WorldCraft 2.0.2

I often see a lot of Minecraft clones. Mediocre ones at best. Driven by the promise of a free version of this popular game, you will often find yourself disappointed over the lack of details, control, style or performance that these wannabes exhibit. I wouldn't say Worldcraft rivals the original by any chance, but it's quite close to a good game.

Deja Vu

Worldcraft offers two play modes. A multiplayer mode where you enter pre-made worlds and fly around in amazement while having meaningless conversations with characters derssed in superhero costumes. The visual style mimics Minecraft to a large degree.

The second variant is the Survival Mode. Sounds familiar? In survival mode you are pitched in a forest world with tall trees and huge open caverns. There are hills, valleys grass and some flowers. The controls are quite standard for a first person perspective with the added bonus of a "cautious" switch. Whenever it is on you will be unable to step or fall to death on a lower placed block. So in essence you will be unable to walk down stairs but you'll also be safe from falling to your death when running from zombies at night.

Oh, right! In the good old Minecraft sense, there is a day & night cycle. At night, you will find that zombies, pumpkin-head men and spiders have come out to get you. The Pumpkin heads attack you from a distance with flaming pumpkins. I'm not sure why they wanted to part that far from the idea of a skeleton archer, but hey, I'm no game designer.

As you might have expected, Worldcraft has a crafting system. It is mostly identical with the one in Minecraft. The resources are the same and the crafting tree is very similar. The quest for crafting a bed is still there. The only difference is that it's a bit harder. Days are kind of short and from the moment you get the first glimpse of twilight there is probably a minute of natural light left for you to get back into your shelter.

All fun and exciting. Unfortunately though, Worldcraft feels a bit unfinished. Combat feels wonky, you don't get a clear feedback when you hit an enemy and more often than not, you will be slashing through grass or digging the dirt instead of hitting that dodgy spider. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but only a bit. There are also some graphical uniformity problems. For example, although your character and other humanoids (zombies) have the classic Minecraft look, the other critters look a bit more modern and don't fit that well in the overall picture.

Conclusion

Worldcraft is quite apt as a cheap Minecraft substitute. Also, with a bit of tweaking it could become quite good.