Minecraft But Not: Minicraft

The latest Ludum Dare gamejam hit over the weekend, which means the internet is now awash with tiny experimental games created in just 48 hours. There are many we should nose curiously at, but a handy starting point is the effort from Markus 'Notch' Persson, who finished his game with hours to spare. He's moved on from active Minecraft development himself, but clearly he hasn't moved on from the design values of his zeitgeisty building and survival hit.

Minicraft is his LD48 entry: a game about chopping down trees, mining rock and stabbing zombies. YOU MAY BE SOMEWHAT FAMILIAR WITH THESE CONCEPTS. But Minicraft is not Minecraft, despite the clear self-referencing.

In fact, it's a neat little top-down action game with a touch of the Zeldas to it. You'll need to harvest the right resources to build a set of items, then go off in search of a boss to stab to death. Or, as the official description has it, "The goal of the game is to kill the only other sentient being in the world, making sure you'll be alone forever." Yeah, happy Christmas to you too, Notch.

It's a good (and compulsive) time, and impressively complete for a mere 48 hours of crunch.

You can play it for free in a browser that supports Java here, or download it from here.

Also, all the Ludum Dare 22 entries so far are collected here - but 16 hours remain on the clock, so many more will join the frantically-coded ranks there soon.