Brickcraft
| Brickcraft | |
|---|---|
 Screenshot of the original prototype version | |
| Developer(s) | Mojang |
| Producer(s) | Daniel Kaplan |
| Designer(s) | Markus Persson |
| Programmer(s) | Måns Olson |
| Series | Minecraft |
| Engine | LWJGL[1] |
| Release | Cancelled |
| Genre(s) | Sandbox |
Brickcraft is a cancelled sandbox game developed by Mojang.
History
In 2011, as the full version of Minecraft was approaching its November release date, Persson attempted to reach out to the LEGO Group to propose a game project. Persson had been partially inspired by his childhood LEGO toys when designing Minecraft, and he had a lifelong dream of working with the LEGO Group. Persson and one of his employees at Mojang, Daniel Kaplan, met with someone who was able to get the two of them in contact with management at the LEGO Group. The two attempted to pitch a Minecraft-like LEGO game to the company, but were initially met with skepticism regarding how long Minecraft's popularity would last. Persson and Kaplan were eventually able to meet with LEGO employee Daniel Mathiasen and discuss the influence LEGO had had on Minecraft and their desire for the two companies to work together.[2]: 9–10
The LEGO Group ultimately approved of the project, which was codenamed Brickcraft there; Persson dubbed it "Project Rex Kwon Do",[2]: 10 named after a line from the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite.[2]: 5 Work on the project began on 5 September 2011.[3] The initial concept was to simply add a LEGO brick aesthetic to the gameplay and game design of Minecraft. Rather than using simple cubes like Minecraft, however, the developers wanted Brickcraft to feature a variety of LEGO elements of different shapes, giving the player more resources to build with at the expense of making the game more complex.[2]: 12
Persson created a prototype in Java over the course of a week.[4][2]: 1, 12 It was finished on 12 September following a twelve hour work session.[4] Approved on 5 December.[5]
Mojang hired two new programmers for the project,[2]: 12 including Måns Olson,[6] who later directed Mojang's 2020 game Minecraft Dungeons, as one of the main designers.[7][8] Daniel Kaplan was made the game's producer.
References
- ↑ "Credits". Minecraft.net. Mojang. 2011. Archived from the original on 23 September 2011.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Crecente, Brian; Vincent, Ethan (December 8, 2020). "Episode 1 – Minecraft" (PDF). Bits N' Bricks (Podcast). Participants: Daniel Mathiasen, Daniel Kaplan, Danny Bergmann, Paal Smith-Meyer, and Ronny Scherer. The LEGO Group. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 1, 2024. Audio version via YouTube.
- ↑ Persson, Markus [@notch] (5 September 2011). "Secret project Rex Kwon Do begins today! It will involve caffeine and giggling" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2019-03-31 – via Twitter.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Persson, Markus [@notch] (12 September 2011). "Had to spend today on Project Rex Kwon Do. 12 hours of work later, and the prototype is packaged and done. I will now wash my hands of this" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2019-03-31 – via Twitter.
- ↑ Persson, Markus [@notch] (5 December 2011). "In other news, looks like Project Rex Kwon Do got greenlit! :D :D :D :D" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2019-03-31 – via Twitter.
- ↑ Olson, Måns [@MansOlson] (13 April 2014). "I'm Dragonene.7498" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2019-07-10 – via Twitter.
- ↑ Kaplan, Daniel [@Kappische] (16 May 2024). "Dragonene who was one of the first testers of Minecraft in the world, would eventually become the game director of Minecraft Dungeons :Dt" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2024-10-21 – via Twitter.
- ↑ Kaplan, Daniel [@Kappische] (16 May 2024). "But he was hired for another project, one of the main designers/coders of a LEGO game, that never saw the light" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 2024-10-21 – via Twitter.
