The gaming phenomenon that involves punching trees by day and finding shelter by night has finally branched out from its PC roots to Xbox Live Arcade. Yes, Minecraft had spread across the Internet like wildfire thanks to the likes of YouTube and good ol’ fashioned word-of-mouth. Now, Microsoft is hoping the same will happen on Xbox Live. 

But in case you’re not familiar with the phenomenon, what makes Minecraft special is the power to create elaborate structures and contraptions, one colored block at a time – almost like Legos without limits. Being able to share your creations with your friends or go mining for diamonds together is also a huge draw. 

For Xbox, Minecraft’s blocky 3D sandbox world is faithfully recreated from a visual standpoint, but as a PC port, the big question is, how will it control? The answer, surprisingly, is that it will handle very much like a first-person shooter, where the analog sticks control your movement and the right trigger is reserved for punching. One of the biggest (and welcome) changes is that the recipes you would otherwise need to discover on your own are listed in a specified crafting inventory, where you can see all your ingredients and creatable objects. It’s clean, simple, and easy to navigate for new players, and seasoned veterans will no longer have to play with a browser window permanently set to the Minecraft wiki!

Item descriptions are included and there’s even a tutorial to get you started. Fortunately, there’s no more fumbling around and trying to find cover for the night. With this helpful nudge in the right direction, the chances of coming face to face with a creeper – one of Minecraft’s bad guys – on your first night will likely decline dramatically. A quick button press will now shuffle items efficiently between your inventory and your hot bar, saving you time from dragging items around and trying to organize your stash. 

There’s no stopping what the 16 million registered users have been building online for PC, and the creativity will likely continue to flow when the game finally springs forth on Xbox.