Whether you’re an avid player or know someone who is, chances are you know something about Minecraft.

The family-friendly game has captured the imaginations of those young and old from all different backgrounds with its simple yet fun functionality and narrative that allows you to build impressive structures and battle strange foes across a block-covered land.

Now, the award-winning game is turning 10, and to celebrate the milestone we take a look at some weird and wonderful facts about the iconic world of Minecraft…

  1. Minecraft was almost called Cave Game.
  2. The first version of Minecraft was created in just six days by designer Markus Persson. Mojang AB. Persson began work on what is now Minecraft the same year.
  3. Following Minecraft’s release on PC, Mojang would periodically update and tweak the game until delivering what the company considered its full version on November 18, 2011.
  4. Minecraft’s creator has heralded PC video games Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper, RollerCoaster Tycoon, and Infiniminer as the primary influences for Minecraft
  5. There were originally plans for a Sky Dimension that allowed you to traverse the heavens. This eventually became The End.
  6. Persson’s in-game avatar is the only one that drops an apple when it dies.
  7. Persson sent out a tweet in June 2014, hoping to gauge the interest of any outside parties in purchasing his Mojang shares. Three months later, he officially sold the company to Microsoft for $2.5 billion.
  8. One block in Minecraft works out at one metre cubed.
  9. In the real world, avatar Steve would measure around 6.1 feet. He also has the ability to carry around 782536292.585 pounds
  10. You can tell a wolf’s health by their tail. If their tail is up they are happy and healthy, but if it is down your hound has low health.
  11. The Endermen language is just English played backward or pitched down
  12. The Ghasts are voiced by a cat, yet a Creeper’s worst fear is an ocelot.
  13. The ability to throw eggs was added when a player told Notch that if this was added, the player would eat his USB. The ability was added, and so the USB was eaten.
  14. While he was coding the game, Persson recalls making a mistake and coding a pig wrong. The result was a creeper.
  15. If you put a pumpkin on your head in the game you become invisible to Endermen.
  16. Minecraft contains no bulls, yet the cows can still have babies.
  17. If you have a fully charged bow in Minecraft, it’s more powerful than wielding a diamond sword.
  18. Even if you’re in peaceful mode, you can still anger a few mobs. Both Iron Golems and wolves can both be hostile in that mode.
  19. When a dragon egg falls into a non-transparent block or is pushed by a piston, it’ll drop as an item.
  20. Weather happens around every seven Minecraft days, which is two hours real time
  21. In 2013, the Viktor Rydberg secondary school in Stockholm introduced Minecraft as a mandatory part of its curriculum
  22. In 2014, state employees Simon Kokkendorf and Thorbjørn Nielsen of the Danish Geodata Agency completed a scale replica of the entire nation of Denmark within the game to help drive interest in geographic data.
  23. One in every 10,000 times you play the game, its introductory menu will flash a misspelling of its own title, reversing the ‘E’ and ‘C’ to read, ‘Minceraft.’
  24. Technically, Minecraft worlds aren’t infinite. The further you go out into them, they get buggy and don’t work as well as they’re supposed to.
  25. Minecraft became such a phenomenon because of word of mouth. Gamers told their friends and the word spread like wildfire. Once it hit YouTube, it got even bigger.
  26. Minecraft has more than 350 splash messages.
  27. It’s the most-played Xbox Live game to date.
  28. Early in Minecraft’s life, many users began reporting strange happenings and sightings of a mysterious figure in the distance that was apparently following them. Known as Herobrine, the character has been the subject of many horror stories.
  29. If you throw things on cacti it will disappear and be gone.
  30. A zombie pigman can be created when a normal pig is struck by lightning.