Minecraft

Minecraft is a game about placing blocks and going on adventures. Aside from that, you can farm crops, fight evil monsters, hop through dimensions, build structures, explore with your friends, and dig through the underground for valuables. Minecraft takes place in a blocky 3D world with many different biomes for the player to journey through and collect resources from so they can survive. Ever since its publication by Mojang in the year 2011, Minecraft has received critical acclaim from players and critics alike. Its current version is 1.14.2. Its next version, 1.14.3, will be released June 23.

Gameplay
Upon world creation, the player starts out at zero. Unless they have a bonus chest — Minecraft's version of a starter kit filled with some essentials to a beginner such as tools, food, and wood — they must first punch trees until they drop wood that falls into the player's inventory. With enough wood, the player can begin to craft basic things like sticks and tools. By the end of the first day, it's expected that the player crafted stone tools. During the night, hostile monsters spawn and attack the player once they get too close. Zombies, skeleton archers, large spiders, and more will dominate the outdoors during nighttime if the difficulty is set to anything other than Peaceful, so it's best that the player has some sort of shelter. Since it's a little too early for a house, their best bet might be to dig a straight-down hole in the ground and place a dirt block above them so no monsters can hurt them for the night.

Throughout the second day, it's advised that the player focuses on building a house for more permanent shelter if they want to live in the area they're in. The most common way players build their houses is with wood since it's abundant, logical, and doesn't look bad like a dirt house. Other players live in the sides of mountains by mining a living space into one. It takes less time to work on than a house, but there are risks that the player could encounter a cave in the mountain, limiting how far they can expand their home. Out in the world, there are villagers who live in villages. The player can decide to travel through the world until they find a village and take a house to live in.

If a player wishes to go to the Nether, a Hell-like dimension in Minecraft, they will need to use a Diamond Pickaxe to mine at least ten blocks of obsidian (fourteen blocks to build a full frame) to build a frame for a Nether portal.

Minecraft Earth
A new game for mobile devices, Minecraft Earth, was announced on May 17, 2019. It aims to collide the world of Minecraft with the world of Earth, hence its name. Minecraft Earth uses AR (augmented reality) to spawn blocks and mobs from Minecraft into the real world through the player's phone.