Minecraft: Game guide for parents and teachers

Super-creative building game that gives kids the opportunity to create whatever their imagination might envisage!

Publisert |Av Kris Munthe|KategorierKids and media

Choose language in the Google-box below. Some translations may be flawed or inaccurate.

What is Minecraft?

  • A building game where you make things with square blocks
  • Processing of resources such as wood, wool, stone, coal, animals, and plants to create new types of goods such as candles, meat, beds, doors, swords, and more
  • Different playing styles: Creative mode (no dangers, eternal life, and endless building blocks) and Survival (hunger and dangers, dangerous monsters, and all resources must be collected)
  • Minecraft can be played alone, with friends, and online
  • There is a separate educational version for use in schools

 Age limit: 9+ years from Apple App Store, 7 years from PEGI (Minecraft Education has a lower recommended age limit from PEGI)
Marked With: Mild violence, fear
The game has very simple cartoon graphics.

 Please note:

  • Violence, creepy monsters
  • Use of weapons such as swords and bows
  • Use of real money
  • Chat with strangers
  • Others destroy what the children have built

You can read a detailed review of Minecraft here.

What can children and young people learn from Minecraft?

  • Creativity, planning, and collaboration
  • Architecture, design, and symmetry
  • Utilization and processing of resources
  • Sustainability, language

Smart settings

  • Dedicated child accounts with parental settings
  • Turning off chat and friend requests
  • Block access to online games

 Discussion questions with children and adolescents

  • What do you like to build in Minecraft?
  • Which blocks do you like the most?
  • What can you learn from playing Minecraft?
  • Who do you usually play with?

Glossary

  • Bedrock/Java – two different versions of Minecraft. Bedrock is the newest of the two
  • Server – Online Public Games Rooms
  • Marketplace – a shop where you can buy costumes and ‘game worlds’
  • Mobs/Creatures – all the different creatures found in Minecraft
  • Zombies – monsters that attack the players
  • Sneaker/Creeper – a monster that explodes as it approaches the player
  • Ender Dragon – a large, flame-breathing dragon
  • Workbench – a tool for creating doors, swords, lights, and more from resources that have been collected
  • Portal – a journey to the underworld (Nether) in Minecraft where you can fight monsters
  • Redstone – a resource that allows you to connect objects and mechanisms together. For example, a door to a lever (door opener)

(This is part of a series of short articles about popular video games reviewed by ‘Barnevakten’, a Norwegian non-profit foundation that works to ensure safe and conscious media use of children and adolescents.) You can also read:

Game guide for parents and teachers: Fortnite
Game guide for parents and teachers: FIFA 22
Game guide for parents and teachers: Roblox

(Translated from Norwegian by Ratan Samadder)