Minecraft (partially found previous versions of sandbox game; 2009-present)

*Minecraft* is a PC Java sandbox game, now available on many different platforms, first developed in May 2009 by Markus Persson (Notch) and later by various different developers at Mojang. It has since become one of the best-selling video games of all time. The game was originally developed as a Java applet to be played in a browser, with a few private releases followed by the first publicly released version being shared by Notch to the tigsource forums and other sites such as the java-gaming.org site on May 17th, 2009.

From this point onwards *Minecraft* went through many stages of development, with the first version of what is called the Release development cycle of the game being released in November 2011, after which Notch officially left the development team.

Unfortunately, as with many large video game franchises, **there are many different early builds from the early development cycles of the game that are now missing entirely**, both from Mojang's official launcher and from the internet altogether. This is likely due to the nature of the game as an in-browser Java applet when first developed. This meant that without knowledge of how Java applets worked, a user would not know to back up the files, including the minecraft.jar file, found in the AppData/Local/Temp/www.minecraft.net folder where these files were stored. This was also worsened by the sheer amount of updates in a short space of time during the early builds of the game, sometimes many in a single day, which would overwrite the files from the previous update. As the game did not become popular until later on, and Notch was the sole developer, he also seemingly did not keep backups of every version released.

Classic was the first public development cycle of *Minecraft*. Originally called "Alpha" (not to be confused with the later development cycle by the same name), it was only referred to as Classic after the development cycle had ended. Any private versions made beforehand, such as the "rd (*RubyDung*) versions" in the official launcher and the version "0.0.9a" (often grouped with Classic versions, depending on how they're grouped), are generally referred to as pre-Classic. Classic started with version "0.0.11a," released on May 17th, 2009, and ended with version "0.30," released on November 10th, 2009. Within Classic, there were a few other development cycles, including Multiplayer Test and later Survival Test. As Classic was played in the browser, the files for it were stored at the "AppData/Local/Temp/www.minecraft.net/Minecraft folder." There are a lot of different versions of Classic missing, and only 3 versions of it are featured in the official launcher. Luckily, a few other versions have been recovered from various older players over the years, and there is a reasonably good historical representation of most of Classic, other than early Multiplayer Test versions.

Below is a table of Classic versions, with notes for each version as well as download links for found versions. Proof of existence for all versions is included where possible, with an effort having been made to find proofs from 2009-2010. Only a single proof of existence is included in perversion, but for most versions, many are available in the form of screenshots, videos and from Notch's Tumblr blog. If proof for a version is missing, it is either due to the proof not existing or not having been found, or it may be because the version was a silent update (unannounced by Notch) but is now found, so we know of its existence. A -1, -2 etc., next to a version indicates there were multiple different versions of the same version released publically, or a version that was reuploaded, usually to attempt to fix a bug.

Indev (standing for In Development), sometimes stylized as /indev/, was the development stage of *Minecraft* which introduced crafting along with many other features such as mining, smelting and farming. The first Indev version was released on December 23, 2009, and the last Indev version was released on February 23, 2010. Indev was originally creative mode for only the first couple of versions and then later survival mode for the rest of the development cycle. Indev was originally labelled "0.31" in-game until the February 6th version onwards, where it was labelled *Minecraft Indev* in-game. Much like Classic, it had a limited map size and was played in the browser, meaning the files were stored in the AppData/Local/Temp/www.minecraft.net/Minecraft\_sneakpeek folder. Surprisingly, there are absolutely no Indev versions in the launcher, but despite this, many have been found, once again, from old players. There is even one extremely rare creative version of Indev (December 23, 2009-2) archived that was recently recovered by an archivist player known as RidgeX. Unfortunately, there are also many missing versions of Indev too, mainly from its earlier versions.

