Minecraft - it's here!

12th of February 2013 by liz

OK – I said I wasn’t going to post again until I was back in the UK, but I just opened my laptop to check my mail at the airport and found something that really couldn’t wait. The folks from Mojang have finished the Minecraft: Pi Edition port, and it’s available for download now. For free.

You can see a post from Mojang about the news on their main blog; they’ve also opened up a Pi Edition blog, where you can find download instructions. I know some of you have already downloaded the beta version that was released in December; if you have, you’ll want to replace it with today’s release, which fixes some bugs and has more features.

To read more about Minecraft on the Pi, check out our previous posts, where you’ll find video demonstrating how coding inside the Minecraft: Pi Edition environment works, a report from MineCon, and more. Thanks to all at Mojang for all the work you’ve done on this, and greetings to those of you who are coming to the Raspberry Pi platform to play this new edition – we’re really happy to be able to welcome all you Minecrafters to the Pi family!

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65 comments

Jim Manley on
February 12, 2013 at 3:01 am said:

Well, here we are in the Pi Mines! Pick up axe. Turn right. Swing pick axe. Huh? Whaddaya mean it’s not that kinda game? Oh, I’m such a dinosaur!

OK, off to download and I hope it has the programmability feature that I seem to recall being discussed. Programmability … GOOOOOD!!!

Comment ↓
- Jim Manley on
  February 12, 2013 at 3:52 am said:
  
  For those new to Minecraft, here’s the tutorial pages link:
  
  http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials
  
  If even that is too overwhelming, start with the Newcomer’s tutorial:
  
  http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials/Beginner%27s_guide
  
  Comment ↓
- Jim Manley on
  February 12, 2013 at 4:44 am said:
  
  It appears that they probably should generate a separate set of help/tutorial pages for the Pi Edition to make it clear which features are actually available and whether there are limitations to them compared with the full versions.
  
  Comment ↓
Gabe on
February 12, 2013 at 3:02 am said:

Because the ending is .gz, my pi is not recognizing it when trying to extract.

Comment ↓
- Tobias Huebner on
  February 12, 2013 at 6:53 am said:
  
  I don`t know if that`s your problem, but there`s a typo in the instructions on the official minecraft-site.
  It says:
  
  “To decompress it: tar -zxvf minecraft-pi-0.1..1.tar.gz”
  
  But there are two dots instead of one between the two “1″. So you should type this:
  
  zxvf minecraft-pi-0.1.1.tar.gz
  
  Comment ↓
Leestons on
February 12, 2013 at 3:14 am said:

I can’t get the programming to work at all, I’ve followed the instructions on the video by daniel bates and it still doesn’t work.

Would have been nice to have more features, as at the moment I find the game rather boring.

It also lags quite a bit for me, but otherwise, good work Mojang. Shame it wasn’t before New year/ end of January.

Comment ↓
- Ethan Durrant on
  February 12, 2013 at 3:50 am said:
  
  i found this blog to be very useful to learn the Minecraft Pi Edition API made by mojang
  http://www.stuffaboutcode.com/
  
  it has 3 code examples wich are pretty cool, one is a brief demo, on his a hide and seek for a diamond game, and the other makes automatic bridges under your feet if going off a cliff. if you examine the code you can figure out the basics
  
  Comment ↓
Nathanael Smith on
February 12, 2013 at 3:42 am said:

My son loves this (8 years) – its like Lego.

I think there are more improvements and features yet to come…

Comment ↓
tzj on
February 12, 2013 at 4:05 am said:

First the post is from Dec 20 2012, so its at least 1 1/2 months old.

Second there’s no out of the box instructions on how to use the python API, however looking online for a while got me a ‘demo’ script that runs the API, but you still can’t directly program like the vid showed.

Third this is only the second alpha (0.1.1) it uses half the world dimentions of the first one (to make it run smoother I assume).

I also managed to get animals spawning on the first one alpha (0.1) with a bit of hex modding of course, tho it did glitch a bit more, so would explain why they aren’t on. The address on the second one is different so couldn’t test it. Plus the activated animals can’t be hit.

Comment ↓
- tzj on
  February 12, 2013 at 4:25 am said:
  
  Oh and is the options.txt kinda like a future config file? To turn on and off particular features?
  
  Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  February 12, 2013 at 9:09 am said:
  
  The game was released before Christmas, but quickly pulled after some bugs were found – that’s how the leaked version appeared. I assume they just used the same blog post, but I can assure you that improvements have been made since then.
  
