Chances are you are already familiar with Minecraft. If not, let me tell you which game it is. It is the one in which everything is made up of tiny cubes, even the people. The one you have seen on YouTube or Instagram where someone is breaking rocks in a cave with something that resembles a very low-resolution sword. The one you can see in the pictures throughout this article.

Well at first glance Minecraft looks unpresentable, lame, and pointless. I mean just compare the graphics with something like Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty. It looks weird. The gameplay also may not seem like much of a challenge either.

Let me be clear about something; if you are among the people who think like what I have said so far, you are wrong!

All the above are absolutely incorrect on so many levels and for so many reasons. After all, there must be a reason behind why it has over 141 million active players. Is that so hard to believe? Well, you can see the full statistical information on this here.

Why are there so many people playing this game? Why are the numbers keep on increasing day after day? What Minecraft even is? Well, these are some of the questions we are going to have a look at in this article.

What Is Minecraft?

Now let’s take a look at what Minecraft is in a little more detail.

Minecraft is more than just a game. It is more like an experience. One of the reasons in which it is often overlooked by parents is the fact that it is actually called a game (and I’m not saying it is not) which negatively impacts the impact the game has on individuals especially children.

Short History of Minecraft

The story of Minecraft goes back to 2009. It was named Alphabuild and was rolled out for PC gamers only. This was like a beta version of the game and was supposed to get updated and its bugs fixed as the players provided their feedback. By 2011 Minecraft had over 1 million players who had actually bought the game as the game was not free even at its launch. What is cool to know is that there had not been ANY advertisements for the game either. The entire community was built over word-of-mouth! The owner of the company sold Minecraft to Microsoft in 2014 at 2.5 billion dollars!

Game Modes

What you do in Minecraft is absolutely up to you but the basic mechanics and gameplay is wandering through the world that is already established for your by default, breaking down and extracting various resources that are present in the game, collecting them, and then building your own structures, weapons, armors, and so many other things. While some resources like wood are in abundance within the game (provided you are not in a desert section of the map), some others can be tricky to find. This means that exploration is also another key activity of the game for those who are willing to take that extra mile and get their hands on rarer items and crafts.

The game itself consists of five modes, these are survival, creative, adventure, spectator, and hardcore.

In survival mode, the chief aim is to, well, survive! In this mode, you have a life bar and need to locate and extract resources to build structures and other necessary living craft but you must also look out for the enemies that are scattered across the map including creepers and zombies.

If the player is just into the building and would like to put aside the headaches of living, the creative mode is the mode to go to. All the resources of the game are available in this mode with no limits. It allows the players to build whatever they feel like and navigate the maps through flying -which is very cool, trust me! Flying also allows the players to build extremely unreal and giant structures. Very recently, a random player created the entire map of one of the Grand Theft Auto (AKA GTA) maps in Minecraft.

In Minecraft’s creative mode, a lot of people also try to recreate real-life landmarks varying from their own house or neighborhood to giant monuments such as the Eiffel Tower or the Great Wall of China. The possibilities for building in this mode are pretty much endless!

The next mode is the adventure mode. This mode is full of adventures as the name implies. Players can build their own adventures in this mode and share it with the rest of the Minecraft community. Likewise, they can get to explore the adventures created and published by other players. For example, one may have created a very dangerous map that requires the players to navigate through safely. Players can also enjoy multiplayer experiences in this mode.

Spectator mode is the mode where the players get to fly around different maps without having to fear survival or enemies attacking. In this mode, the player basically turns into a ghost and can not interact with their surrounding environment. This means the players can enjoy checking out and wandering through maps without having to bear the restrictions of the corresponding adventures. This is also useful for giving an adventure map a good study before actually jumping into the adventure mode.

The hardcore mode is just the survival mode but MUCH HARDER! In this mode, the game is locked into a hard difficulty setting and once the player dies they will not be respawning! Also, there are no cheats and bonus chest options available!

Bedrock Edition Vs Java Edition

Minecraft offers a number of editions with the most famous ones being the Bedrock Edition and the Java Edition. The contents and updates of both editions are almost identical, what makes them different is firstly the fact that the Bedrocks Edition is coded in C++ while the Java Edition is coded in Java. What this essentially means is that all the features and details had to be redone from one version to the other which technically makes them two completely separate games! So the two games do not share any code at all! In case you are not familiar with programming, this is spectacular. Trust me on this!

