Just shy of the 10 year anniversary of Minecraft, Microsoft has made the very first pre-release version of the game free to play for anyone directly in their browser. Version 0.0.23a_01 is the original sandbox edition of Minecraft, with a limited number of blocks to place and a limited world to do it in. It lacks the continual procedural generation of later versions and doesn't have any living creatures besides yourself. There are no caves to explore, no crafting to complete — but you can still play around the voxel model which made the game so expansive and detailed to millions of gamers the world over.
It's also multiplayer, so you can invite your friends. To have a play with Minecraft classic yourself, just visit the main page here. If you want others to join you, just send them the Join URL from your address bar.
This release comes at an interesting time in Minecraft's life. It may not be the darling it once was in the gaming industry, but it's still insanely popular, receiving regular updates on most platforms it's available on — and it is available on all of them. It also has a TV show, side game projects based on its universe, and talk of a movie in the works.
It's come a long way since this classic demo was released on the TigSource forum by original creator, Markus "Notch" Perrson. He's since been scrubbed from the game in all but the credits and has not been invited to the 10 year anniversary celebration due to his publicly released views on politics and women, which Microsoft wishes to distance itself from.
When did you first play Minecraft? Does this version feel familiar, or limited and alien?
