“While he was out there, he would call back home and speak to his young son, but he didn’t really get his full attention for more than five minutes before the boy ran off to do something else. “I met this dad, a soldier, I think he’d been based in Afghanistan,” he says. So he started talking to them wandering the hall, trying to find out why they liked playing this weird building simulation. Now he was at a video game community conference, surrounded by families walking around with foam swords and giant cardboard helmets. He had previously worked in the hard, fast and serious world of gambling. He’d only just joined Mojang, coming straight in to lead the studio. He was at a Minecraft convention in Orlando Florida four years ago when he realised there was more to all this than just a game. I’m thinking about this while sitting in a meeting room in the cluttered Mojang office, chatting to the company’s CEO, Jonas Mårtensson. Gentlemen’s club … Jens Bergensten, left, and Jonas Mårtensson Photograph: Michael Campanella/Getty/The Guardian There’s no story, no mission, just you and a world of possibilities. A bed, for example, requires you to combine wood and wool, while a longbow is made from a stick and some string. To play Minecraft you need to collect certain resources. The game was not only bringing people together – it was teaching basic skills. I was inundated with tweets, emails and comments from other parents. It was a revelation.Īfter writing an article about our experiences with Minecraft and autism in early 2015, I soon found out I wasn’t alone. He’d gone from grunted responses, one or two words, to lively tales of zombies, naughty pigs and wildly ambitious building projects. For the next two years, I think every single conversation he started was about Minecraft, but we didn’t care. More importantly, for the first time in his life, he was talking to us about what he was doing. But before long, with his younger brother, Albie, he was making houses, then mansions, then giant, sprawling castles. He started to experiment, chopping down a few trees, digging a shallow quarry – the usual beginner stuff. Zac had always loved technology, though, learning to use an iPad before he could walk. Although he enjoyed being read and spoken to, he didn’t say much back. His vocabulary was limited and he had little patience for painting or drawing. He’d just been diagnosed on the autism spectrum and I knew that we’d need to find new ways to communicate with him. As soon as I saw the blocky landscape load up and heard the soothing piano soundtrack trickle out, I knew someone who would like it: my eldest son, Zac. As games editor for the Guardian, I’d heard of it, but somehow hadn’t got round to playing it. Minecraft arrived in my household in 2012. In short, they wanted the office to be like Minecraft. The aim was to make a nice place to hang out, meet people and have fun – an environment that felt personal. They even designed a Mojang coat of arms, which hangs near an enormous banqueting table. In came Chesterfield sofas, a snooker table and lots of dark oak furniture. Five years ago, when makers Mojang moved to this first-floor office in the trendy area of Södermalm, they wanted it to have the feel of a gentlemen’s club. To truly understand the appeal of Minecraft, you need to understand the studio behind it. And the chances are you’ve asked yourself: why? If you have children aged between six and 16, the chances are they’re hooked on this strange, blocky pursuit. This is where they make what many regard as a digital version of Lego: a game that’s been downloaded more than 100m times on PCs, consoles and smartphones since its launch in 2009. ![]() The truth only becomes clear when you step through the door and discover the endless shelves filled with awards (including a Bafta) and the vast boxes of Minecraft merchandise piled in every corner. Http://ou wouldn’t know, turning into this nondescript street in Stockholm and padding up the stone steps to Minecraft HQ, that anything special was being made up here. ![]() Remember guys we don't own this just spreading the word, as it greatly improves the gaming experience! See you guys later comment if theres any issues, or if i missed anything. Nope, all you need to do is run the infiniminerp2.exe and your ready to go. + Dyamic server list, P2 servers only shown in the p2 client! + new forcefield effect when being inside a forcefield + Can edit settings like name, resoultion, full screen in client! ![]() +Better textures (Can be swapped with vanilla) + Custom Generators (New ways the map will generate, e.g forest) Am glad to annouce thanks to 'Gravity' we decided to release the infiniminer p2 client for download! (go to bottom for link) Read the list for the changes made to infiniminer in the client.
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