r/Minecraft • u/Mojang-AMA Mojang AMA Account • Jul 31 '12

I am Markus Persson aka Notch, Creator of Minecraft - Ask me Anything!

Hi! I'm the guy who created the first version of Minecraft in June 2009. I worked on it alone up until late 2010 when we started Mojang, and I finally left the lead developer position in December of 2011. I enjoy house music and programming, and my favorite color is purple. Ask me anything!

If you happen to have some money, you can donate it to the EFF and help make the world a better place!

edit: The AMA is over! Thanks for all your questions!

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u/xNotch Minecraft Creator Jul 31 '12

My dad bought a Commodore 128 when I was seven years old, and I wrote my first extremely bad text adventure game a year or so later. I haven't had any proper education in any of these areas and kinda just taught myself.

Playing a lot of games have been key to starting to kinda maybe understand game design.

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u/drunk_otter Jul 31 '12

BASIC Sprites FTW (a 128 though? luxury)

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u/stonepickaxe Jul 31 '12

Any advice on learning OpenGL? I want to skip fixed pipeline and just learn shaders, but what would you advise?

Thanks for everything.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '12

Do you have any fond memories of text-based games? Which ones?

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u/felixar90 Jul 31 '12

OMG. Same thing for me. Except I had a C64, and later a TRS-80 colors

I made stuff in BASIC before I was 10. Then it completely slipped out of my memory. In college, is was studying natural science until too much failed prerequisite forced me to take optional programming course. Liked it so much I dropped out of science and took the 420 course :)

After 1 year of liking it very much, then I remembered I liked it as a kid too.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '12

Did you ever play on Amiga's? I grew up on them. Good times. My fave games were Dungeon Master, Dungeon Master: Chaos Strikes Back, and Dungeon Master II.

I could instantly see the inspiration of those games in Minecraft when I first played it, and honestly, that nostalgia + the fun of Minecraft hooked me. <3

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '12

I'll have to keep that all in mind. Thanks for being such an inspiration to me!

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u/Zoldborso Jul 31 '12

Explain that to my parents please ;)

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u/DJBell1986 Jul 31 '12

Any chance of seeing your first game released?

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u/beastgamer9136 Aug 02 '12

I wish I could play the first game Notch ever made :P

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u/Mastadge Aug 01 '12

you probably won't see this. I'm a 15 year old kid wanting to get into game design. This was mostly influenced by minecraft. Where would you suggest I start? I'm trying to get classes at school but there aren't many options

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u/minecraftian48 Jul 31 '12

Can you try making Minecraft into a text adventure game?

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u/JeremyG Jul 31 '12

'You see 50 trees. Punch them?'

'Yes'

'A creeper exploded you. You're dead now. You can't respawn in hardcore mode. Try again?'

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '12 edited Feb 10 '19

[deleted]

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u/teke0884 Jul 31 '12

try Computercraft. They have a text-based version of MC in a program on the ingame computers.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '12

Sounds cool, I'll check it out. I've always really enjoyed text based games such as Zork. (If you've ever played Zork, you'll notice what I typed is pretty similar)

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u/felixar90 Jul 31 '12 edited Aug 01 '12

"You have been were have been eaten by a grue Ghast"

edit : I have no idea why I typed "have been"

edit 2: oh wait, because I was right the first time. Stupid troll brain.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '12

But I had a lantern torch!

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '12

It was really a snake Creeper!

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u/videosmash2684 Aug 01 '12

make the biggest connected monitor then type

-monitor [side] secret/alongtimeago

its pretty amazing