There's this tiny indie game created by one man. It's sold hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide and it's players have used it to build hundreds of bizzare and amazing creations, from flying cities to huge, scale replicas of the Starship Enterprise . It's called Minecraft. You may have heard of it. If you want to know what all the fuss is about, why not enter today's competition to win one of 11 copies of the game? Read on for details.
Minecraft procedurally generates huge blocky worlds. What you do in those worlds is up to you. In free play mode blocks can be placed and deleted at will, and players can get together on the same server to create mega-structures, or, if you're Tim, spawn as much dynamite as possible and then blow a great big gaping hole in the landscape.
Then there's survival mode, which changes things completely. Here blocks must be mined so that you can create tools and weapons to help you survive. Dark underground areas are infested with spiders and night time brings out a host of evil creatures. For an idea of how dangerous survival mode can be, check out Tom's Minecraft adventure .
The game is due to enter beta next week, and the game is growing all the time. Recently a whole new hell dimension was added to the game. Alpha copies of Minecraft will receive all future updates for free, so if you win you'll get to see the game grow and change as the team moves closer to a full release. It may be in alpha, but it's already scarily good.
We actually asked Notch and co. for ten copies, but they refused on the grounds that it's not a prime number. If you end up being the 11th winner, you can thank Mojang Specification's love of The Almighty Prime. In order to win, post in the comments with a new block for Minecraft. The silliest, funniest entries will win a code. And remember you have to live in the UK to enter. The best explanations will win a copy of Minecraft. Winners will be announced at about midday tomorrow.
Our Christmas giveaways will continue throughout the weekend, and beyond until Christmas day, so be sure to check back for a chance to win more excellent prizes. Pop back tomorrow for the chance to win a World of Warcraft: Cataclysm goodies.
Winners!
This was tough to judge. There were a bunch of good, funny ideas. Out
of the 221 comments, our favourite 11 were:
Facepalmarama – Snow Block
Optimaximal – Minecraft Block
Moonshadow23 – Buddy Block
ShowMeTheMonkey - Soviet Block
Bun Yui - Tiny Stone Man Block.
DeadPcCat - Block o' tardis
Donzil - Tesseract Block
Pistol – Katamari Block
Kestrel150 - The W00T! Block
Gidio - Forever Alone Block
Hypergames – Brian Blessed Block
We'll pass the codes out on Monday, when we're back in the office.
