Sneak peek - some more Minecraft: Pi Edition video

22nd of December 2012 by liz

As you’ll know (unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or very busy wrapping presents), we’re expecting to see the release of Minecraft: Pi Edition from Mojang very soon. Daniel Bates, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge and the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Undercover Minecraft Operative, has put together a video demo of how you’ll be able to use code within the Minecraft environment, programming the world to make building faster and easier.

Daniel says:

Note that this is a very early pre-release version, and it is subject to change before release. I’ll show off more features including interactive stuff in future videos.

Source code:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~db434/files/minecraft.py
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~db434/files/setblockdemo.py

FAQ:
Q. Can I use X programming language?
A. Any language capable of communicating over the network will work. See the first source file as an example of what’s needed.

Q. When is it coming out?
A. No date has been confirmed yet.

Q. How much will it cost?
A. Nothing.

Q. Will it run on a 256MB Raspberry Pi?
A. Yes – this demo was filmed on an older model, and didn’t use any overclocking.

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49 comments

Joe Lee-Mills on
December 22, 2012 at 10:47 am said:

Amazing!

Comment ↓
tzj on
December 22, 2012 at 1:08 pm said:

Would you be able to get to put spectator cameras in the world, so you can allow people to make movies, like what half-life mods (or any other for that matter) use to make theirs… would be cool to see kids being able to do action shots in mine craft!

Comment ↓
- tzj on
  December 22, 2012 at 3:00 pm said:
  
  Oh and would there be control blocks?
  
  Comment ↓
  - Daniel Bates on
    December 24, 2012 at 12:04 am said:
    
    You will be able to use a player as a camera (I’m not sure if that’s how the other spectator cameras work) – you can set the player’s position and what they’re looking at.
    
    There are no control blocks at the moment
    
    Comment ↓
STrRedWolf on
December 22, 2012 at 3:10 pm said:

Any more specs on the MC Pi Ed interface? That looks easy to do and I’ll start up a Perl module for it.

Comment ↓
David on
December 22, 2012 at 7:42 pm said:

I am very curious to hear if they will be able to increase the world size that the pocket editions are currently stuck with. Minecraft lan party anyone?

Comment ↓
Adrian Brightmoore on
December 22, 2012 at 8:18 pm said:

I have a bunch of MCEdit filters that build things (Mobius strip, gordian knot, shells etc) which you are welcome to use in showcases. It’s Python.

See Reddit submissions

Comment ↓
qwerty on
December 22, 2012 at 9:48 pm said:

Do you need to have your Raspberry Pi connected to the Internet to use this?

Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  December 23, 2012 at 11:39 am said:
  
  Nope – I have never connected this Pi to the network.
  
  Comment ↓
  - qwerty on
    December 23, 2012 at 12:48 pm said:
    
    Thanks for the reply, I needed to know, NOW I’M EXCITED ABOUT THE RELEASE OF THIS A LOT!
    
    Comment ↓
Texy on
December 23, 2012 at 1:00 am said:

Pi release has been delayed until the new year, rumour has it :-/
https://mobile.twitter.com/danfrisk/status/282545396201422848

Comment ↓
- liz on
  December 23, 2012 at 2:37 pm said:
  
  Once Friday had passed, I suspected that might be the case – because I’m sure the guys at Mojang need a Christmas break just as much as we do!
  
  Comment ↓
  - Texy on
    December 23, 2012 at 2:47 pm said:
    
    As indeed we all do
    I’m thinking how little I would be doing on the pi if it had been ready now, so maybe it’s a Good Thing.
    T.
    
    Comment ↓
toxibunny on
December 23, 2012 at 2:55 am said:

that. is. awesome.

Comment ↓
Dylan on
December 23, 2012 at 5:31 am said:

Interesting thing I saw a couple days ago- when I googled “minecraft pi edition” one of the results was “Minecraft Pi edition available for download”, from mojang.com, so I clicked on it and it gave me a 404. DREAMS CRUSHED

Comment ↓
- George on
  December 28, 2012 at 4:54 am said:
  
  That’s because they ‘accidentally’ posted an early build on their blog. You can find a link floating around. It has a fairly complete API, but somethings aren’t complete.
  
  Comment ↓
qwerty on
December 23, 2012 at 9:07 am said:

I saw that too, when I googled it…

Comment ↓
qwerty on
December 24, 2012 at 8:26 pm said:

Anyone think I should port this to Python 3? I could also add more colours.

Comment ↓
- qwerty on
  December 24, 2012 at 8:27 pm said:
  
  I meant more colors for both…
  
  Comment ↓
Stimbus on
December 26, 2012 at 6:37 am said:

I get an error:

File “minefracft.py”, line 7
_sock.connect((ip,port))
^
IndentationError; unexpected

Comment ↓
- Tom on
  December 27, 2012 at 3:58 pm said:
  
  same please help us!
  
  Comment ↓
  - qwerty on
    December 29, 2012 at 9:55 am said:
    
    Run LXTerminal, use the “cd” command to get to the directory the file is in.
    Then, type “python”. Once that has come up in LXTerminal, type “import minecraft as mc”.
    
    Comment ↓
qwerty on
December 27, 2012 at 10:03 am said:

1. Will there be a multiplayer?
2. Can we connect to another Pi and control that?

Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  January 2, 2013 at 12:00 pm said:
  
  Yes and yes.
  
  Comment ↓
  - qwerty on
    January 13, 2013 at 3:29 pm said:
    
    Thanks for the reply, but I have yet another question (sorry…) what kind of multiplayer, like online or lan?
    
