Minecraft

 

Crafting System

 

Minecraft has a simple to understand crafting system which acts as the main avenue for player progression. Interacting with the crafting system, can yield blocks and upgrade gear, which helps in defeating mobs, along with increasing gathering speed to hasten progression further.

 

“Players craft by arranging items in the crafting grid to match a given recipe. Small crafting recipes that are at most 2×2 can be made there, including wooden planks, sticks, crafting tables, and torches.” (Minecraft Wiki, 2025)

The Crafting Table is almost always the first thing a player will craft. “To craft more complex items, a crafting table must be created, placed, and used. This brings up an interface with a larger 3×3 crafting grid in which the player can use to craft any crafting recipe in the game. Recipes fitting the 2×2 grid can also be crafted in the crafting table's 3×3 grid. There is a recipe book button in the inventory where the player can access all of their unlocked crafting recipes.”  (Minecraft Wiki, 2025)

One’s ability to craft is entirely dependent on the resources they have accumulated. 

 

Crafting is an essential mechanic within Minecraft being in the name for one thing, but most of all it adds value to the time spent collecting resources and value to the resources themselves. The progression aspect of crafting gives people a reason to engage with the resource collection in the game.

 

Strengths of the system relating to a 12 - 16 year olds experience of gaming would in my opinion be the work needed to acquire certain items. If you want Diamonds you have to put in the time to find them, this makes the process take effort and you’re rewarded for this by unlocking crafting recipes for useful items.

 

A weakness I see in the crafting system is I don’t think it’s as rewarding to players who have played through the game before.

 

Day & Night Cycle

 

Day & Night is how Minecraft communicates safety and danger to its players. During the day the game is safe, excluding the Warden, other dimensions and fall damage. Night is the opposite as it’s when mobs (skeletons, zombies and creepers) begin spawning these creatures early on in the game especially can overwhelm and kill the player if caught unprepared.

“When a player first spawns in singleplayer, the daylight cycle always starts at the beginning of the daytime (0:00). Most multiplayer servers also start at the beginning of the daytime, but the daylight cycle continues regardless of any new players joining.” (Minecraft Wiki, 2025)

The game upon starting is daytime to give to the player a bit of a grace period before they are under attack.

“During the nighttime, the world is covered in darkness; the internal sky light level falls to a minimum of 4, which allows hostile mobs to spawn on the surface.” (Minecraft Wiki, 2025)

Players can place torches and other sources of light to prevent the spawning of dangerous mobs.

 

Strengths of a Day and Night cycle are clear; it puts pressure on the player to do things. If for example it was daytime all of the time the player would be lax and not too bothered about completing anything too quickly as lack of pressure caused because constant safety will disengage the player.

 

Weaknesses in the Day and Night cycle are the threats the player faces at night, if they aren’t challenging enough to combat nighttime just becomes an annoyance more than something which encourages players to engage in the game.

 

Art Style

 

Minecraft’s aesthetic is a blocky, voxel, simplistic look. As a pixel artist I see it as pretty much a 3D pixel art.

 

As a pixel artist I feel I can explain the appeal of Minecraft’s style. One is with everything being not overly complicated even someone not particularly artistically inclined can produce a satisfactory build to their liking. 

 

I think another reason it works is everything important stands out a lot more when things are kept simple, a shiny diamond for example.

 

Learning

Minecraft includes countless ways in which it teaches the player something useful. It even has a special Minecraft Education Mode with a focus on learning. The ability to learn from Minecraft is so much that schools have utilised its learning potential.

 

Bartle’s Player Types

 

Personally I think Minecraft appeals to Killers due to the mob and boss fighting involved. It appeals to Socialisers, the game has a strong online multiplayer presence within gaming. Finally it’s a game Explorers enjoy as there is plenty to find in Minecraft through venturing across the world.

 

Roblox

 

Social Interaction Systems

 

Playing Roblox can be a solo experience but often for many players there is a strong multiplayer scene.

 

The game features a chat box which any player can message and talk to other players. I wouldn’t say it adds much to the experience unless you’re a sociable person.

 

Additionally it’s not the best for learning and would be highly dependent on your interactions with other players and ones where you learn would be rare.

 

Roblox’s social system has enormous flaws as well and calls into question child safety in video games, as many unsavoury people use it to reach out to vulnerable persons to exploit them.

 

User Generated Games

 

One of Roblox’s biggest selling points is that it has a vast library of games to play all created by the Users. 

 

The strength of this is that they have a wide range of games to select from that appeal to many different audiences of people and cater to many different playstyles.

 

Again though it prompts talks around child safety issues, Roblox does not do a good job of moderation and making sure inappropriate games aren’t published and are removed. Furthermore I believe personally the varied selection of games harms player attention span leaving players bouncing between many games without settling on one.

 

Learning wise a player could learn quite a bit or very little it would depend on the User Generated Games they find and choose to play.

 

Bartle’s Player Types

Roblox appeals to all player types without doubt, simply due to the User Generated Content, every single type of game can be found on its platform meaning it targets every type of player.