WEBVTT - Minecraft: Part Two 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:07.240 Get in techt with technology with text stuff from how 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.720 stuff works dot com either everyone, and welcome to tex Stuff. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.000 I'm Jonathan Strick and I and we've got a topic 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.000 that you guys are really gonna dig. Did you do 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.280 that pun in the first the first episode about Minecraft? 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:26.760 I don't know, because I didn't listen to it before 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:31.120 the show, but I probably did so. So way back 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:35.040 when Jonathan and Mr Chris Pollette did an episode about Minecraft, 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.680 and it has been suggested by essentially the Internet that 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.920 we do another one. Yeah, it turns out that people 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.680 love this game so much that one episode is not enough. 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:48.080 In fact, I think there are plenty of people out 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.760 there who would just like it if we had mind 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.120 stuff instead of text stuff. But we're not going to 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:56.800 do that. But we are going to update that old 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.120 podcast because, as it turns out, back then when Chris 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.200 and I corded the episode, neither of us had really 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.440 played around with Minecraft at all. We had watched some 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:06.959 videos on YouTube, we had read up on it, we 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.679 had done our research, but we hadn't actually played it. 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.080 And so at that point in time, it was still 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.400 in beta, the official version had not been released. They 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.640 have been taking pre orders, but there, but the official 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:19.679 version had not come out yet, it was still just 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.840 a beta program. And um yeah, it just turned out 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.560 that it was to us to Christen myself, it was 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:31.080 like Pokemon, something that we could research but didn't really understand. 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.320 And and I do want to say I have actually 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.839 not played Minecraft, so so Jonathan has at this point 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.440 since he is the expert. However, I will I will 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.160 go ahead and be up front. I have played Minecraft 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.920 on Xbox three sixty, which all die hard fans of 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.560 Minecraft and even casual fans. No, is a much more 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.800 simple version of Minecraft than the one you can find 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.920 on PCs and Max. But we'll we'll get into all 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.400 of that. Yeah. Yeah, it's you know, we really wanted 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.640 to do another at so because the Minecraft culture has 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.000 become such a thing. It's you know, I mean for 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:06.680 a game that was that was only released in two 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.960 thousand nine as sold over thirty million copies. You know, 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.959 they have a merge deal with Lego. It's an independent game. Yeah, 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:15.960 it's kind of No one was ever expecting this to 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.519 be this big of a thing, certainly not the man 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.760 who who programmed it. But it's funny because the Lego 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.000 thing to me just means it's gone full circle, right, 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.560 because when you look at Minecraft, if you're trying to 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.800 explain what Minecraft is to someone who has never played it, 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.000 you're like, well, it's blocks, and you put the blocks 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.560 together and then you form bigger things that are kind 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:36.880 of blocky, like, oh, so it's like virtual Lego and 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:40.240 kinda it's kind of like that, but there there's so 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.240 much more to it, right if you can make the 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.120 legos do stuff, combining them in special if you were 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.680 to get the Robotic Lego set and then merge it 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.400 with say the Lord of the Rings Lego set, and 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:55.520 the magic worked, but now there are actual legs. Yes, 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.079 and there were zombies. You have to put the Walking 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.639 Dead Lego set, and I'm pretty sure there's not one, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.440 but but you know, I'm sure there are zombies. There 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.000 have to be zombie legos. I'm sure there have to be, 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.080 but they're at least dead pirate legos anyway, So the 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.320 basic game. We're going to cover what the basic game 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:14.680 is so that those of you who have never played 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.120 Minecraft but I've heard about it can understand what we're 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.600 talking about. So you're you go into a world that 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.840 is essentially created for you. When you first start, the 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:29.280 world gets created uh systematically where it has a distribution 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:33.200 of resources that is different from game to game. Um, 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.839 you play a little blocky character inhabiting this world. During 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.480 the day, this world is idyllic. You have little piggy's 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:44.360 and and and cowie's sheep sheep bees and doggies and 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.600 caddies running around. They're not called that, you know, not caddies. 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.720 It's not golf game. Um, but no, they're these animals 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:58.640 running around. You've got beautiful forests, You've got scenic snowy landscapes, mountains, caverns, oceans, 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.960 all this kind of stuff. And uh, when nightfalls, the 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:05.080 monsters come out and they try to kill you. And 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.960 so if you're playing it on just the classic Minecraft mode, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.360 which is also called Survival mode, your goal, at least 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.720 early on is just survival. You're trying to gather materials 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.280 build a protective house for you to to stay in 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.280 at night so that way the monsters don't get you, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.800 and then you can explore and build out your your house. 