Minecraft For iOS Is Getting Crafting, Monsters, Caves And More

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We eagerly waited for Mojang to release the much anticipated port of Minecraft for almost a year, and while we ended up loving Minecraft: Pocket Edition on its own merits, it was missing a lot of stuff from the desktop game, including crafting, monsters and more.

If you were disappointed by Minecraft: Pocket Edition, though, turn that frown upside down. A post on the official Mojang blog says that their future plans include bringing many of the desktop’s best features to the mobile edition.

Mojang’s Minecraft: Pocket Edition lead Daniel Kaplan posts over at the official blog:

The plan now is to start digging into making Minecraft – Pocket Edition with Survival features!! Please note that we will NOT replicate Minecraft and try to bring all the features that are already out. This is not possible and does not match the touch platform. I’m trying to be as detailed as possible to show you why some stuff may take some time.

This is what the plan looks like right now and being worked on:

* A new file system – to make sure we can support items and mobs in the world
* Item system – to be able to pick up items
* Crafting – we know you want this :) This will probably need some iterations since the interface will be customized for the touch devices
* Inventory system
* Mobs – animals and enemies!
* Optimizing rendering code – we are experimenting with caves but need to make it work better before we are able to release it
* Clean up of code and overall optimization

Even though that’s not everything Minecraft offers on the desktop, it’s most of the stuff I care about, frankly. I’d be absolutely swimming in satisfaction if they got monsters and crafting into Pocket Edition.

Unfortunately, Mojang’s not willing to commit to exact dates for when any of these features will come to iOS, but the future’s bright for iOS Minecrafters.

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