Minecraft Classic (JavaScript remake)

*Minecraft Classic*
Author(s)	Mojang Studios
Platform(s)	Web browser
Written in	JavaScript
Latest version	[more information needed]
Release date	May 7, 2019
Size	8.92 MB
Source available	No
Links	Website;

Minecraft Classic is a JavaScript remake of Classic 0.0.23a_01, made to celebrate 10 years of Minecraft and was uploaded to the Minecraft website.^[1] This version was built with the Babylon.js library, and can be played at classic.minecraft.net for free.

Features

Blocks

Air
Grass Block
Stone
Dirt
Planks
Rose
Dandelion
Water
Sapling
Cobblestone
Bedrock
Sand
Gravel
Wood
Leaves
Red Mushroom
Brown Mushroom
Lava
Gold Ore
Iron Ore
Coal Ore
Block of Gold
Sponge
Glass
Red Cloth
Orange Cloth
Yellow Cloth
Chartreuse Cloth
Green Cloth
Spring Green Cloth
Cyan Cloth
Capri Cloth
Ultramarine Cloth
Violet Cloth
Purple Cloth
Magenta Cloth
Rose Cloth
Dark Gray Cloth
Light Gray Cloth
White Cloth

Mobs

Steve

Spawned by pressing G.
Oddly, they can walk past the world border. They will fall through the bedrock if they go too far.
They are client-side only and will not show up for other players in multiplayer.
The model is not made correctly and makes the human look short.
They would despawn after 1 minute.

World generation

Terrain

Generated terrain with hills and lakes, with small caves under the surface.

Generated structures

Trees, made of logs and leaves.

World size

The default world size is 127×127 blocks.
The world size can be changed when generating a new level from the pause screen, with Small (127×127 blocks), Normal (255×255 blocks), and Huge (511×511 blocks) options.
World height for all three map sizes is 63 blocks, with bedrock sea level at 30 blocks.

Gameplay

Blocks

Placing and destroying blocks; switch between the two by pressing use.
Blocks do not waterlog.

Multiplayer

Used to be available to play with up to nine other players.
Disabled on May 8, 2019, due to performance issues,^[2] and removed in the June 9, 2025 update.

Inventory

Press B to open.
Find and select all the different blocks available.

World generation

Trees could generate underwater due to grass blocks spawning in the water.^[verify]

General

2D clouds.

Pause screen

Ability to copy the URL link to give to other players for them to join.
For browsers that do not support WebRTC, the URL link and "Copy" button have been replaced with the "Save level" and "Load level" buttons.
- Clicking on any of these buttons will show the text "<html>" instead of the buttons that allowed the player to save or load a level.

Bugs

When exiting and entering the world, the top textures of all blocks that were at altitude became invisible.
The human mob model is glitched.
Unloaded chunks turned white.
The generated sea level sometimes doesn't match the bedrock sea level.
FPS counter is inaccurate on some browsers and will sometimes display random numbers.
Zooming in and out will sometimes cause a huge drop on FPS, this will cause an performance impact, and this will make all blocks disappear, and display an error icon.
On some old and slow computers, generating a new world in a huge size causes the game to crash.
The game has performance issues on some computers that do not support the correct files in-game.
If the player spawns numerous mobs, scrolling through the hotbar or right clicking to toggle to mine or place blocks can cause huge lag spikes.
The game can fail to load the player's current world and instead generates a new one. In this case, any modified blocks (even air) from the previous map are carried over to the newly-generated map, overwriting any otherwise-generated blocks making certain structures that players have built to be underground, or in the sky.
The lava's model faces are culled incorrectly.
The music sometimes overlaps with other music and keeps building up.
Block updates are only performed when a player places or breaks a block, for those blocks and directly adjacent blocks, and the only data saved for blocks are the position and identity of changed blocks. This means that block updates can be prevented: naturally generated blocks will never update (for example, dirt that generates exposed to the sky will never grow grass, and water or lava that generates next to air blocks will not spread into them), and player-caused block updates can be cancelled by simply reloading the game before the update happens.
There doesn't seem to be a cap for the player's falling speed.
The player's speed is not reset after respawning. This is most obvious if the player's respawn point is set in the air (e.g. by pillaring up, setting the spawn point, and then breaking the pillar) and the player is repeatedly respawned before landing.

Differences and inaccuracies from the original

General

Since this is a remake and not a port from the original, the code, apart from the terrain generation code, which is the only ported code in the game, is completely different from the original and as such there may be many minor gameplay inaccuracies.
Grass blocks seem to turn into dirt when in shade.
Air exists as a block.
The remake version has an auto-save feature.
- Because of this, reloading or exiting then reopening the website on the same browser will load the same world and seed, along with player-made modifications, provided that the browser's local storage isn't cleared.
Physics are very different from the original.
New level format.
Block IDs in this remake do not line up with the original.
- Flowing lava and flowing water are missing.
The missing texture exists in this version, despite it not existing in Java Edition until Beta 1.4. The texture is red and black instead of the more familiar magenta and black, and is also of a higher frequency (the grid is 16×16 rather than 2×2).
- This texture is part of the BabylonJS engine itself and can be seen in other, unrelated programs that use it.^[3]
- Rather than being generated by the code or stored as a texture file, it is stored as JPEG data in the engine code.^[4]
The default set of hotbar blocks is different from any original version of Classic.