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.080 I've heard that, in fact, most players do not survive 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.040 the first night. No, it's true because if you've never 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:37.040 played Minecraft before and you haven't any idea of how 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.160 to build stuff because there's there's not really there's no 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:43.000 instruction manual. When you start playing, you have to craft things. 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:47.160 You'd gather resources, raw materials, and then you craft useful 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.000 materials out of them. Now, technically, if you wanted to, 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:52.719 you could craft a house out of the raw material 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.560 of wood. But that means that every single block of 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.400 your house, and a block represents like one cubic meter, 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.640 it's one meter by one or by one meter um, 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.360 each block of your house would be one block of wood. 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.320 So you'd have to knock down the equivalent number of 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.479 trees to create a house that was the right size 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:12.800 to protect you. Also, I imagine that that wouldn't be 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.920 as strong as a house made of other Actually this, well, 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.360 it wouldn't be as flammable if you made it out 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.320 of stone. Uh. Strength is kind of it depends. There's 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.120 only one thing that really can cause huge amounts of 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.640 damage to your house, and that's a creeper. Uh. And 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.320 I'll talk about that in a second. But anyway, so 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.120 you what you could do is by crafting, you could 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:37.640 convert raw material wood into planks, and so one block 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.520 of wood would equal several blocks of planks. Thus you 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.919 would extend the usefulness of that one block of resource 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.520 and be able to, you know, put down say four 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.200 blocks of planks for every one block of wood. That 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.160 means you don't have to gather as much stuff. You 0:05:55.160 --> 0:06:00.279 have increased your efficiency. It's teaching new lessons, mostly in 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.720 how not to die. These are my favorite. Yeah. So 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:05.839 then you can also make tools that make it easier 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:07.919 for you to gather materials. You can make tools that 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.480 let you gather other materials like stone, so you can 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.280 build something out of stone if you wanted to. You 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:15.320 can build it out of metal if you were able 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.279 to find enough metal. There there are veins of various 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.039 ores in the Minecraft world, and depending upon which version 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.720 of Minecraft you're playing, you may have just a couple 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.839 like iron ore or gold or diamonds something like that. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.480 So various metals and minerals um. If you are playing 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.120 the PC version, there are a lot more that are available, 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:37.120 so you can get like aluminum or aluminium uh, and 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.880 copper and things like that and ten uh. You can't 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.320 do that on the Xbox version yet, right, And there 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.000 are all different kinds of combinations or recipes that you 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.039 can use to put these the little bits of things 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.840 into other little bits of things and create new stuff. 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.720 I think that there's about a hundred and eighty or 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.679 more right now. Yeah, and then there again the PC version, 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.320 they're far more common sations you can make, and it's 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.240 less intuitive, Like I think anyone who's played the PC 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.600 version who then tries to play the Xbox version remarks 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.760 and how dumbed down the Xbox version is, because, for example, 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.000 if I want to craft something in the Xbox version, 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.320 I really just have to have the basic materials to 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.360 make that thing, and then it does a lot of 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.000 the work for me. In the classic Minecraft, you have 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.000 a little crafting grid that opens up, and you have 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.600 to place the raw materials in a specific formation within 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.040 that grid to get the output you want. So, for example, 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.119 it may be that a plank and two sticks could 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.600 make a wooden axe or wooden pick axe or woulden shovel, 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:40.720 but it all depends on where you place them within 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.320 that grid on what you get. Fortunately, that's not the 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.440 case for the Xbox version, so I don't have to 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.400 remember all that. As for the other modes, just really 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:51.800 quickly the other basic modes you can play in this game, 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.960 there's creative. Creative just means that you can build and 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.160 it's just it lets you go crazy and do what 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.280 you want without needing to protect yourself from monsters at 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.880 the end of the day or gather materials. You actually 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.000 have all them. It's like you have an infinite supply 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.440 of everything that's in the game. So then you can 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.440 build whatever structure you want if you wanted to. You 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.240 could build a world and then allow other people to 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.360 come into it. So because you can create a server 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.880 so that other people can play within your world, and 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.160 that way, you might use the creative mode to create 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.760 