I guess I’m the victim of one of the new gaming addictions. It’s not Farmville, thank god, and it’s not Warcraft. It doesn’t have the best graphics, gripping storyline, or intriguing gameplay.

It’s called Minecraft, and I’m a little late to the party. It was released earlier in 2009 by Markus Persson. His one man “game” is pretty fun, and highly addictive. It features single player and multiplayer online. There are a good number of communities, and with that, a good number of add-ons and mods. Without these communities new players would be lost. Unfortunately there aren’t many instructions for those who pick up the game.

The game starts out with with you placed in the world. Your only actions include moving, jumping, and punching. With this, you move throughout the beautifully pixelated world. The only animals are pigs, chickens, and cows. During the night, however, things change. Zombies, skeletons, spiders, and some weird guy with no arms roam the land. Their only mission: to destroy you.

Your objective in the game is to live and create. You can make items via an item creation screen, a station for better items, and eventually a forge. Special minerals make more sturdier tools, weapons, and armor. A special type of mineral makes switches work. You can make mine carts and tracks. I haven’t gone into the detail that others have, but I made a pretty cool mine carved out in the side of a mountain. Exploration is a little difficult, and there is no in game map or waypoints. Death is quick, leaves you with no items in your immediate possession, and places you where you started. Despite these old school difficulties, it’s still fun.

I’m dying to try out multiplayer, but so far, single player will do for now. It’s available for about $13.  This will get you all future updates to the game.  I would love to see this game come to the iPad, but I don’t see that happening as it’s driven through Java.

I highly recommend this game for people who like Lego and sandbox video games.  Make sure to visit the communities who play this game constantly.  They are your best source for knowledge in your own little block world.  Check it out at www.minecraft.net/.  It’s currently in Alpha.

At the very least, this game should say something to people wanting to make their own game.  This game has 700,000 players, and about third of which have bought the game.  That’s easily 2.5 million USD.