Minecraft:Cave game tech test

Cave game tech test <ref name="video">Template:Ytl</ref> or Cave Game tech demo<ref name="tech demo" /> is the earliest publicized unreleased version of what would become Minecraft:Minecraft. It was made on May 13, 2009, between roughly 16:48<ref name="log">Template:Cite</ref> and 16:55 UTC.<ref name="8x8" /> A video of the game at this time was recorded by Minecraft:Notch sometime between 17:00 and 17:14 UTC, and uploaded at 17:36 on May 13.<ref>LWJGL IRC Logs: "[19:00:52] <Notch_> hmm, I wonder if I could make a vid of this" [...] "[19:14:02] <Notch_> haha, the video ended up at 1.05 GB" [...] "[19:15:36] <Notch_> well, this is annoying. I guess I have to recapture. Google has a limit of 2 gb" [...] "[19:36:42] <Notch_> upload complete, processing video" [...] "[19:50:18] <Notch_> ok, the quality is still crap until the processing finishes, but: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9t3FREAZ-k" </ref> It is the earliest known version of Minecraft, or what was then known as Cave Game, to have been recorded.

Development of the game started around May 10<ref>Template:Cite</ref> or 11<ref name="11th">Rotab's IRC logs on Archive.org; #minecraft.20090525.log. May 25, 2009 (UTC+2). "(10:40:09) <@Notch> heh, the game game tech test video is from the 13'th"[...]"(10:40:18) <@Notch> that was after two days of work, so I started the 11'th, probably"</ref> to May 12 at the latest,<ref>LWJGL IRC Logs "[13:34:09] <Notch> i was trying to narrow down a performance issue last night."</ref> and continued up to May 13, 2009, adding the features that would be later seen in the Cave game tech test video.

Features

Blocks

File:Blank.png Minecraft:Air

• Not listed as a block at this time.

File:Grass Block JE1.png Grass

• Made with the same graphics from Notch's game Minecraft:RubyDung.
• Grass appears on fully lit tiles on the top 7 layers of the map.
• Had the same texture on all sides of the block.

File:Stone JE1.png Rock

• Made with the same graphics from Notch's game RubyDung.
• Its texture at this time would later be repurposed for Minecraft:cobblestone.

Non-mob entities

Minecraft:Player

• Currently has no model.
• Has a height of 1.7 blocks.

World generation

Minecraft:Caves

• Pass from the uppermost layer of the grass block to the penultimate layer of stone.

Minecraft:Chunks

• Takes about 0.1 seconds to generate.<ref>LWJGL IRC logs "[13:37:42] <Notch> rebuilding a chunk of these takes almost 100 ms, but that's everything, including tesselation, calculating lighting, and building the display list."</ref>
• The size of each chunk is 16×16 blocks.<ref>LWJGL IRC logs "[13:37:08] <Notch> I've got chunks of blocks, 16x16x16 blocks. Each block can have a maximum of three quads, but that's worst case scenario"</ref>
  • Chunks are 16×16 blocks instead of 8×8 because 8×8 chunks decreased performance.<ref name="8x8">LWJGL IRC logs: "[18:55:45] <Notch_> the chunk size is 16x16 now.." [...] "[18:56:47] <Notch_> 8x8 chunks are SLOWER"</ref>
• Chunks are loaded in order of their proximity to the player.<ref>LWJGL IRC logs: "[19:51:48] <Notch_> i'll update tiles chunks the player first, and force a full update upon game start"</ref>
• The player spawns in a 256×64×256 tile map.
  • The game takes 20 seconds to generate a 256×64×256 map.<ref>LWJGL IRC logs: "[20:02:58] <Notch_> it takes like 20 seconds to grow a 256*256*64 map, though. :-\"</ref>
• It was possible to fall out of the world, but it would not kill the player.

Gameplay

Minecraft:Controls

• WASD key use for movement.
• Space key for jumping.
• Moving the mouse moves the camera.
• Can’t break or place blocks.
• Holding down Template:Key causes the player to respawn in a random X and Z coordinate at Y=74 every game tick (which is 1/60th of a second long prior to rd-20090515) until the key is released.
  • If the player falls into the void, they fall infinitely unless they press Template:Key.

General

Minecraft:Light

• The lighting engine in Classic and Minecraft:pre-Classic was simple, with only 2 light levels, bright and dark.
  • "Sunlight" is emitted by the top edge of the map and hits any block that is under it, regardless of distance. It passes through transparent blocks to light blocks underneath.
  • Blocks that do not receive light are in a dim shadow that remains at the same level of brightness no matter how far they are from a light source.
  • Blocks which are darkened also have a layer of thick, black fog applied to them, appearing darker when looked at from further distances. This caused weird visual quirks.

Videos

Original Template:Video note Template:Yt Archive Template:Yt

Gallery

• A cave
  A cave
• The chunks were loaded slow in this version
  The chunks were loaded slow in this version
• The bottom stone layers in this version
  The bottom stone layers in this version
• The ground in this version
  The ground in this version
• A pit, with a contrast of light and dark on the left and right to illustrate the simplicity of the lighting engine at this version.
  A pit, with a contrast of light and dark on the left and right to illustrate the simplicity of the lighting engine at this version.

References

• Template:Anchor Template:Cite
• Template:Anchor Rotab's IRC logs on Archive.org; #minecraft.20090525.log. May 25, 2009 (UTC+2)