a very interesting world for them to inhabit and potentially destroy, 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.600 depending upon what levels of permission you give the other 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.720 players and whether or not they're heads. Yeah, there's you're 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.439 always going to get a big MENI head. There's also 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.840 the hardcore mode, which is terrifying to me. Hardcore is 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.360 that if you die, that's it. Uh So, for example, 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.080 if I create a world and it's self contained, I 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.160 don't have it connected to the internet. I'm just playing 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.040 by myself, but I'm playing in hardcore mode. If my 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.520 character dies, it deletes the world. So all the work 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:58.160 I've done, I might have made the world's largest castle 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:02.559 in Minecraft, and trust me, that's always one of my goals. Um, 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:04.840 but if I die, I lose it, it's gone. I 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.600 can't retrieve it. If it's multiplayer and you die, you 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.640 get ejected from the server and banned, so you can't 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.640 rejoin the game. Uh, it just gives you a message 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.200 saying sorry, you're banned from the server. Technically, the administrator 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.320 could allow you back in, but it would require some 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.520 work on the administrator's part to delete some uh some 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.280 bits of code within the server world. So most people 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:28.440 I don't think would go through the trouble um. And 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.360 then finally you have adventure mode. And an adventure mode, 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.440 people who come into your world are not allowed to 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.640 destroy blocks unless they have the proper tools for that 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.320 particular block. So, for example, for a block of stone, 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.320 they would have to have a pickaxe. Normally, in the game, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.120 if you punch something long enough, it'll break. Uh. Some 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.040 some materials are harder than others and thus take longer 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.880 to punch to break, Like if you are talking about Obsidian, 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.200 I hope you packed a lunch, but uh, you know, 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.120 in adventure mode you cannot do it unless you have 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.000 the right materials. Well, that gets pretty tricky because most 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.600 materials have at the very base of it would if 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.880 you don't have an ax, you can't chop down wood. 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:10.040 So when you start off an adventure mode, you can't 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.000 even gather the most basic materials, so you have to 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.760 kind of adventure around in the world to find stuff 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.719 that can protect you. Once night comes and the monsters 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.800 come out, then if you encounter things like chests, you 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.040 might find the basic tools you need to do some 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.719 more gathering, and then you can finally start to play 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.199 the game as if you were playing in survival mode. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.679 So those are your four basic modes keep in mind, 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.360 and we'll talk about this later in the podcast. The 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:40.960 the community around Minecraft has created so many different modifications 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.320 or just mods for the game that these are just 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:49.439 the basic ways of playing. There are dramatically different experiences 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.120 on Minecraft based upon the way people have modified the 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.840 game and given it different skins or different behaviors, and 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:57.840 we'll talk about some of those a little bit later on. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:03.000 So that's your basis for the Minecraft games. It's an 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:07.280 incredibly simple concept that gets more and more complex as 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.960 more features have been added into the game over the 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.680 course of its lifetime, and also as more players have, 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.400 as he said, created these mods that have you know, 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.880 it's it's a really self developing community, which is pretty fascinating. Uh. 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:22.360 Do you want to talk a little bit about the 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:28.599 man who started at all? Marcus person Yes, I was 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:30.839 about to say, I didn't look up any of the 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.320 the pronunciation, so I'm glad you did because I looked 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:34.520 at your notes and I saw that you had some 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.719 fonetics in there. Um, Now is it? Is it moo young? 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:39.440 Is the name of his company? Will get into it, 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.600 but yesu Yang, I think, But yes, I always go 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:48.520 Japanese Young. Sorry, but yes, so Marcus person Um better 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:50.840 perhaps known on the internet as not Yeah, we'll go 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.160 with Notch for the rest of this podcast. Really, he's 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.839 a thirty four as of this podcast in October. Um 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.199 grew up in Sweden, if you could not tell from 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:04.320 our mispronunciation of his name, Um, and Uh learned learned 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:06.280 to use a family computer when he was very young 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.120 at commodore. Yep. He his father was a railroad worker, 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.360 and so I guess he probably got some appreciation for 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.480 the basis of Minecraft just from from being the son 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.720 of a railroad worker. Uh. Grew up playing various bootleg games, 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.640 and I was particularly fond of a legit version of 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:25.360 The Bard's Tale. I think that was the first one 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.160 that he owned. It was the first game he bought 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.880 with his own money. And I can appreciate that because 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.800 I also owned a copy of The Bard's Tale and 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.120 also enjoyed when he was a child playing all playing 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.199 around with some of the programming codes that they used 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.520 to publish. In the back of programming magazine. Yea, he 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:42.800 talked about how his sister would read out the code 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:44.680 and then he would type it into the computer, and 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.560 that sometimes he would make a mistake, and he realized 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.120 that if he made a mistake, the program would behave 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.520 in a way it was not intended, and he, rather 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.560 than getting frustrated over this, felt a sense of power. