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Draft:Minecraft: Pi Edition

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Minecraft: Pi Edition
DeveloperMojang Studios
PublisherMojang Studios
DesignersAron Nieminen
Daniel Frisk
ProgrammersAron Nieminen
Daniel Frisk
PlatformsRaspberry Pi (Linux, ARM only)
ReleaseFebruary 11, 2013
GenreSandbox
ModesSingle-player, Multiplayer

Minecraft: Pi Edition is a discontinued sandbox video game developed by Mojang Studios for the Raspberry Pi single-board computer. It is based on Minecraft: Pocket Edition Alpha v0.6.1, but contains a reduced feature set alongside an application programming interface (API) supporting multiple programming languages. The edition was intended primarily as an educational tool for novice programmers. Although it has been officially discontinued, it remains available as a free download from the official Minecraft website.[1]

Pi Edition never received any subsequent updates after its initial release. Despite this, it was included by default in installations of Raspberry Pi OS (formerly known as Raspbian) for several years before eventually being dropped from the platform.

Development

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Background

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Minecraft: Pi Edition was created by Mojang Studios employees Aron Nieminen and Daniel Frisk.[2] Nieminen had previously been the lead developer of Minecraft: Pocket Edition from its inception until December 13, 2012, when Jens Bergensten took over that role. The game runs only on ARM architecture-based hardware.

Announcement

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Minecraft: Pi Edition was originally announced on the Mojang Studios website on November 24, 2012.[3] At the time of announcement, developer Daniel Frisk described the edition as free and designed to let users manipulate the game world from external programs.[4]

An early compiled build labelled version 0.1 was placed on the Mojang repository but was encrypted to prevent access prior to the game's official launch. For a brief window, however, the build was left unprotected, allowing some users to download it before its true release.

On December 20, 2012, Mojang Studios published a blog post announcing the release of Pi Edition; however, the post was promptly removed and no actual game release followed on that date.[3]

Release

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Minecraft: Pi Edition was publicly released in alpha on February 11, 2013, as version 0.1.1. The previously removed announcement post was restored to coincide with the release, though the post's date continued to display December 20, 2012.[1][5]

Addition to Raspberry Pi OS

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On September 15, 2014, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced that Minecraft: Pi Edition would be installed by default with new releases of Raspberry Pi OS.[6] This significantly increased the game's reach among young learners and hobbyist programmers using the Raspberry Pi platform.

Discontinuation

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Pi Edition never received any updates beyond its initial 0.1.1 alpha release, and its developers offered no further public statements regarding future development. In August 2021, when Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye was released, Minecraft: Pi Edition was officially removed from both the Games folder and the Recommended Software page, as Bullseye dropped support for the OpenGL ES graphics API that Pi Edition depended upon.[6] The game remains playable on earlier versions of the operating system and is still available for free download from the official Minecraft website.

Gameplay

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Overview

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Minecraft: Pi Edition shares many similarities with Minecraft: Pocket Edition Alpha v0.6.1, upon which it is based. The only available game mode is Creative Mode; Survival Mode is disabled, and there is no crafting or smelting system. All blocks available in Pocket Edition v0.6.1 alpha are present in the game, including items exclusive to older versions of Pocket Edition such as the Nether Reactor Core and the Stonecutter.[2]

Players are restricted to a world size of 256×256×128 blocks, consistent with older versions of Pocket Edition.[2] The player's username is always displayed as "StevePi", and the default player skin is always the standard Steve skin. Players can sneak but cannot sprint.

Signs are always blank when placed and cannot be edited without external tools. The world is always visible over a LAN connection, and this setting cannot be changed in the pause menu. There is no option to select a world name or seed; the default world name is simply "world".[2]

Mob behavior

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Although mob spawning is disabled in Pi Edition, all mob data from Pocket Edition v0.6.1 alpha remains present in the game's code. Mobs can be encountered by loading a Pocket Edition world that already contains them, or by using the Nether Reactor in a Survival map. Players begin each session holding an iron sword, though no enemies will spawn naturally. A bow is available in the inventory, but using it causes the player to hold it back indefinitely until another item is selected.[2]

Programming API

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A distinguishing feature of Pi Edition compared to standard Pocket Edition is its built-in application programming interface (API). The API allows players and developers to interact with and control the in-game environment through externally written programs, supporting languages including Python.[2][7][8] This feature made Pi Edition particularly attractive for educational use, enabling teachers and students to write code that directly manipulates the Minecraft world in real time.

The API includes a Java port containing a class called pi.Item, although the API itself has no means of interacting with items.[4]

Technical details

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Pi Edition uses Raspberry Pi-specific GPU code, which prevents it from being easily emulated or run on other hardware without modification.[2] The game links only against OpenGL ES 2 despite requiring OpenGL ES 1. Its symbols are stripped, unlike Pocket Edition v0.6.1 alpha, which did not strip symbols until Bedrock Edition 1.13.0.

Several features that are not accessible in the standard game remain present in the code, including Survival Mode, the Pocket Edition v0.6.1 alpha touch UI, mob attacking, Fancy Graphics, mob spawning, and bow firing. Textures for Fancy Leaves and Clouds are included in the game's files despite Fancy Graphics being impossible to enable without patching. The file data/lang/en_US.lang is present, though the code to load it is not implemented.[2]

The game is hard-coded to always use Creative Mode even if a world's data is set to Survival Mode. Player skins can be customized by editing data/images/mob/char.png, and terrain textures can be replaced by modifying files in the data folder.[2]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Fingas, Jon (2013-02-11). "Minecraft Pi Edition ready to download, offers pint-size play on a pint-size PC". Engadget. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Halfacree, Gareth; Upton, Eben (2014). "Minecraft Pi Edition". Raspberry Pi User Guide (3rd ed.). Wiley. ISBN 978-1-118-92167-8.
  3. ^ a b "Minecraft: Raspberry Pi edition announced". PC Gamer. 2012-11-24. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  4. ^ a b Summers, Nick (2012-11-29). "Minecraft: Pi Edition advocates do-it-yourself programming". Game Developer. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  5. ^ "Minecraft: Pi Edition now available for free". PC Gamer. 2013-02-12. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  6. ^ a b Upton, Eben (2014-09-15). "New Raspbian and NOOBS releases". Raspberry Pi Blog. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  7. ^ "Updates to Minecraft Documentation". Raspberry Pi. 2014-09-18. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
  8. ^ "Build a house in Minecraft using Python". Raspberry Pi. 2021-09-19. Retrieved 2026-03-06.
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Category:Minecraft Category:2013 video games Category:Linux games Category:Video games developed in Sweden

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