Minecraft goes 3D!

Hi gang!

Editorial

Last week, on the first day of both the week and the month of April, Mojang released their latest snapshot and boy oh boy, this snapshot could easily change the way we play Minecraft forever! What made this discovery really exciting for me was to learn that Mojang are finally wising up by focusing their attention to older technologies which, when used correctly, could easily be applied today.

And the result? Minecraft 3D!

Back to basics!

Not only has Minecraft 3D implemented a new and revolutionary 3D engine which really adds a whole new dimension to the game, they also seem to prepare themselves for their upcoming new game titles and have released this game as shareware. You heard that right, the good ole days relive thanks to Mojang!

What's shareware?

Now, if you're still somewhat young then you may not be familiar with the term anymore because it's hardly being used these days. But shareware means so much that you're fully free to spread the software around and give copies to all of your friends. So you're allowed to share your game. The only caveat, as can be seen above, is that a given copy won't have all the features unlocked. In order to get access to the full game you need to register with Mojang and pay them a small fee after which you will gain access to everything else.

This allows you to share a (somewhat) working game with your friends while Mojang will still benefit from it.

A new engine!

When you start Minecraft 3D you'll quickly notice that the splash screen has been replaced by something else... a loader. Finally a company has recognized the true potential of the old DOS/4GW loader and have implemented it into a modern game. Of course all of this meant that Mojang had to apply some drastic changes to their current gaming engine as well, I don't think the whole "chunks system" can keep up with this enhanced technology and so it seems Mojang has actually adopted the Doom engine into their game!

It is easy to miss but notice the mention of minecraft.wad?

What's wad?!

Once again this is something you had to see yourself in order to fully understand. But in the beginning of PC gaming we had a few very noticeable games such as Doom. This title even saw a re-make and a whole live action movie. But back to the issue at hand here: the Doom levels all used a very specific format and the data files all had a .wad extension. Which also quickly led up to wad editors.

And now it seems that Mojang is going to revive that technology and apply it to Minecraft! These are truly exciting times.

This new level format will also make it easier for Mojang to release new levels at a later time.

Be sure to register!

Welcome to the new Minecraft franchise where you can order several parts of both the 3D and 2D engines, talk about giving away a good deal! Unfortunately I couldn't get a good idea about the prices which Mojang is going to charge us but considering the age of this new technology I doubt it'll be very expensive.

So what do we 'do' in Minecraft 3D?

The gameplay has been enhanced as well. Throughout your whole level you will now find burning barrels which contain some loot inside. Loot the loot and then try to get away because the barrel will explode which will cause you some damage. All barrels contain a large variety of loot but the most exciting items are of course the latest additions to Minecraft: the keys!

Minecraft now has red, blue and yellow key cards which can be used to open doors with the same color. Unfortunately said doors have not been added to the game just yet, but I'm sure this will be sorted in an upcoming release.

And we also get access to something really exciting: the new 3d item!



Here you can see me carrying the new 3d object as well as having the red, blue and yellow keys in my inventory.

Bugs

Unfortunately the game is suffering from a few bugs, as can be seen above. I think that this is the result of Mojang implementing the old DOS/4GW loader a bit too hasty and so it is missing out on some crucial information. But not too worry: I already heard rumors * which indicate that the OptiFine developers are already working on improving this mess.

For now we'll just have to accept the fact that our game will get interrupted every 20 or so seconds for an infinite amount of time. I agree: this is not very optimal gameplay, but I'm sure it'll get better. Let's not forget that this is essentially a free game we're playing!

* those rumors might have been started by none other than me, but who cares about details like that, right? ;)

Here's how to order download!

In order to get this game you need to enable snapshots in your Minecraft launcher (as shown above). Just add a new profile, check its properties and select the entry "snapshot 3D Shareware v1.134" from the version menu. Now you too can enjoy the future of Minecrafting!

Isn't this wonderful? Such exciting times!