    Comment ↓
    - Daniel Bates on
      January 17, 2013 at 2:07 pm said:
      
      LAN, though there are programs available which can tunnel LAN connections over the internet.
      
      Comment ↓
      - qwerty on
        January 19, 2013 at 8:08 pm said:
        
        Thanks.
        Could VPN work?
George on
December 28, 2012 at 3:58 am said:

My big question is will it be opensource, or at least support mods. I really want to use this to build a programming tutorial, and I want to build the lessons in as events in the game.

Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  January 2, 2013 at 11:59 am said:
  
  The game itself will be closed source, but all of the API stuff will be.
  
  There won’t be official mod support, but the API should be pretty capable.
  
  Comment ↓
mooodin on
December 30, 2012 at 12:24 pm said:

Hi George..
Started python via Terminal as you suggested.. unfortunately the indent error remains..:-(
——snip—————-
pi@raspberrypi ~/mcpi $ python
Python 2.7.3rc2 (default, May 6 2012, 20:02:25)
[GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
Type “help”, “copyright”, “credits” or “license” for more information.
>>> import minecraft as mc
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 1, in
File “minecraft.py”, line 7
_sock.connect((ip,port))
—————-snap———
I tried some “trial and error” indent changes without luck

Comment ↓
- qwerty on
  December 31, 2012 at 9:37 am said:
  
  Wasn’t it me that told you…
  Try downloading the file again and run it from LXTerminal.
  
  Comment ↓
Jeff on
December 31, 2012 at 10:26 pm said:

Hello, I managed to fix the indentation errors (about 5-6 of them?),
and definded port and ip as what is specified by connect()’s definition.
Then, it has the errno “111″ connection refused/something like that.
I tried the “import minecraft as mc” trick after navigating to minecraft.py’s location to no avail, having the same error.

Comment ↓
- Jeff on
  December 31, 2012 at 11:51 pm said:
  
  Defined*, oops.
  
  Comment ↓
davedude0 on
January 1, 2013 at 11:18 am said:

I assume (and hope) that it will be available on the Pi store? And dlc like texture packs and mods (if it IS open source and moddable) would work well as something similar to the gmod dlc pages, but I’m sure people would cope with an apt style code based database!
Can’t wait for the full release!

Comment ↓
- liz on
  January 1, 2013 at 3:19 pm said:
  
  It’s totally up to Mojang how they decide to distribute it – but I hope it’ll be available in the Pi store too!
  
  Comment ↓
Shawn Carolan on
January 2, 2013 at 7:41 am said:

Does the wire protocol work for other minecraft servers as well besides Raspberry Pi? I’m playing around with it on Mac OSX and can connect to the minecraft port:

telnet 127.0.0.1 50338

but as soon as I send the string:
set-block(0,0,0,2)

the server hangs up on me. Is this protocol specific to the Pi minecraft server? If so, any guidance on libraries available to talk to other servers? I did find the server wire protocol in the Minecraft wiki but it’s not as elegant as this!

Comment ↓
Daniel Bates on
January 2, 2013 at 12:08 pm said:

The protocol is specific to the Raspberry Pi version, but it is possible to add the same functionality to the normal game using mods. I think there are people working on that at the moment.

Comment ↓
Rory Kinghan on
January 3, 2013 at 11:22 pm said:

Can you get survival mode on Minecraft PI edition?

Comment ↓
- qwerty on
  January 4, 2013 at 10:34 am said:
  
  Not at the minute, but I hope there is Survival, Crafting, redstone and pistons soon. I know someone on minecraftforums has made a mod so mobs can spawn.
  
  Comment ↓
Lorcan O'Brien on
January 6, 2013 at 5:56 pm said:

Where is the download I would love to mod this
Or is it even released yet?

Comment ↓
- qwerty on
  January 7, 2013 at 10:21 am said:
  
  Theres a pre-release download, search google for “minecraft pi gameplay and download”
  There should be a few results. If you need help with the API, just ask.
  
  Comment ↓
qwerty on
January 13, 2013 at 5:23 pm said:

Can I write my own API for MCPI?

Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  January 17, 2013 at 2:11 pm said:
  
  You can build your own API on top of the one provided, but the game is only programmed to understand a limited set of commands. There is quite a lot more available than I’ve shown so far, though.
  
  Comment ↓
  - qwerty on
    January 19, 2013 at 8:12 pm said:
    
    Thanks, going to simplify it a little bit so I can remember it all…
    
    Comment ↓
Wafflemaster on
January 15, 2013 at 6:03 pm said:

How do i get python to interact with minecraft pi? I have done import minecraft as mc but i dont know what to do next? Help please!!!!

Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  January 17, 2013 at 2:15 pm said:
  
  Assuming you have Minecraft running, you can use mc.connect() to set up a connection for sending commands, and then use mc.setblock(x,y,z,type) to build stuff.
  
  If you have the game already, though, it likely came with a much more fully-featured codebase from Mojang. Look in the api folder.
  
  Comment ↓
bob on
January 17, 2013 at 12:03 am said:

you should upload it to the pistore!

Comment ↓
coolguy96 on
January 24, 2013 at 4:22 pm said:

Wow really cool cant wait till i get it thx you should teach us how to program it!

Comment ↓
Leestons on
February 12, 2013 at 2:16 am said:

I type mc.connect() and I just get an error, any help?

>>> import minecraft as mc >>> mc.connect() Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'connect'

Comment ↓

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