Brickcraft

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Revision as of 10:20, 15 November 2025 by Ringtail Raider (talk | contribs) (hmmm this muddles the timeline. apparently Manneh had already contacted Lego about making toys prior to Persson contacting them about making a game. Not mentioned anywhere in the Bits N Bricks episode. Unfortunately the full interview with Manneh seems to be lost.)
Brickcraft
A virtual world showing rolling green hills made of LEGO bricks. The game interface shows five different shapes of LEGO bricks, each with ten thousand in the player's inventory.
Screenshot of the 28 June 2012 prototype build
Developer(s)Mojang
Producer(s)Daniel Kaplan
Designer(s)Markus Persson
Programmer(s)Måns Olson
SeriesMinecraft
Platform(s)Windows
ReleaseCancelled
Genre(s)Sandbox
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Brickcraft, also known by its codename "Rex Kwon Do", is a cancelled sandbox game developed by Mojang. The game was planned to play similarly to Minecraft, but using LEGO elements. Minecraft creator Markus Persson pitched the project to the LEGO Group during Minecraft's beta phase. Development began in September 2011, originally in Java before switching to a custom engine. The game was cancelled in July 2012 as the relationship between Mojang and LEGO collapsed.

TO USE: [tweet 1][tweet 2][tweet 3] LWJGL[1]

Gameplay

My world :)
An example world in Brickcraft with several player-built LEGO models

Now that we have a leaked build, we can describe gameplay here.

Brickcraft was planned to be a sandbox game like Minecraft.

In the leaked build, the player can place five different LEGO bricks: 1×1 1×2, 2×2, 2×4, and 1×2 slopes. The playsr starts off with ten thousand of each type. The colours can be cycled through and chosen before placing. Breaking a brick increases its amount in the inventory; the brick's colour is ignored.

Development

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.[2]: 9  Upon incorporating Mojang in late 2010, he had told co-founder and chief executive officer Carl Manneh to contact the company about a collaboration.[3][4] In 2011, months prior to the full 1.0 launch of Minecraft that November, Persson attempted to reach out to the LEGO Group to propose a game project. Persson and Daniel Kaplan, Mojang's business developer and first employee,[5] met with someone who was able to get them in contact with the management at the LEGO Group. The two attempted to pitch a LEGO-branded Minecraft-like game to the company, but were initially met with scepticism regarding the game's lasting popularity.[2]: 9 

Persson's screenshot of the game's first prototype

Persson began work on a Brickcraft' prototype on 5 September 2011.[tweet 4][2]: 10 


Persson posted about his progress on the prototype on his Twitter account,[2]: 10  though without revealing what the game was or its connection to LEGO.


Work on Brickcraft began on 5 September 2011.[tweet 4][2]: 10  Persson created a prototype in Java over the course of a week.[2]: 1, 12  Persson posted about his work on the prototype on his Twitter account,[2]: 10  though without revealing what the game was or its connection to LEGO. The only image he shared was an extremely low-quality and zoomed-in screenshot.[tweet 5] He also noted that the prototype initially wasn't fun to play due to having "too much freedom".[tweet 6][tweet 7] Following a twelve-hour work session on 12 September, Persson finished the prototype and sent it to the LEGO Group.[tweet 8]



Mojang hired two new developers to program and design for the project;[2]: 12  one of them, Måns Olson,[tweet 9] had been one of Minecraft's first testers in May 2009, and later directed Mojang's 2020 game Minecraft Dungeons.[6][7][tweet 10][tweet 11] Daniel Kaplan was made the game's producer.

