LO1 - Game Analysis - Minecraft

Minecraft - Xbox 360

Genre

Minecraft is an open-world sandbox game that allows the player to do many things they might want to do. Just a few examples are killing monsters to gain experience, mining for better materials to make tools and weapons out of, farming, taming animals like wolves, cats and horses, building structures and much more. The freedom to roam and do whatever you want is conventional of the sandbox genre, with a huge map of different environments to explore. Minecraft is one of the most popular sandbox games, as its innocent-seeming atmosphere is appealing to children and adults alike.

Narrative

Because it’s an open world sandbox game, there isn’t really a story. Instead, the user has the freedom to do whatever they like. This means that the player can roam and explore as they please, and there is a large area to explore that is different on every new world the user creates. Even though the user is able to customise the “skin” of their character, the character’s story isn’t the main focus of the game. Instead, the user decides what to do, meaning that the character isn’t greatly developed. The game is great for people who like to play at leisure, without having to do anything too stressful or time-consuming. However, there are many people who  spend a lot of their free time building whole cities and other impressive feats, and some people even have a career based on playing Minecraft.

Production process

Minecraft began as an independent project by Markus "Notch" Persson. It was first released to the public on May 17^th 2009. The game was updated continually, until the large update on June 28^th 2010 that was called the Alpha version. As Minecraft got bigger, Persson quit his day job to work on the game full time.

To support the production of Minecraft, Persson started a games company called Mojang, who hired new staff to assist development further. After going through its beta testing stage, the new, full version of the game was released on November 18^th 2011.

The idea of the “blocky” world was always a concept, and has been iconic to Minecraft from the very beginning. Various different materials behave in slightly different ways, for example sand and gravel fall – as the loose material would in reality – and material such as stone does not. There is an element of unrealism, however, in the fact that blocks are able to float suspended in the air, which adds to the freedom the user has in this game.

Characterisation

The character the player manipulates is not very developed in terms of character or appearance. This is because the main focus of the game is what the player is able to do in the world, not the character’s story. There isn’t even really any solid storyline as it is an open-ended game.

The underdeveloped character is a common convention of open-world sandbox games.

Gameplay

There isn’t exactly a main challenge in Minecraft, but if there was, it would be to kill the Enderdragon. Even though the player doesn’t HAVE to do this – the open-ended game doesn’t exactly have a specific “end” – the game shows credits after killing the Enderdragon, which would suggest the figurative ending of the game.

There aren’t multiple levels to the actual game environment, but as the player gains more experience levels there are a few more things they are able to do. This keeps the target audience interested as there is still a lot to do, even if the player has no

experience levels at all.

The vast variety of things the player has the freedom to do is what I think has given the game its massive success. Players are free to make what they want of the space they are given, which is a very appealing sort of idea.

Target audience

The target audience for Minecraft (Xbox edition) are people who own an Xbox, enjoy open-ended games, and are in the ABC1 demographic as these are the sorts of people I would expect are able to afford a games console.

It’s also indicated that the audience consists majorly of males, and I feel like this is indicated from the customisable “skins” you can use on the game. The majority of these skins are male depictions, connoting a mainly male audience.

Minecraft seems to be one of the most popular games of its genre, with a lot of fame from people who use the game to make videos on YouTube.

Platform

Minecraft is available to plenty of platforms: Windows, OS X, Linux, Java platform, Java applet, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Raspberry Pi, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita and Windows 10. The main platform for Minecraft is PC – this is the platform that sees any updates before any of the other platforms do. The developers began the game on the PC platform, meaning that this is the platform they are most comfortable developing the game with.