes features like money, vehicles, protection, RPG elements and more. These features normally do not require modification to a user's client and can be accessed by using chat commands. With the default controls, the chat screen is brought up by pressing T. After 1.2.4, it was now possible to scroll back through previous chat entries using the arrow keys.
One popular game on multiplayer servers is Spleef (a play on the word "grief"), a game where the player's aim is to make another player drop through the floor by destroying blocks beneath the opponent's feet. This is typically played in a designated area.