When did Minecraft come out? Most people will say 2011. That's when 1.0 came out. But some will say 2009. That is when rd-132211, the first public version of Minecraft came out. However, very few will say 1979. That was the original plan. So why did it take so long? In this article, we will go over what happened and why Minecraft came out decades after the original plan.
Early days[]
Minecraft began development on 13 May 1979 by Atari. They decided that it would release on the Atari-2600 in 1980. It was to be a first person game, with focus on gathering resources and fighting enemies. Known enemies include the Creeper, an enemy which would explode if it got near the player dealing severe damage, the skeleton, which would use a bow and arrow and a zombie, which would simply melee attack the player. There were 2 animals, the pig and the cow. Both would be a food source if killed, however, the cow would drop its leather. A player could cut down trees and craft a crafting table, which would allow the player to craft more things, such as an axe to help chop down trees faster, or a pickaxe for mining. As the player could not look down, the player would have to find a cave entrance to mine. The player could mine stone to make a furnace. Many things could be burned in a furnace, such as wood and coal, which could be mined. The player could use the furnace to cook food and smelt iron. The player could also craft a sword and armour. There were several tiers of gear, for tools it was wood, then stone, then iron and then diamond, for armour there was leather, then iron and then diamond. There was also chainmail armour, which could not be crafted but instead found on mobs, such as zombies and skeletons and in chests, which could also be crafted by the player to store items. The player could build a house out of things found around the world. The player would have to select one, and if they had the required resources, it would be built.
Development enters full swing[]
On 25 June, Atari announced Minecraft and also announced that the game would be demonstrated at the Minecraft Convention, also known as Minecon, to occur on August 31 in the Los Angeles Convention Center in California, the state where Atari was based, with the possibility of becoming an annual event. At the convention, demo copies of Minecraft would also be distributed. Around this time, new enemies, such as the Spider, Spider Jockey, which was a Skeleton riding a Spider, and Enderman, which could teleport around and could only be melee attacked, using a bow and arrow would cause it to simply teleport away before the arrow hit. A new animal was also implemented, the sheep, which would drop its wool when killed, and the said wool could be used to make a bed to skip the night, which was now when enemies appeared. Different biomes with different types of trees were also added. At this point, Minecraft began to receive widespread attention, with many gaming magazines covering it at the time. One young Atari fan, Morris Hinkle, decided to film the convention. He would later be the key in the investigation.
Minecon 1979[]
On August 25, Hinkle left his home in Portland, Maine on a 6-day road trip across the country to California, from which he would not return alive. Minecon 1979 started without a hitch. Biomes, animals, crafting, cooking, tools, armour, building and fighting were all demonstrated. The moment the game started up, onlookers knew that it would be one of, if not the most advanced 2600 game. There was one more thing to be demonstrated; mining. As the game was procedurally generated, it took a while for the developers to find a cave entrance, but eventually one was found. The cave was very deep and included a vast array of resources. There was seemingly no end in sight, the developers just kept gathering resources. This was until something happened that would spell the end of Minecraft. What could have caused this? The Los Angeles fire department received a call about a fire in the Los Angeles Convention Center from a woman, later identified to be Elaine Blair from Hughson, California. LAFD engine 10 arrived on the scene to find the entire building up in flames. Some had managed to escape the building, while others remained trapped inside and suffered a gruesome fate, one of them being Blair. Engine 10 was unable to contain the fire by itself and its crew called for additional backup. When the nearby engine 11 arrived, they found the burning, overturned wreckage of engine 10, and something which remains classified to this day. While very few remember what happened after this, but it is common knowledge that a large number of US marines were called in to neutralise the threat, and were successful. The convention center had been flattened with a death toll of 20. Hinkle's camera went up in flames, and while he was killed, the camera was intact enough for the footage to be recovered from the scene and played back by investigators. After discovering what had happened, the US government seized all copies of Minecraft, forcing Atari to cancel the game. They used various mind control techniques, such as chemtrails, to suppress public knowledge about the incident. The convention center was rebuilt. The footage would later leak online. Note that what you are about to read may be incredibly disturbing.
The video[]
While we cannot show the video here, we can talk about its contents. The video begins outside the convention center, with a large crowd of people going to see Minecraft. The video then cuts to the demonstration, which goes as normal, until the developers find a yet to be explained structure in the cave. Then, they enter a square with 12 eyes around it. This puts them in a dark area with a cream coloured material everywhere. The online version of the footage has been censored, so what actually happens is unknown, but the TV the game was being played on appears to explode, throwing the camera onto the floor. A roaring sound can be heard as flames slowly envelop the camera, and the tape ends.
The revival of Minecraft[]
In 2009, Swedish game developer Markus Persson, also known as Notch, began development of a cave game. After he noticed some similarities to Minecraft, he decided to make the game into a remake of Minecraft. A US government official arrived at his house shortly after he announced the game, but the government allowed him to continue development so long has he makes no mention of the original Minecraft. He decided to release rd-132211, the first public version of Minecraft, on 13 May 2009, the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the original Minecraft's development. He held Minecon 2010 on 31 August 2010, the 31st anniversary of Minecon 1979, and it became an annual event. As for the mysterious area at the end of the tape, this would later become the End Dimension. To this day, very few know about the original Minecraft for the Atari 2600.