The Minecraft Bedrock Edition is just called Minecraft while the Java Edition is known as Minecraft Java Edition. It even says Java Edition on the game’s logo. This is even though the Java Edition was released first and so is kind of the classic version.

There are also so many other editions such as the Xbox edition and the PlayStation edition but what made all the editions homogenous was the fact that all editions, except for Java were brought under the same roof of the Bedrock! This was originally called The Better Together and made the cross-platform play possible for the players. What this means is that all the updates that previously would take some time to be released for the bedrock and other platforms, would launch at the same time with the Java edition.

The first difference between the two is that the Java Edition is only available for PC, Mac, and Linux Computers and the Bedrock Edition is for everything else such as Android and PlayStation.

Some basic things are also different in each edition due to the fact that they were coded in different programming languages. These include some of the menus, the snow, the Redstones, and some of the animations such as when the player is on the horse. But these are the minor differences, let’s take a look at some of the more important things that are different in the editions.

The first thing is the mods. In Java Edition it is much easier to install and apply mods while in Bedrock Edition it is pretty much impossible if you are on a phone or a console. Windows 10 players can also use the Bedrock edition in which case, they can use behavior packs and resource packs to change how the elements of the game behave but technically you would not be modifying it! In the Bedrock Edition, the players can do pretty much anything the Java Players can do but it is technically still not mods. These also bring some limitations with what can be accomplished with the Bedrock Editions.

The next difference that makes a huge difference is available servers. It is generally much easier for Bedrock Edition users to join servers and play multiplayer maps and adventures compared to Java Edition players. The only downside for this is that in some platforms such as PlayStation, access to the internet must be bought separately. For example in the case of PlayStation, the players would have to purchase a separate PlayStation Plus membership to be able to join the online gaming community.

Overall both editions are very good and smooth and choosing the appropriate editions comes down to the system the players are going to use most of the time.

Unlocking Engineering Potentials With Redstone

Minecraft has this very cool feature called the Redstone. Well, it may look more like a resource than a feature but trust me it is a feature! So basically Redstone is like any other material of the game. The players have to find the ore and use a rock or diamond ax to break it and get small pieces called dust and 9 Redstone dust would yield a Redstone block! You can also get this magical material from loots in Minecraft.

Redstone blocks can transmit power into up to 15 blocks in Minecraft. The first use of this material is for crafting a variety of gears and tools such as clocks, campuses, dispensers, and detector rails.

There are also various Redstone components such as the torch, dot, and light in Minecraft which can be used for creating massive projects. Think of this whole Redstone shenanigan as electricity! Redstone blocks are the main power supplies, the dust is power lines and the dots are tiny power supplies. There are also converters and duplicators for the power.

The power produced by Redstone blocks can be used to power mechanisms or illuminate structures. The players also design automatic traps for their enemies or for hunting livestock. Each of the components acts in its own unique way and must be used in a specific manner to achieve a certain task!

This feature can be used to bring the engineering ideas of the players to life in Minecraft. Through using this advanced feature, children can learn how electrical systems work and get their hands on designing projects similar to what real engineers would do. This in turn helps them discover more about engineering and so make better choices for their future studies and careers!

Minecraft With GeniusCamp

In GeniusCamp, it is our chief aim to provide good quality education for our GeniusCampers. That is why we are not just concerned with the abilities and expertise of our teachers, but also pay very close attention to the curriculum that is being thought.

We work hard to plan out and prepare our lessons in a way that is not only fun but also extremely useful for both educational purposes as well as future practicality. That is just one of the many features that set us ahead of our competition.

Following the same mindset and principle has led our team of experts to come up with a wide range of courses regarding Minecraft. As we have mentioned throughout the text, Minecraft is more than just a game, and deep within there are countless possibilities for nurturing and polishing a variety of skills. Even just playing the game regularly has proven to provide numerous benefits for children. We have discussed this subject in detail in another article “What You Didn’t know Your Child Could Do With Minecraft“ so be sure to check that one out as well to get a better idea about the subject. Having said that, in GeniusCamp we offer 7 different courses for Minecraft.

