Paper Minecraft

Paper Minecraft is a fan-made 2D take on block building, played from the side rather than in first person. You gather materials, craft what you need, build shelter and survive what comes at night.

Flattening the idea into two dimensions changes it more than you would expect. You can see your whole build at once, mining is faster, and the survival pressure arrives sooner because there is nowhere to hide behind terrain. It is a shorter, sharper version of the loop.

It runs in the browser with nothing to install and uses keyboard and mouse, so desktop is the right device. Give it a moment to load the world before the first day starts.