Below is a table of Indev versions, with notes for each version as well as download links for found versions. Proof of existence for all versions is included where possible, with an effort having been made to find proofs from 2009-2010. Only a single proof of existence is included per version, but for most versions, many are available in the form of screenshots, videos and from Notch's Tumblr blog. If proof for a version is missing, it is either due to the proof not existing or no having been found, or it may be because the version was a silent update (unannounced by Notch) but is now found, so we know of its existence. Because Indev did not have a numbering scheme for the separate versions, the numbering scheme used is based on the release date of the version in the Year-Month-Day format. A -1, -2 etc., next to a version indicates there were multiple different versions of the same version released publically, or a version that was reuploaded, usually to attempt to fix a bug.

Infdev, which stands for Infinite Development, was the development cycle that immediately followed Indev. Sometimes stylized as /infdev/, it is named after the infinite worlds that it introduced, a now-famous feature of *Minecraft*. The first version of Infdev was released on February 27, 2010, and the last version was released on June 30, 2010. Infdev was Survival Mode throughout the whole development cycle. The same as Classic and Indev, it was played in the browser, and the files were stored in the following folder: AppData/Local/Temp/www.minecraft.net/Minecraft\_infdev . Infdev was the last development cycle to be played in the browser, but thanks to the archival efforts of many old players, amazingly, almost every single known released version of Infdev has been recovered, apart from two versions: infdev-20100616 and infdev-20100227. Almost half of these versions were recovered from the archivist 2009-2010 player RidgeX. There is only one version of Infdev in the official launcher, which is from June 18, 2010.

Below is a table of Infdev versions, with notes for each version as well as download links for found versions. Proof of existence for all versions is included where possible, with an effort having been made to find proofs from 2010. Only a single proof of existence is included perversion, but for most versions, many are available in the form of screenshots, videos and from Notch's Tumblr blog. If proof for a version is missing, it is either due to the proof not existing or no having been found, or it may be because the version was a silent update (unannounced by Notch) but is now found, so we know of its existence. Because Infdev did not have a numbering scheme for the separate versions, the numbering scheme used is based on the release date of the version in the Year-Month-Day format. A -1, -2 etc., next to a version indicates there were multiple different versions of the same version released publically, or a version that was reuploaded, usually to attempt to fix a bug.

Alpha was the development cycle that immediately followed Infdev. Sometimes stylized as /game/, it is the first version to have an offline client/launcher. The first true version of Alpha was released on July 2, 2010, and the last version was released on December 3, 2010. Alpha was also in Survival Mode throughout its entire development cycle. However, unlike previous development cycles that came before it, Alpha was stored in a different folder, thanks to the at the time new launcher. The files were stored in this folder: AppData/Roaming/.minecraft/bin. This folder is also used all the way up until "Release 1.5.2," as after "Release 1.5.2," a new launcher was made with which versions are now stored in the "versions" folder. Unfortunately, many versions of Alpha are lost, but not as many as previous versions before it, likely due to the versions being played with a launcher and the files being more known about and accessible, as well as due to the game's popularity increasing at the time of Alpha. There are 25 versions of Alpha in the launcher. However, some of those are mislabelled, such as "a1.2.0" actually being "a1.2.0\_02." Many have also been recovered from old players as with development cycles before, with only 11 alpha versions being missing if versions without proof are counted.

Below is a table of Alpha versions, with notes for each version as well as download links for found versions. Proof of existence for all versions is included where possible, with an effort having been made to find proofs from 2010. Only a single proof of existence is included perversion, but for most versions, many are available in the form of screenshots, videos and from Notch's Tumblr blog. If proof for a version is missing, it is either due to the proof not existing or no having been found, or it may be because the version was a silent update (unannounced by Notch) but is now found, so we know of its existence. A -1, -2 etc., next to a version indicates there were multiple different versions of the same version released publically, or a version that was reuploaded, usually to attempt to fix a bug.

After Alpha, the next development cycle was Beta, with the first version being released on December 20, 2010, and the last version being released on November 11th, 2011. The popularity of *Minecraft* increased perhaps the most during this development cycle and the following release cycle, and due to this, every full beta release has been archived. There are, however, some versions of Beta that are not in the launcher, and there are some pre-releases that were reuploaded to fix a bug, with one of these not having the pre-reupload version archived.