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:01.079 It's a huge rush. Yeah. He worked in Webb Design originally. 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:02.760 I think a few of his teachers had kind of 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.400 pushed him more towards graphic design. Yeah, he wanted to go. 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:07.560 He knew at a very early age that he was 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.640 interested in game program Yeah. He and his he and 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:12.319 his buddies in school. When he was a teenager, he 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:14.960 became a group of h He joined a group of 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.800 kids who were all interested in programming. They we're using 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.719 a tar e st computers at that point, trying to 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.040 outdo each other, and he knew that that's kind of 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:24.760 what he wanted to do. He wanted to develop games, 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.320 but his teacher said, maybe you should go into graphic 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.760 design instead. There's this whole web thing that's taking place. 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:31.400 If you were a web designer, you can make huge 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:34.120 amounts of cash. And so he went into web development. 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.280 And then something happened, something big happened. Well, I I 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.040 believe he quit to become a game designer. He was like, 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.040 you know what, never mind, I'm going to follow my 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.480 dream and and quit his job, tried to become a 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.800 game designer, and the dot com crash happened. Yeah, And 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.120 when the dot com crash happened, it wiped out jobs 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.840 across the board on a global scale. We think of 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.920 it here in the US as a largely US centered thing, 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.319 but this was a global events um So he was 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:04.040 out of work for a couple of years, but finally 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.960 got into a web game company, working programming in Flash. Yeah, 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.439 and he built around thirty games in Flash and also 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.200 pursued programming in other ways. He was really interested in 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:18.760 learning how to make very small efficient programs, sort of 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.480 how can I use the least amount of code to 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.440 achieve the thing I want to do? So this is 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:29.720 not necessarily the same pathway that hackers take. Hackers will 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.840 often say I want X result, so I'm going to 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.360 do whatever I can to get to X result, which 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.800 means your code might be work, might work, but it 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.360 might not be very elegant. He was looking at ways 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.320 of making it a very small and compact program so 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.160 that it's very portable. You can you can use that 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:50.480 code on multiple devices or multiple machines that have different 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.000 levels of complexity, so that way you don't you know, 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.800 you're not limited to just well this this program works, 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.480 but you better have the hardware that can chuggle longer elds. 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:06.320 It's never going to be satisfying experience. Um. This was 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.040 right around the time we're getting up towards the late 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.080 two thousand's, when he had been working at this company 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.320 for a while. He had been designing flash games, and 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.760 he came across a game in two thousand nine called 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:20.440 Infino Minor. Right. Yeah, you and Chris had talked talked 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.760 about this one on the previous podcast. Yes, so in 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.200 Phinno Minor. If you were to just read a basic 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.520 description of infinom Minor, he might say, hah, this sounds 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.000 hauntingly familiar because it was a block based game, a 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.000 multiplayer game where it was a sandbox game, and you 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.960 could mind things and build stuff with the stuff you mind, 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.880 you would gather materials and build objects, and so it 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.920 sounds a lot like Minecraft. Well, that's no mistake. I mean, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:50.480 that's that's kind of the the inspiration behind Minecraft. Now, 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.000 there are many things that Minecraft does that infinom Minor 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.920 didn't do and was never intended to do. So I'm 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.880 not saying that Minecraft is a copy of infinom Minor, 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.600 but you can see where inspiration was also. I believe 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.240 something happened to infinite Minor. Oh yes it did so 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:08.400 E Electronic Industries. Electronics Industries launched in phinom Minor kind 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.840 of in a beta mode in the spring of two 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:15.440 thousand nine and after a month discontinued support. So, the 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.360 original the original goal of infinom Minor as a player 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.760 was that you would go down in a team. You 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:24.720 have a team of players, you would play against other 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.560 teams and your goal was to mind certain types of 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.480 materials and then bring those back up to the surface 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.320 and you would accumulate points. But a lot of players 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.600 I found that it was much more satisfying to mine 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.240 materials and then build stuff, not to go for this 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.480 whole point related game aspect, but to use it more 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.320 as a true sandbox. So that's kind of what gave 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.840 not the inspiration of well, you know this, people are 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.320 using this game in a way that it wasn't intended 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.400 to be, and the support for the game has gone away. 