All our courses are offered as 1-on-1 sessions as well as semi-private sessions. n 1-on-1 sessions GeniusCampers will learn at their own pace and have the lass all for themselves. There is also the possibility of customizing the lesson plans in accordance with the need of the individual student. In semi-private sessions, the young learners will have the chance to learn along with others and socialize as they blast through their sessions. The maximum number of students in our semi-private sessions is 3. This was to make sure that every student will get quality time with their friends and teachers as this is not guaranteed with more crowded classes.

Gameplay Course

The first course is our gameplay course.

The first course is the “Beginner To Minecraft” course. This course is designed for those who have absolutely no prior experience with the game and want to get to learn how the gameplay works and, for those who want to attend other more advanced courses based on the game. This course is a prerequisite for all the other courses to come as the students must first have an idea of the game’s environment before starting to tackle its core! This is course is designed for students aged 6 to 12.

Some of the topics covered in this course are the basics of gameplay, mining, what Redstone is and how to create music within the game, and building a creative map from scratch. The semi-private session will take 3 months with one 60 minute session every week ( a total of 10hours) long with 2 weeks of projects. The final project for this course will be creating survival maps, creative maps, and coop survival game bonuses.

Coding Course

Our second course of the series is “Beginner To Coding In Minecraft“. This course set the GeniusCampers en route to diving into the realms of programming and game design. In this course, GeniusCampers learn how to code basic concepts and gameplay of the game. The topics covered in this course revolve more around programming concepts. some of these are events, coordinates, iterations, conditionals, functions and methods, variables, arrays, and artificial intelligence (AKA AI). If you want to have more information about programming and coding in general, you can read our full article about coding “Coding, What It Is & What It Isn’t“ here.

The total hours and sessions are identical to the previous course and but the final project is more advance. The final project for this course is creating minigames. This course is designed for children aged 7 all the way to 17 and suits those with more creative mindsets and individuals who dream of becoming future engineers!

Bedrock Edition Courses

The next two courses are based on the Bedrock Edition. The first one is the “Minecraft Bedrock Edition 1“. This course is designed for those who have either decided that they would like to use the Bedrock edition or those who are simply eager to try this version as well to find their preference from the two editions.

As mentioned previously the gameplay in the Bedrock Edition is no different from other editions. In this course, GeniusCampers will learn the basics of the Bedrock edition and how they are implemented in the game. Some of the topics covered in this course are skin packs, changing resources, and behavior packs of items and blocks. This course is the prerequisite for the next course of the series.

The second course of this category is “Minecraft Bedrock Edition 2“. In this course the curriculum is pushed up a notch by covering more advanced topics. Once the GeniusCampers are confident with the basics of the Bedrock Edition, they are ready for this course. The topics of this course include altering the environment, entities, particles, armors, as well as the behavior of trading and loots.

Both Bedrock Edition courses are designed for individuals aged 8 to 17. Also, both courses consist of 15 hours of learning (90 minutes per week) along with 2 weeks dedicated to projects.

Java Edition Courses

We also offer two separate courses for those who favor the Java Edition. The first course is the “Minecraft Java Edition 1“. This course helps our GeniusCampers step into the realms of Minecraft’s data packs and scripts. The topics covered here revolve around making changes in the data packs, resources, and behavior along combined with some basic command and world edits. Passing this course is essential for moving on to the next one!

The more advanced course offered in this series is the “Minecraft Java Edition 2” course. This is basically where things get more serious as the curriculum is tuned to higher-level topics. In this course, GeniusCampers learn about what mods are, how they are created and implemented. They will also learn about predicates, item modifiers, and execute commands. An introduction to mcFunctions is also part o the syllabus for this course. It is safe to say that GeniusCampers who complete this course are masters of the Java Edition!

The two Java courses both take 3 months with 90 minutes of lectures a week (adding to a total of 15 hours) and 2 weeks of projects. These courses are tailored and designed for children aged 8 to 17.

Also, it is worth mentioning that all the necessary software for any of the courses that your child would want to take are also provided by us!

Head over to our courses at the top of this page to learn more about the full arsenal of courses to find the most suitable course for your child and get them started right away. All parents and children can use our free consultation to get help on deciding which course they should be enrolling in. Furthermore, we also provide one free session so our new GEniusCampers will have the chance to get a hands-on experience with their course before having to move on any further!