Brian Boone - Know-It-All Trivia Book for Minecrafters: Over 800 Amazing Facts and Insider Secrets

This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights. Copyright 2017 by Hollan Publishing, Inc. Minecraft is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB. The Minecraft game is copyright Mojang AB. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles.

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Cover design by Brian Peterson Cover and interior illustrations by Amanda Brack Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-3090-8 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3099-1 Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS INTRODUCTION W e love Minecraft because of the endless possibilities. There are so many ways to explore, discover, and create. But theres always more to know. So were taking you behind the scenes with amazing facts about how Minecraft was developed to how people around the world are mastering and learning from Minecraft today. Youll also find little-known bits about famous Minecrafters and YouTubers; dive into all the craziest mods in existence; and pick up hundreds of other gaming tips and Minecraft secrets. Get ready to test your brain, stump your friends, and become a masterbuilder of your own Minecraft smarts! CHAPTER 1 BUILDING BLOCKS THE GAME S BEGINNINGS Minecraft is the first popular sandbox game.

This category means that players can create their own experiences and explore their world without following a set story. Minecraft was created by Markus Persson, otherwise known as Notch. Persson first used the nickname Notch at TIGSource, an online forum for independent (indie) game developers. What does the name Notch mean? Nothing in particular. Persson just liked the sound of it. Born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1979, Notch started writing code at the age of seven and created his first game at eight years old.

If he can do it, you can do it too! Notch made games as a kid on a primitive Commodore 128 and used the programming language called BASIC. Main designers of Minecraft: Notch from 2009 to 2011 and Jens Bergensten from 2011 to the present. Jens Bergensten is also known as Jeb or jeb_. He was with Minecraft from the beginning, but Notch picked him to take over as lead developer when Notch stepped away. No pressure, jeb_! jeb_ started programming at age 11 but says that he didnt do anything useful until he was 17, which is when he started making his own games. Both Notch and jeb_ are Swedish and were born a few weeks apart in May/June 1979.

It was a good year for programmers. Notch always wanted to make games for a living. When he told his career counselor in school, the counselor told Notch, Thats probably not going to happen. Wrong! Most every game in history is developed by a company, which hires a small army of programmers to bring to life the vision of one or two game designers. Not so with Minecraft. It was entirely Notchs idea, and he developed the first edition of the game, released in 2009, completely by himself.

Now thats a do-it-yourself attitude! Minecraft started as a hobby project. Notch just thought it would be a fun thing to work on in his spare time. Notch designed the first version of Minecraftthe alpha versionin just six days in 2009. He released it online the very next day. Not bad for a weeks worth of work. Notchs first name idea for Minecraft: Cave Game.

Not as interesting but a pretty good description of Minecraft. Notchs plan when he started: Take six months or as long as a year to develop Minecraft. He would then sell it, make enough money to work on one or two games, sell those, and just keep following that pattern forever. He wound up spending both less time and more time than that. The first version of Minecraft took six days to design but two years to make updates. Notchs second name idea for what would become simply Minecraft was Minecraft: Order of the Stone.

That title was a reference to the online series Order of the Stick, of which Notch was a fan. The first version of Minecraft was quietly uploaded to the Internet on May 17, 2009. That was the last time anything Minecraft-related was released quietly. Notchs comments about the first edition upon release: Its an alpha version, so it might crash sometimes. Minecraft makes use of a computing technique called procedural generation. Instead of hand-making every single coastline, tree, mountain, or other features, a designer like Notch creates a system where he enters a few variables and the program fills in the details.

That flexibility allows for the open worlds in which players can create their own stuff. Notch released the game so early because it encouraged him to finish it. He also started charging right away for the same reason. People who downloaded the game and paid for it early on were promised future updates at no extra cost. The early bird gets the worm, after all.