Minecraft – Pocket Edition, a mobile version of the popular sandbox indie game conceived by Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson and developed and published by Mojang, is about to get new features in the next update.
One of the more prominent enhancements: a lot bigger maps. Also on tap: an improved artificial intelligence, a better inventory system and more.
A quick update shared on the Minecraft blog also mentions “a bunch of other things” coming. Jump past the fold for more tidbits…
According to the blog post, the team is hard at work restructuring a lot of code to allow for significantly bigger worlds in future updates.
Unfortunately, developers stopped short of revealing just how much bigger these new worlds might actually be.
We’re also updating the AI, inventory, and a bunch of other things. Unfortunately we don’t have a release date yet, but so far, everything is going to plan.
They shared this image of an upcoming animal.
It’s a wolf thing, by the way.
Players who are beta-testing Pocket Realms should be aware that Mojang will be pausing access to the service on March 1 as the Realms team is currently focused on the upcoming release of PC Realms.
“Once that’s done, we’ll be in a better place to work on Pocket Realms and make it as good as it possibly can be, which will be later this year,”. Unfortunately, they’re uncertain how long the service will be down for.
Back in January 2013, Minecraft sales zoomed past the 20 million mark for all platforms.
If you’re not familiar with Minecraft, the premise behind the game is a simple one: you’re challenged with building various constructions out of textured cubes in a procedurally generated three-dimensional world.
The Pocket Edition of the game does not contain all of the features from the original PC game and instead focuses on the creative building and the primitive survival aspects.
If the concept sounds ridiculously simplified, that’s because it is – but then again, all addictive games are simple and approachable, no?
I suggest giving Minecraft a whirl if you haven’t already.
Download Minecraft for $6.99 in the App Store.
The game is compatible with an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad running iOS 5.0 or later.