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:57.840 What if I made a game that from the start 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.320 was meant to be what people were turned ning in 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.640 phinom Minor into. And furthermore that you know, no one's 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.160 going to cut support off too, because I read it. Yeah, 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.640 And so you know, the the infinom Minor product kept 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.119 on going for a while because the company ended up 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.800 uh making the code completely open source so anyone could 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.520 download it, which meant that suddenly lots of people were 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.240 running in phenom Minor on their own machines and changing it. 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.960 But there were so many changes to infinom Minor that 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.320 it lost cohesion. It was no longer a unified platform, 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.320 so there wasn't enough there to be to have a 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.320 community to stay around it. Right it was, there's so 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.159 many different niche versions of infinom Minor that you couldn't 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.680 have a community anymore. So Minecraft took a slightly different approach, 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:47.440 and he began to develop Minecraft starting right around well, 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.720 according to according to the Minecraft site, on May tenth, 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.320 two thousand nine, that's exactly when he started to develop Minecraft. 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.480 And he decided to switch from being a full time 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.320 when developer and game developer for for this other company 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.600 to part time, so he scaled back his work hours. 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.159 He still was an employee with this company, but he 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.639 the other half of this time was spent developing Minecraft. Uh, 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.880 and things moved really really quickly. Yeah, the game would 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.199 release later that year in two thousand nine. Yeah, the 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.520 beta version came out. In fact, the beta version. For 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.040 a long time, people began to wonder if Minecraft was 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.560 a Google product because it was in beta for a 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.400 couple of years. But but the meant that people could 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.280 actually play the game he was working on, and that 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.119 you know, you could even do pre orders as early 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.960 as June nine, he had started developing on May tenth. 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:45.080 June thirteenth, he begins to accept pre orders for the game. 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:48.080 He releases those early builds of the game for testing 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.159 over the next two years, and he would keep on 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.240 updating them, adding in new features throughout those those two 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.000 years as he was preparing the game for its gold release. 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.680 Right as of the podcast, the game had not come 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.840 out of beta yet. Yeah, that was when we were 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:06.520 still wondering if it ever would come out of beta. 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.000 And actually it wouldn't take much longer, but before we 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.359 get to that. On June one, that was Nacha's birthday 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:15.760 and also the day that he quit his job, his 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:19.800 his day job and started devoting everything full time to Minecraft. 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.480 That's right. So June one, two thousand and ten, big day, 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.320 big day for Notch where he was ready to take 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.080 the plunge the Minecraft project, which he originally thought was 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.040 going to be fun but not a huge success. He hoped. 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.919 His biggest hope was that would be successful enough to 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:39.199 fund his next game idea, which he didn't necessarily have 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.399 at that point. He was just hoping that, well, this 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.520 this project will bring in enough money for my fun 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.600 and maybe and over six million people had downloaded it 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.119 in the first year, so that's when it was the 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.880 realization came with Wow, this could be the big money, 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:56.880 this could be the game. Well, we'll we'll move on 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.400 into the rest of the timeline in just a second, 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.240 but before we get too carried away, I want to 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:06.760 take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright, So 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.040 we left off at notches birthday on June one, when 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.800 he had made the big leap, cutting his uh, his 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.920 job and now focusing full time on Minecraft. Um. And 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.359 you know the next day I have is in do 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.840 you have anything else? I do? Not now? Okay, So 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.119 March second, two thousand eleven, Notch announces development for a 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.639 new game called Scrolls. Scrolls was a game that was 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.240 kind of the brainchild of both Notch and another member 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:37.439 of what would become his company, Moo Young. Um. But 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.840 it's uh, it's kind of a combination of a board 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.800 game and a card trading game, kind of like Magic 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.199 the Gathering meets war gaming. So you would have a 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.280 strategy element on where you placed things in the game 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.399 as well as kind of this card based system. Although 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.320