  You can do the programming in real time – you just need to write your code in a Python interpreter (type python in a terminal) instead of running an existing Python script.
  
  Comment ↓
  - tzj on
    February 12, 2013 at 2:59 pm said:
    
    I knew that but you still have to do more than the demo vid shows.(proper working instructions are in a post below)
    
    Comment ↓
  - tzj on
    February 12, 2013 at 3:08 pm said:
    
    Plus the one everyone is using (the one linked on this post) IS the one that was pulled.
    
    Comment ↓
Leestons on
February 12, 2013 at 4:21 am said:

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

So I’m guessing you cannot program it like the video showed, even more disappointed.

Comment ↓
- Leestons on
  February 12, 2013 at 4:50 am said:
  
  You can!
  
  http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=33347
  
  Answers everything guys.
  
  Comment ↓
  - tzj on
    February 12, 2013 at 6:25 am said:
    
    Still not the same as the vid tho :/
    
    At least it is possible to get it working.
    
    Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  February 12, 2013 at 9:19 am said:
  
  I wrote my code before Mojang created their API – they now have many more features, but my code no longer works. If I have some time this evening, I’ll look into porting what I had to the new system, which should allow you to replicate what I did in the video.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Daniel Bates on
    February 13, 2013 at 9:05 am said:
    
    Here you go. Download this and put it in your mcpi folder:
    
    http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~db434/files/minecraft_basic.py
    
    This allows you to do:
    import minecraft_basic as mc mc.connect() mc.setblock(1,2,3, mc.GOLD) mc.getblock(1,2,3) mc.moveplayer(5,6,7)
    
    It’s a much more limited API than Mojang provide, but it should allow you to replicate everything I did in my videos.
    
    Comment ↓
edwinj85 on
February 12, 2013 at 8:50 am said:

Is there any way to set up the pi as a headless minecraft server and connect pc/mac clients?

Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  February 12, 2013 at 9:22 am said:
  
  The Pi Edition of the game is only compatible with the Pocket Edition, not the desktop version. However, some clever person wrote a Minecraft server in C++ which I believe runs fairly well on the Pi for small numbers of players:
  
  http://www.mc-server.org/
  
  Comment ↓
Matthew Manning on
February 12, 2013 at 9:48 am said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmapkPSk-os << If anyone needs a video guide on how to install

Comment ↓
Mark on
February 12, 2013 at 9:54 am said:

When I start minecraft as per the instructions I’m presented with a blank “minecraft” window.

The original “terminal” window displays repeated “sendto failed with code -1 for char 2 and length 25.” messages.

Do I need to install anything else or ensure that my user id is added to additional groups or anything?

Please help as I’d really like to get into minecraft.

Comment ↓
- Alan on
  February 13, 2013 at 11:06 am said:
  
  I have the same problem, please help. T_T
  
  Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  February 13, 2013 at 2:37 pm said:
  
  What set-up are you using? In particular, connecting to a Pi via ssh and using a Raspberry Pi emulator are known not to work properly.
  
  The messages you describe are normal. (At least, I get them too.)
  
  I believe that everything should work out of the box, though I haven’t actually tried it on a fresh install.
  
  Comment ↓
banalac on
February 12, 2013 at 11:33 am said:

How many GPU RAM it needs? I have a 256MB Pi and I split 128/128 MB and nothing happens only a black window appears.

Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  February 12, 2013 at 12:08 pm said:
  
  That memory split is fine. Are you accessing the Pi over the network, or do you have a screen attached directly? In order to get a hardware-accelerated game in X, they had to do some hacks which mean that the game display doesn’t get sent over the network.
  
  Comment ↓
- winkleink on
  February 12, 2013 at 12:32 pm said:
  
  Is your RPi overclocked?
  I have seen problems with graphic intense programs failing if over clocked. With Quake3 I had to go back to the normal clock speed to get it to work reliably.
  
  Comment ↓
- banalac on
  February 12, 2013 at 3:09 pm said:
  
  Yeah, I’ve tried it over X11VNC. I’ve tried it on my TV, it works fine after I fall back to stock clock speeds. Both of you are right! Thanks!
  
  Comment ↓
4thdwarflord on
February 12, 2013 at 2:36 pm said:

so much betterthan the leak! i can look in all directions without glitches!

Comment ↓
Jonas on
February 12, 2013 at 6:00 pm said:

OMG OMG OMG!!