Original
Remake

The missing texture.
A block with graphic files removed, forcing the missing texture to appear.

Human mobs

They have a strange appearance compared to the original version's humans, likely unintentionally as the result of an update.
They have a different, less random and frantic AI.
Their texture has no beard, even though Steve's texture at the time had one.
They can cross the world border, revealing that unlike the original, the bedrock and water beyond the border are actually tangible and are actual blocks rather than a rendered flat plane.
- They will fall through the world after going too far.
They can be spawned in multiplayer, although they will only appear on the client side.

GUI

The blue gradient, seen in the inventory, pause menu and other menus in the original, is replaced with simply a transparent gray color, reminiscent of modern Minecraft.
The red gradient, seen on the crash/kicked from server screens in the original, is replaced with the same dirt background as seen on the generating level screen in both the original and the remake.
The font is different, and is also rendered anti-aliased on most browsers. This is because it is in a vector format (WOFF).
The remake uses an incorrect font (Minecraftia). This difference can be easily seen by looking at shape of the "t" letter, which is raised one pixel higher than it should be.

Graphics

Lighting is very different compared to the original, appearing more flat.
- Oddly, blocks appear to have a slight shine when looking down at them.
The remake used the noa Engine.
Anti-aliasing, which makes the blocks look smoother.
Block textures are stored separately rather than on a terrain.png file.
- Many filenames are different from the actual block name.
Inventory/hotbar block previews are pre-rendered textures unlike the original.
- Because of this, they appear pixellated at high resolutions.
Particles rotate to face the camera's position like in Bedrock Edition, instead of always being parallel to the camera.

Sounds

Sounds are stored in MP3 format rather than Ogg Vorbis format.
Music can be enabled in settings.
- Music tracks are the Volume Alpha soundtrack versions.^[verify]
Many sound effects are missing.
- There are no walking sound effects.
- Breaking wool and glass uses the normal grass and stone sound effects respectively. The original used higher pitched versions of the grass and stone sound effects for those blocks.
Breaking leaves plays a new sound that was not heard before in the original.

Multiplayer

Prior to the removal of multiplayer, there was a new menu when the user started up the game, allowing to choose a username, and giving the user an invitation link to invite people to a server.
- The invitation link also appears on the pause menu.
Other players take the same, glitched appearance as the human mobs.
- The name tag above players is also more reminiscent of modern Minecraft rather than 0.0.23a.
The command set is highly limited compared to the original.
- Consists of /list, /kick, /ban, /tp, /setspawn, and /help.
- The player can also use commands and chat in singleplayer, unlike the original version.
  - The username in offline singleplayer mode is temp.

Trivia

Going past the world border in the X or Z direction by a distance at or below 32 blocks will instantly push the player towards the closest in-bounds location, if possible.
If the X or Z distance from border is above 32 blocks, the player will be unable to move or place blocks.
If the Y distance is above 95 or below 0, the player will be unable to move or place blocks. If they are above Y=95, they will remain stationary in the air.
The render limit for the bedrock layer is X=±544, Z=±544.
Despite not being mentioned in /help, the commands /ban, /banip, /say, /op, /deop, /solid, /unban return "Command disabled."
Iron ore is called "bronze rock" internally.
Models are stored in the bottom corner of the world, underneath the bedrock layer.
The player's nametag is a separate entity. Its position is stored approximately 1.62 blocks above the player's.
Savegames are stored as a delta; they store the world seed, size, and the blocks changed that are different from the world seed.
Lava's block model is incorrectly made: the N/S/E and Bottom faces are inverted and cull when viewed head-on. Only the West and Top faces are correct.

History

Minecraft Classic (JavaScript remake)
May 7, 2019							Initial release.
May 8, 2019							Unannounced update.
May 10, 2019							Unannounced update.
October 15, 2019							Replaced the human model with a broken one.
May 23, 2025							Unannounced update.
May 28, 2025							Unannounced update.
June 9, 2025							Removed multiplayer. Previously, the multiplayer server was up, although nonfunctional, however at some point in time it was taken down, leading to a crash. By removing multiplayer, this removes the dependency on that server, and fixes the crash.

Gallery

Pixel art, specifically a crewmate from Among Us and a trollface.
Mushroom surrounded by water.
Mushroom surrounded by water.
Grass blocks in shadows eventually change to dirt.
A view of a cave.
A human.
Humans in a house made by a player.
Humans can go outside of the world border.
A human in a default idle state.
A view of the outer render limit of the border.
Error screen shown when the website is loaded without a keyboard
Lava flooding, placed by editing the save file.
Artwork of a computer playing the game, used for the original release in 2019.
Artwork for the 15th anniversary rerelease of the game, showing it running on what appears to be M.A.R.I.L.L.A.