Markus Persson on Minecraft
Feature
Markus Persson, an indie game developer, is working on Minecraft, a sandbox building game which allows players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. We discuss the game’s progress, challenges and more with him.
Hooked Gamers: Hello Markus Persson, and thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. I suppose the fundamental question that drives the basis of this interview is what exactly is Minecraft? And what do you do in it?
The game is designed to be as broad as possible, so what you do is up to you. For me, that usually ends with me exploring caves and getting lost.
Hooked Gamers: Building and creating seems to be the foundation of this game, but what drives the player to create large and extravagant creations and how will they be rewarded by doing so?
Markus Persson: I think there’s a big reward already for just completing a big project, and that’s probably what drives people to do it. Not only do you get the satisfaction of actually building something, but you can also show it off to your friends and to total strangers.
Hooked Gamers: I played something similar to this when I was six, it was called legos. I would spend hours building cool stuff out of the little blocks, so how does Minecraft put a creative twist on the fundamentals of an idea created so long ago? And where did you mainly draw your inspiration to create this from?
Hooked Gamers: In real life, it is easy to take one object, and stack it upon another, how does Minecraft make the creative process simpler in a digital world when you’re in control of just one person, or do you need to create a ladder every time you want to work on a higher elevation?
Markus Persson: The easiest way to climb up in Minecraft is to either jump block to block in an incline, or to jump down and place a block beneath you.
Repeating that lets you make a big pillar.