Post-cancellation

For unknown reasons, Persson told video gaming blog Joystiq that the project was going to be a first-person shooter.[8]

On 24 June 2025, the Minecraft preservation website Omniarchive released a build of Brickcraft.[9] Kaplan had kept the build on his laptop for over thirteen years.[tweet 12] Persson confirmed he had no backups of any earlier versions or the original Java prototype.[tweet 13]

Temporary image dump

  • An earlier version of Brickcraft without slope bricks or distance fog
    An earlier version of Brickcraft without slope bricks or distance fog
  • The earlier version
    The earlier version
  • The earlier version
    The earlier version

References

  1. ↑ "Credits". Minecraft.net. Mojang. 2011. Archived from the original on 23 September 2011.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h 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.
  3. ↑ Wolf, Michael (11 December 2012). "A Talk With Mojang CEO Carl Manneh". Acme Thoughts Incorporated. Archived from the original on 14 December 2012. Retrieved 15 November 2018.
  4. ↑ Cox, Alex (June 13, 2018). "The history of Minecraft". TechRadar. Bath, Somerset, England: Future Publishing Limited. Archived from the original on 9 August 2018. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
  5. ↑ Handrahan, Matthew (July 27, 2017). "Daniel Kaplan leaves Mojang for Coffee Stain". GamesIndustry.biz. London: Gamer Network. Archived from the original on 15 November 2018. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
  6. ↑ "lwjgl IRC logs" (IRC chat logs). 14 May 2009. Archived from the original on 8 February 2014 – via Echelog. 
    [14:10:05] <Dragonene> Notch: what sort of game *is it*?
[...]
[14:11:07] <Notch> the current concept is a cross over between Dwarft Fortress and Infiniminer
[14:11:15] <Dragonene> Notch: I haven't played either :)
[14:11:16] <Notch> I'll try to get a VERY EARLY alpha out this weekend. =)
  7. ↑ "lwjgl IRC logs" (IRC chat logs). 17 May 2009. Archived from the original on 8 February 2014 – via Echelog. 
    [13:10:22] <Dragonene> yep, that's tab closure for me
[13:10:27] <Dragonene> minecraft that is
[13:10:30] <Dragonene> or browser exit I guess.
[...]
[14:07:48] <Dragonene> Sorry to pull you into this discussion Notch_
[14:07:55] <Dragonene> I just want to be able to play it without it crashing on me :D
  8. ↑ Conditt, Jessica (July 26, 2012). "Canceled Mojang project was a first-person shooter". Joystiq. AOL Inc. Archived from the original on 28 July 2012.
  9. ↑ DEJVOSS (26 June 2025). "Brickcraft". Omniarchive. Archived from the original on 9 August 2025. Retrieved 9 August 2025.

Tweets

  1. ↑ 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 31 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter.
  2. ↑ Persson, Markus [@notch] (19 July 2012). "Remember Project Rex Kwon Do? We cancelled it to focus on Minecraft, Scrolls and eventually 0x10c that we own 100% ourselves instead" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter.
  3. ↑ David, Kaplan [@Kappische] (14 May 2019). "So it's story time!! Did you know that I worked on a Lego game?" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 23 October 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter. Mirrored via X Cancelled.
  4. ↑ a b 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 31 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter.
  5. ↑ Persson, Markus [@notch] (7 September 2011). "Great progress on Project Rex Kwon Do today. This is the clearest screenshot I can show: http://imgur.com/3nIuH?full" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter.
  6. ↑ Persson, Markus [@notch] (8 September 2011). "Huh. Project Rex Kwon Do isn't fun to play at the moment. Analyzing why is challenging and interesting" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter.
  7. ↑ Persson, Markus [@notch] (8 September 2011). "Oooh, I think I realized a big portion of why it's not fun yet! Too much freedom!" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter.
  8. ↑ 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 31 March 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter.
  9. ↑ Olson, Måns [@MansOlson] (13 April 2014). "I'm Dragonene.7498" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 10 July 2019 – via Twitter.
  10. ↑ 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 :D" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 21 October 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter. Mirrored via X Cancelled.
  11. ↑ 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 21 October 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2025 – via Twitter. Mirrored via X Cancelled.
  12. ↑ Kaplan, Daniel [@Kappische] (28 June 2025). "I've had it on my laptop for over 13 years 😂" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 9 August 2025. Retrieved 9 August 2025 – via Twitter. Mirrored via Nitter.
  13. ↑ Persson, Markus [@notch] (28 June 2025). "You assume I do backups. You flatter me" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 9 August 2025. Retrieved 9 August 2025 – via Twitter. Mirrored via Nitter.
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