Minecraft is a first-person ‘sandbox game,’ meaning gamers make their own experience and world within the game. Those worlds and experiences are based totally on the gamers’ imaginations. From famous landmarks (i.e. Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower) to movie scenes (i.e. Star Wars or Harry Potter), and anything else you can dream up with the 3D blocks that are Minecraft’s trademark. Players can create individually or as a group, and even when working alone, Minecraft allows for conversation amongst other players on the same server.
Minecraft has five game modes: Survival Mode, Creative Mode, Hardcore Mode, Spectator Mode, and Adventure Mode. The two most popular modes are Survival and Creative.
Creative Mode
In Creative Mode, you don’t have to worry about getting hungry or hurt in this mode. Since you don’t have to worry about hunger, health, or enemies you can build massive structures and play in a more relaxed environment. You aren’t limited to walking and running either. Flying is an option in Creative Mode. You also have access to every block, tool, weapon, potion, book, and food item available in the game. This mode is great for exploring the different ways of building in Minecraft.
Check out this quick introduction to creative mode by zaxxon825:
Find a more in-depth look by Krafty7 here.
Survival Mode:
Survival world is much more challenging for new players, but can also be very rewarding. In Survival Mode, gamers are dropped randomly into a world at dawn. They have 10-20 real-time minutes to gather resources, craft tools and items, assemble shelter, and find food to survive. When darkness falls, they also have to battle monsters and mobs.
For more info on Survival Mode watch this video by Krafty7
You can also check out our survival guide.
Difficulty Level
Peaceful: In peaceful mode the game is set to beyond-easy. In fact, it’s so easy some of the key parts of the game are just left out. Hostile mobs don’t spawn and hunger automatically refills (and with it health). Peaceful mode is often used in spawn areas in friendlier servers or temporarily turned on by players. Overall, it offers an incomplete experience.
Easy: Mostly standard game rules. Mobs don’t deal as much damage, hunger can’t kill you, and spiders can’t poison you. A good place to start for new players.
Normal: Standard game rules. The most popular difficulty setting.
Hard: A more challenging version of the standard game rules. Even zombies can break through doors and spawn reinforcements. For more experienced players.
Hardcore Mode: Hardcore mode is not for the faint of heart. It’s an entirely different game mode with it’s own set of rules. Once you’ve entered a hardcore game you cannot change the difficulty level. The game is set to an extreme difficulty level. Normally if the player dies from hunger, a fall, or deadly mobs they can respawn back where they started. In Hardcore Mode it’s game over. If you’re reading this guide you might not be ready for hardcore mode just yet.
Spectator and Adventure Modes
In Spectator Mode, players can only explore the world, but cannot interact with it. Because players can’t interact with blocks at all in spectator mode they can fly right through them. It’s a great way to see a world or project you’ve been working on from a whole new perspective.
Adventure Mode limits the tools players can use to do certain tasks. Our favorite use of adventure mode at Connected Camps is to make stories and experiences, designing our own levels and worlds for others to play.
To learn more about the basics of Minecraft, check out the Minecraft 101 portion of our guide. To learn about fun activities, minigames, and more check out the Kid Club Guide to Minecraft (Coming Soon).