Notch, "The origins of Minecraft", 30 October 2009

Cite as: Notch, "The origins of Minecraft", 30 October 2009
Original: https://notch.tumblr.com/post/227922045/the-origins-of-minecraft
sha256: 23ba7872f8e37fb5481f7088bad48020d3adbf5c84544588b153d1fa06790456
Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20091102174928/http://notch.tumblr.com/post/227922045/the-origins-of-minecraft
Accessed: 2026-10-26
Licence: © Markus Persson; Wayback capture
Credit: Notch's own account of the RubyDung prototype and the moment he found Infiniminer, 30 October 2009, three days after posting it.
Notes: The primary source for Minecraft's debt to Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper and Infiniminer. It describes intent ("supposed to be", "I started thinking about adding") rather than finished features: the Dungeon Keeper first-person view was tried and dropped. The 2009 capture is the post as published, without later theme changes.

Cited on

Markus Persson wrote in 2009 that RubyDung, the prototype he worked on before Minecraft, was meant to be a base-building game inspired by Dwarf Fortress. In a 2010 interview he called Dwarf Fortress and roguelikes in general some of the biggest inspirations for Minecraft's gameplay.	`The origins of Minecraft, first paragraph`	Dev blog
Persson wrote in 2009 that he tried a first-person view for following RubyDung's minions, "kinda like in Dungeon Keeper", and left it out because the graphics got pixellated and distorted.	`The origins of Minecraft`	Dev blog
Persson wrote in 2009 that on finding Infiniminer he realized "that was the game I wanted to do". He found it flawed and tried a first-person engine in its style.	`The origins of Minecraft`	Dev blog
Markus Persson wrote in October 2009 that he played Infiniminer in multiplayer for a while and "had a blast", but found it flawed: building was fun, but there wasn't enough variation, and the big red and blue blocks were "pretty horrible".	`The origins of Minecraft`	Dev blog