Inside TWiT

OMGcraft: A New TWiT Show About Minecraft

Apr 9th 2013 by Chad Johnson

Hello world!

OMGcraft is a new TWiT show all about Minecraft. We've released a few episodes so far, and I thought I'd let you know all about the show and what changes there will be as I move the show to TWiT.

Minecraft is a sandbox game released by Mojang in 2009. Markus Persson (better known as Notch) founded Mojang when he quit his stable job at a game developer to venture out on his own. In his free time he created Minecraft. The now 31-person company began to flourish as Notch asked the Internet for feedback via IRC chat rooms and online forums on his side project. The game has become incredibly popular over the last 2 years—in fact, Minecraft recently passed its 10 millionth purchase.

There are so many different ways to play Minecraft. You can be an adventurer and explore any of the randomly generated worlds. You can be an artist and create beautiful 8-bit masterpieces. You can be a technician and take advantage of Minecraft's built in wiring system. You can be a map maker and create your own games inside of Minecraft. You can be a PVP player and battle fellow Minecrafters. There's so much flexibility.

I started playing Minecraft a few years ago when it was still in Alpha. I have absolutely fallen in love with this amazing game—so much so that I wanted to start a show about Minecraft.

I created OMGcraft with a few of my friends back in July 2012 as a long form show (each episode was between 45 minutes and one hour) covering a large topic in Minecraft. The show did far better than I or anyone else expected. Leo Laporte and Lisa Kentzell took notice of my improved presentation and we decided OMGCraft was ready to become a TWiT show.

The format of OMGcraft has changed. Instead of each episode covering a massive amount of content aimed at enthusiasts, we have broken the show apart to consist of multiple focused episodes per week.

It breaks down as follows:

Tuesday's episode will be a quick Tip about a specific Minecraft topic.
Thursday's episode will be a spotlight covering mods, maps, texture packs, etc.
On the first Saturday of every month, I will release a course, which thoroughly explains a large topic, more akin to our old format.

With the changes and the transition to TWiT, we have built an awesome set, where we have extracted a setting directly from the game. Karsten Bondy has joined the OMGCraft team as producer. Josh Windisch will be the show's editor. I could not be more thrilled to work with them. And do not fret, the guys who helped out in the past aren't going away, they'll still be helping out each week.

I cannot thank my audience enough. Reading the comments, tweets, messages, and emails that have poured in, I am glad you guys are as excited about the change as I am. The future of OMGcraft looks vast and bright. I am thrilled.