Minecraft: example of what can be accomplished in java game

I've been really impressed with the progress of Minecraft, a java game. Cheap, captivating and available as an applet or a download.

It has great response time, huge scope. In alpha, it is constantly updated with new features.

Basically, you are in a world of blocks. You mine blocks and put them together to make tools, dwellings, and you work to protect your stuff from monsters.

Now, people on some forums are saying graphics will be limited due to it being in Java. Why does this story from the previous century keep cropping up?

Anyone else try this game?

I'm not familiar with this game but the graphics in the youtube movie I saw about it where not that impressive. Runescape, another java game, has much better graphics in my opinion.

Minecraft is a huge hit, the creator, a Swedish game developer, is getting rich very quickly.

It uses LWJGL, the Lightweight Java Game Library. LWJGL gives you access to APIs such as OpenGL for accelerated 3D graphics and OpenAL, for 3D audio.

The graphics in Minecraft look primitive, but that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it has been written in Java.