Gary Penn

Internal development manager, Denki

o I love Minecraft. Ito s like LEGO meets Lost. Ito s such an empowering construction toy set o a simple and powerful system o blended with the need to survive in an unknown microcosm.

"Thereo s a lot to learn and manipulate o and in your own time and way. It works on so many levels that combine to tickle your most base instincts o and ito s not even finished.

o Io m also impressed and envious of the way the authoro s working. Ito s a lovely o naked developmento approach that I never did get around to doing myself.o

Alice Taylor

Commissioning editor, Channel 4 Education

o Why ito s so successful? Who knows; a mixture of timing, magic and zeitgeist? Maybe weo re bored of 8-bit retro and now ito s all about Doom/Quake retro.

Maybe ito s the limitless possibilities of house building: from Falling Water repros, to castles, to the Starship Enterprise at 1:1 scale.

Maybe ito s the gold-panning: regular, but unpredictable and valuable o findso tickles our dopamine receptors. None of this on paper would have predicted the enormous, almost ridiculous response to Minecraft, though.o

Quintin Smith

Contributing editor, Rock Paper Shotgun

o MineCraft is LEGO, basically. It provides you with a world thato s been simplified to such an extent that you can build or sculpt anything you can imagine with perfect precision, and thato s hugely satisfying. Except unlike LEGO, you then get to live in this world.o