Play Minecraft

Minecraft is not officially supported on Haiku, however if you want to play with it it's possible.

In this article we will review how to install it and a quick introduction of its gamepley on a bare metal machine.

Installation

Minecraft is not available via Haiku Depot, and you will have to go to the LOTE packages website : https://haikuware.ru/package_list.php?repo=lote

This website provides some experimental packages you can play with. In the list from this website, select the Minecraft HPKG file and download it :

This package is just a script which is downloading the assets of the game and the jar file required to play.

It's based on an existing launcher, and if you are curious you can check this URL : https://github.com/alexivkin/minecraft-launcher

Please note Minecraft is not free, and you must own the license to play with it.

Once the HPKG is downloaded, launch it. Confirm with "Install" :

Select the latest version available from this package which is "1.19.4"

On my system, I had to select the version "1.16.5", because higher versions have some issues in displaying some graphical assets because they were rendered in black.

In case you need the last version from Mojang website, you can also copy the "/boot/system/apps/Minecraft Installer" file into your "/boot/home" folder and add the corresponding version in the "TESTED_VERSIONS_LIST" variable below :

If you launch again this modified script, the corresponding version will be available to install :)

Setup

The previous script has installed the game in the "/boot/home/config/non-packaged/apps/Minecraft" folder.

Launch the Minecraft program :

Click on "Continue" and selection "Options" :

Then "Video Settings" :

Put the video settings to "Graphics: Fast" and lower the render distance and simulation distance :

Confirm with "Done" and in the main screen select "Singleplayer" game :

Just wait a few seconds with the below screen :

Now, create a new world which will be "Survival" mode. Let's call it HaikuWorld and confirm with "Create New World" :)

This part is slow, so you will need to wait a little bit depending on your machine :

Once the world has been created, we are now ready to play !

Let's play

If you have never played to Minecraft, you need to know that the survival mode will make some monsters appear during the night. It means that before the night comes, I advice to have the minimum required :

• A home where to be safe
• Some fire to see something during the night :)

Let's start !

Before starting, hit "F3" to check the FPS :

Mmm 10 FPS which is not quite huge, but enough to play without big lag.

The first ressource which is important to have is the wood.

First find a tree, and hit it with your hands to retrieve a block of wood :

Do that several times. If you check your inventory ("e" key), you should now have enough wood blocks :

Put the wood blocks in the crafting zone of your inventory.

On the right you will see the wood board resulting from this crafting :

Click on the wood board icon and move it to your inventory.

Now put two wood board like the below :

The result will be 4 wood sticks.

Ok now let's build a crafting table to be able to craft more complex tools.

Put four wood boards in square :

Retrieve the resulting crafting table and put it in the below bar of your inventory :

The below bar of your inventory is the same than the bottom bar available in game.

Put the crafting table on the ground :

If you right click on it, you can now craft additional tools.

You can first create a wood sword to kill monsters :

Nice, isn't it ?

Next create a wood pick :

This tool is useful to extract rocks or ores. Another useful tool is the axe :

It facilitates the cutting of trees :

When you cut some trees, it makes them disappear. However, you might receive sometimes a bud in your inventory :

Put that bud on the floor, so that it will give in a few days a new tree :

Ok the last tool which is needed is a shovel :

It will be necessary to dig the ground to have a first basic home.

Now you can use yours tools to :

• Dig the ground
• Hit the rocks or ores

Once you have enough rocks, create a furnace like below :

Then use your furnace to create coal. For that put a block of raw wood at the top, and a wood board at the bottom :

The fire will transform the piece of wood into coal !

Now let's craft a fire torch with the coal :

Great !

You can put your fire torch at the entrance of your new house :

When you find some new material, some notifications will appear in game :

It means, you can create new tools made of rock.

Create a new pick like below :

This new crafted pick will be faster than the wood pick :)

The night should come quickly now, so close your entrance with blocks :

If you don't close your entrance, some monsters might come during the night trying to kill you.

During that time, you can continue digging the terrain and craft improved tools like the sword below :

If you want to know what is needed to craft additional objects, you just need to right click on the crafting table and explore the possibilities :

The icons with a red square indicate that a material is missing to craft the object.

When the next day is coming, you can open the entrance and explore the world again :

Minecraft is a really interesting game to play.

Even if the frame rate is not high on Haiku, it's enough to have some pleasure to play with it.

If you want to know more about the Minecraft gameplay, you can check the Minecraft wiki or the Minecraft official website.