Following Beta, *Minecraft* entered its final Release development cycle with "Version 1.0.0" released on November 18, 2010, although Release candidates for this version were released on November 13th. Notably, "Release 1.0.0" was the last version that the original creator, Notch, worked on before leaving Mojang. Unlike Beta, every full release of *Minecraft* is in the official launcher or on Mojang's servers that host versions. Despite this, some pre-releases are missing, and also some Snapshot versions were re-uploaded, and the pre-reupload versions are missing from the launcher and, for some versions, completely missing.

Below is a table of all Beta and Release versions, pre-releases and snapshots not featured in the official launcher or on Mojang's download servers, with notes for each version as well as download links for found versions. Proof of existence for all versions is included where possible, with an effort having been made to find proofs from the release time of the specific version. Only one form of proof is included, but in some cases, more may be available in the form of screenshots, videos and official announcements on social media or minecraft.net. A -1, -2 etc., next to a version indicates there were multiple different versions of the same version released publically, or a version that was reuploaded, usually to attempt to fix a bug.

Sadly, as with a lot of popular game series, *Minecraft* also suffers from a large number of fake versions, particularly of older versions of the game. Even more, unfortunately, many of these are distributed online and believed to be real by most and are, in most cases, easier to find than the real versions. It is therefore important that these versions can be recognised and identified as fake so that they are not labelled as being legitimate, and luckily there are a few ways to identify fake versions. It is also important to note that the internet has been scoured almost entirely for versions, which means that it is highly likely that if a "missing" version is found online that it is fake, particularly if it was found with ease or uploaded fairly recently.

There are some websites that are known for distributing fakes; the most well-known of these is Luigi2600's site, which can be found here. Most of the versions found on this site are fake, often modified versions of versions that are actually found; in many cases, just the version number has been edited. Any that are legitimate are available in Omniarchive and other trusted places, so there is no need to download any versions from this site. Due to most believing these versions to be real, they are often distributed on sites such as YouTube and in various *Minecraft* communities. Additionally, if a link is found to any zip known as the "Hidden Versions," it is likely from Luigi2600's site.

Despite the worrying amount of fakes, it is actually very easy to distinguish a fake from an original version. To do this, a person must have a program that is able to open .zip (and by extension .jar) files such as 7zip or WinRAR. Upon opening a minecraft.jar with one of these programs, said person should be able to see a folder that reads "META-INF." For example, here is an image of in-20091223-2 opened in WinRAR with its META-INF folder circled.

If the .jar features no folder labelled "META-INF," then it is almost certainly fake. Next, the person should open the META-INF folder and check the date of the files inside. They should all feature the same date and time, and if this is not the case, then the .jar has definitely been modified. Also, the date of the files should correspond (although under certain circumstances, it may be a small amount of time before) with the release date of the version in question, which can be found in the tables above. This is because the date and time listed on these files is the exact time that the .jar was compiled and the certificate was issued. An exception to this is the rd- versions featured in the official launcher, which feature dates from 2013. This is because they were compiled in 2013 and added to the launcher, likely from very old source code that was recovered from before *Minecraft* was even public; it's also possible that they are recreations. For example, here is an image of the META-INF folder from in-20091223-2 showing the date of the files, which corresponds to the release date on December 23, 2009.

In addition, below is a screenshot showing the dates from the META-INF folder of the supposed "0.24," a version that was never actually released, on Luigi2600's site. Note that the dates differ from each other and that they are not in 2009 as should be expected from a Survival Test version.

Many of the versions listed above were found/contributed by members of the Omniarchive community, who have documented their progress in a Google spreadsheet. Within the spreadsheet is a credit list of version contributors and researchers etc.

Many of the versions listed above being created for earlier versions of Java, many of them do not function with current versions of Java or feature other bugs.