Comment ↓
Gregory Roberts on
February 12, 2013 at 6:40 pm said:

I was getting an error:
failed to open vchiq instance

So I added my userid to group video, and it then worked fine:
usermod -a -G video [your_username]

Comment ↓
- andrea on
  February 12, 2013 at 8:22 pm said:
  
  tried your method, but I’m still getting this error
  
  vchiq_lib: Incompatible VCHIQ library - driver version 2 (min 2), library version 6 (min 3) * failed to open vchiq instance
  
  Comment ↓
  - Wouter Rademaker on
    February 13, 2013 at 9:23 am said:
    
    Update your system with something like “aptitude update” , “apt-get update” or your preferred method, reboot and try again.
    
    Comment ↓
    - James Searle on
      February 15, 2013 at 5:45 pm said:
      
      Ok so i have get it all updated and even ran through upgrade aswell but still getting the vchiq problem.
      
      any ideas?
      
      Comment ↓
      - Daniel Bates on
        February 16, 2013 at 10:06 am said:
        
        Have you tried giving the GPU more memory (minimum 64MB, recommended 128MB)? Use raspi-config and see the memory_split option.
sam on
February 12, 2013 at 9:52 pm said:

When I try cd mcpi, it says command not found. I am using linux terminal on Wheezy. Does anyone know what is wrong?

Comment ↓
- jose1711 on
  February 12, 2013 at 11:21 pm said:
  
  you probably need to type ./mcpi
  
  Comment ↓
Andrew on
February 12, 2013 at 10:11 pm said:

My son loves it. He says “it’s made python cool”. So far he has made a giant flood, a cube of “everything ” and a tower of lava.

Comment ↓
David on
February 13, 2013 at 5:50 am said:

I spent yesterday and today porting Minesweeper to Minecraft. You can see a video and pics here, and you can download the code here.

Comment ↓
Ben on
February 13, 2013 at 11:09 am said:

It runs great but there are a few issues.
1. I cant open my chest
2. I Can’t sleep because it never goes dark
3. The mouse only goes halfway across the screen.
Apart from them, it seems to be pretty good.
if I could get some help that would be great.
Thanks again.

Comment ↓
Robert on
February 13, 2013 at 1:06 pm said:

I got Minecraft working last night and with the help from the stuffaboutcode website and a bit here have got it working. But we can not do anything more than place a single block and find our position using the LXTerminal. None of the other commands work. Any ideas? We’re new to Python but seasoned Minecrafters!

Comment ↓
- Texy on
  February 13, 2013 at 4:37 pm said:
  
  I wonder if the stuffaboutcode page is relating to the earlier leaked version of the game, and not the offical released version that appear a few days ago? Aparently the API has changed between versions, so earlier python programs will not work with this later version.
  Texy
  
  Comment ↓
  - tzj on
    February 13, 2013 at 4:58 pm said:
    
    Funny thing is, version 0.1 didn’t come with an API, yet version 0.1.1 did (which is the oneused in this post, so somethings fishy).
    
    Comment ↓
    - Martin OHanlon on
      February 14, 2013 at 11:37 pm said:
      
      Version 0.1 did come with an api, its almost exactly same as the api with 0.1.1, but the new ones seems a bit more performant. The programs on stuffaboutcode work with both versions, i know, i wrote them!
      
      Comment ↓
Cyanboy on
February 13, 2013 at 8:27 pm said:

I wish they could have documented the API properly.

Comment ↓
- Daniel Bates on
  February 13, 2013 at 9:20 pm said:
  
  Is this good enough? http://www.wiki.vg/Minecraft_Pi_Protocol
  
  Comment ↓
  - Bob on
    February 23, 2013 at 11:50 am said:
    
    There’s a couple of obvious things missing from this documentation, and presumably from the protocol itself.
    
    I’m attempting to get a Wii balance board integrated into pi minecraft, so you can stand on it and segway around the world, using a wiimote to place/destroy blocks etc. But the api has no way of querying or setting the direction in which the player is facing, so I will only be able to fact due north to start with. Presumably mojang will expand the api in due course.
    
    Comment ↓
NickMon68 on
February 14, 2013 at 11:38 am said:

Same issues a Ben above for me :

It runs great but there are a few issues.
1. I cant open my chest
2. I Can’t sleep because it never goes dark
3. The mouse only goes halfway across the screen.

Comment ↓
- qwertytrains on
  February 14, 2013 at 6:48 pm said:
  
  same!
  
  Comment ↓
Rich on
February 15, 2013 at 9:09 pm said:

Had a go but the mouse sticks a bit when in menus. Also, any way of setting it up for classic survival mode?

