MineCraft Pocket Edition Launches On Android

The sandbox building game MineCraft has made its debut on Android. It's currently available through the Android Market for $6.99.

Due to a timed exclusivity agreement, it's only available for Xperia Play handset owners at the moment. Owners of other Android devices will have to wait a bit longer. It's not clear when exactly everyone else will get it.

The Android version of MineCraft is dubbed MineCraft - Pocket Edition. The release version, Alpha 0.1, supports the following features:

• Randomized worlds
• Build anything you can imagine
• Build with 36 different kinds of blocks
• Invite and play with friends to your world (local wireless network)
• Save multi-player worlds on your own phone

"Just like the PC/Mac/Linux version of Minecraft we’re planning to continue developing the Pocket Edition for a long time with frequent updates," said Mojang managing director Carl Manneh. "We are eager to hear what the Minecraft community thinks about our new game and what you all want to see in future updates."

MineCraft, first released in 2009, lets players travel through a virtual world and build whatever they want. In order to build, they need to travel the world and gather resources. They must also protect themselves from skeletons, zombies and other hostile mobs that will spawn at night or in dark areas.

The PC/Mac/Linux version of MineCraft entered beta in December 2010. The launch of the full version is planned in November. Mojang also plans to release the game on the Xbox 360 and iOS devices sometime this year.