Comment ↓
OldRobot on
February 15, 2013 at 9:59 pm said:

I may a little video showing how to place blocks in minecraft pi.

It’s poor quality but it may help

http://Www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7hzURJmV5Y

Comment ↓
Martin O'Hanlon on
February 15, 2013 at 10:49 pm said:

I’m well pleased with the massive analogue clock I have made using the API, its so big you can walk on the hands!

Check out the video and source code here

Comment ↓
Rufus King on
February 16, 2013 at 6:40 pm said:

I have been trying really hard to download and run Minecraft- Pi Edition and everything works, decompressing the files and everything until it comes to running the program. Every time i try i get to the point where i am at the mcpi folder and i type ‘./minecraft-pi’ but every time i do it it doesn’t work. Does anyone know why and please could you leave a reply telling me how to do it. Thanks.

Comment ↓
- nightfox7 on
  February 16, 2013 at 9:28 pm said:
  
  I’m having the same problem.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Rich on
    February 16, 2013 at 10:57 pm said:
    
    Try the following:
    chmod ug+x minecraft-pi
    The above typed at the terminal when you’re in the mcpi directory should modify the permission of the file to be executed by the “pi” user.
    
    Comment ↓
    - nightfox7 on
      February 17, 2013 at 5:01 am said:
      
      I tried that but now it just does nothing., before it was saying there was no such file or directory
      
      Comment ↓
      - Lewis on
        February 17, 2013 at 8:34 am said:
        
        Same problem here. We are running Debian not Wheesy, as far as I know. Is there something missing from Debian?
  - DanielG on
    February 18, 2013 at 2:28 am said:
    
    If you are using Debian, instead of typing just minecraft.pi, type ./minecraft.pi
    
    Comment ↓
    - nightfox7 on
      February 18, 2013 at 3:57 am said:
      
      I am running wheezy.
      
      Comment ↓
Bryan on
February 18, 2013 at 12:51 am said:

When I try the “tar -zxvf minecraft-pi-0.1.1.tar.gz” command, I get the following error:
”
gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file
tar: Child returned status 1
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
”
What am I doing wrong?

Comment ↓
Martin on
February 18, 2013 at 9:46 pm said:

Today was the first time to bring my Pi with me to a german Primary School. The kids are absolutely nuts about minecraft – a perfect setting…

“If you manage to set up the Pi with the prepared beamer yourself, you get the chance to play minecraft with it!”

The Pi was attached properly within minutes, first contact with linux made and the first house built soon… now they are all keen on the raspberry Minecraft is attracting, well done. Now I do need more of these little machines!

Comment ↓
prmrytchr on
February 22, 2013 at 2:31 pm said:

Hello. I put together this blog post on the topic of getting started with Minecraft on the pi, using some of the tips from people’s comments here: http://prmrytchr.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/edtechnostalgia-and-beginning-programming-raspberry-pi-minecraft/

Comment ↓
Rufus King on
February 22, 2013 at 6:36 pm said:

I have looked at so many forums and blogs trying to get this to work but the same thing happens every time. I am running on ‘wheezy’ so you do the ‘./’ command so i type ‘./minecraft-pi’ but EVERY time it never works and says ‘bash: ./minecraft-pi: No such file or directory’. It is so annoying and please could someone help me work out why it doesn’t work. Thanks a lot.

Comment ↓
brynnhold on
February 23, 2013 at 12:27 pm said:

I have my raspberry pi connected to a older television via the composite output (PAL). When I start minecraft, a black window appears in the background and then the game is like “popped out” of the window (like a borderless window above the normal one). I can play normally with a good framerate, i can even resize the window in the background (The overlay will resize the same) . I took some pictures with my phone cam (because i couldnt get the right picture with a screenshot app.) https://dl.dropbox.com/u/53239111/IMG_20130223_121230.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/53239111/IMG_20130223_121253.jpg
Notice the 2 mouse cursors in the 2nd pic.
Maybe this has something to do with my overclocking settings? (I overclocked the pi to 900mhz, overvolted to 2, SDram 450mhz, GPU has 64mb)

Comment ↓
Tim Rowledge on
February 27, 2013 at 7:38 pm said:

Turns out you can drive Minecraft from Squeak (and therefore with a bit of work, from Scratch) -
http://croquetweak.blogspot.com/2013/02/smalltalk-bindings-for-minecraft-pi.html

Comment ↓