Just a couple of days ago LEGO unveiled the third LEGO CUUSOO project, and also announced it is now available for pre-order. We have been talking about CUUSOO in the past week or so, so this is perfect timing! (Read previous post here: CUUSOO – Where LEGO Dreams Come True…)

Here is the official press-release for the CUUSOO Mineraft project:

LEGO MINECRAFT MICRO WORLD DETAILS UNVAILED

BILLUND, Denmark –The LEGO Group and Mojang have released purchase details and pictures of the LEGO Minecraft Micro World today.

The new set, which was the first to receive 10,000 votes of support from users on the global LEGO CUUSOO idea collection platform, will be available for purchase in summer 2012, but can be pre-ordered from today, exclusively through Mojang retail partner Jinx.com for $34.95. The sets will also be sold in select LEGO brand retail stores and the LEGO online shop from summer 2012.

“LEGO Minecraft Micro World is designed to celebrate the essence of the LEGO concept and the Minecraft gaming experience,” said Paal Smith-Meyer, Head of the LEGO New Business Group. Each set features four cubic modular vignettes that can be connected to recreate the Minecraft experience in LEGO bricks. One Minecraft block is represented as one 1×1 LEGO plate with a tile on top – not a perfect cube, but the best approximation at the chosen scale.

LEGO Minecraft Micro World includes two of Minecraft’s most iconic characters, Steve and a Creeper, represented as “Micro Mobs”. The model presents a standard for building a Minecraft world that can be configured any way the builder likes.

The surface of the modules comes off to reveal mines and hidden resources beneath. Fans can build their own landscapes, stack cubes on top of each other, to build the world of Minecraft as they wish.

The product was developed in collaboration with four LEGO fans: Chris Malloy, Michael Thomas, Kyle Tingey, and Bjarne Panduro Tveskov. These fans developed concepts alongside LEGO designers and helped shape the product into its final version.

Upon seeing the physical model the first time, Mojang founder Markus “Notch” Persson exclaimed: “Woohoo!”

LEGO CUUSOO is a website where LEGO fans can submit their ideas for new LEGO products and collect votes to make their ideas become a reality. They can also vote for other users’ ideas. It can be found at lego.cuusoo.com.

Ideas that are supported by 10,000 votes have a chance of being selected to become part of the LEGO Group’s product portfolio. Consumers who have their ideas chosen will earn 1% of the total net sales of the product.

Mojang will donate the 1% proceeds from LEGO CUUSOO to charity.

For more on the co-creation process for LEGO Minecraft Micro World, see the LEGO CUUSOO blog.

In case you are wondering what is Minecraft, don’t worry, you are not alone. Here is an excellent description from Stephen Johnson from G4TV.com to get you up to speed:

MINECRAFT: WHAT THE HELL IS IT?

The literal description: Minecraft is a first-person, free to play indie PC/Mac game created by one person, with crafting, building and exploration at its center. The graphics are straight out of 1991. There are no characters and there is no story. There are none of the “production values” that define gaming these days, but within those narrow confines lies one of the most innovative and endlessly fascinating game in existence… and it’s still in Alpha.

While there are various versions and builds available out, there are three basic play-modes to Minecraft: Single Player Creative, Multiplayer Creative, and Single Player Survival. All three plop you down into a huge, open world, filled with different natural resources you can exploit and bend to your will.

Single Player Creative mode is like an infinite LEGO set. You can create fantastic structures out of basic building blocks all day if you’d like. You can try it out for free right here. Multiplayer Creative is the same deal, with others.

Minecraft really impresses me with the Single-Player Survival mode. In survival mode, Minecraft places you, alone, in a hostile virtual environment that is larger than the surface of the earth. You have no items, no weapons, and no knowledge. Your only goal is to survive. The world seems friendly at first, full of trees, flowers, mountains and sea, but as soon as night falls, monsters come out. I learned very quickly the first goal of Minecraft: Find a way not to die when it gets dark.

To keep the zombies and other nasties at bay, Minecraft players can dig rocks out of the earth to create barriers between them and certain death. I was very proud of myself the first time I built a shelter. I walled myself into a cliff face just as the sun set. As soon as I placed the last rock, I realized my mistake. It was now pitch dark, and I had no idea which direction to dig to get to the light. So I began randomly digging in different directions, and when I finally figured out where the sky was, the breaking dawn revealed my cave as a monument to panic and claustrophoiba — randomly dug holes everywhere, like I had dug my own tomb.

I needed a plan and some material goods. Working feverishly against the approach of the night and the monsters it would bring, I chopped down some trees and managed to craft a workbench, some planks, some sticks, a rudimentary pick-axe and, most importantly, some torches. As twilight descended, I returned to my hole in the rock, lit a torch, and walled myself into my newly lit cave.

With a whole evening stretching in front of me, I dug down into the earth, placing torches as I went, burrowing into the stone, wearing out my pick. The subterranean world of Minecraft is at least as vast as the outer world. It is riddled with cave systems, ore, rare diamonds, and more. I discovered a vein of coal and dug it out for more torches, which I brought back to my home.

I lit the place up, warding off the darkness, and surveyed my new home. As I looked around the earthen and stone walls of my hovel, I saw a future castle — the beginning of an empire –and felt some glimmer of the feeling early man must have had when he took the first steps toward being master of the world as opposed to its slave. The next morning, as the sun rose, I stepped from my home, directly off a cliff and died…

I was a victim of carelessness. I respawned right away, but had neglected to mark the location of my home in any way. With no compass (I was far from advanced enough to build one of those), I was left to wander the world, alone again, with nothing. Starting from scracth, building a new home. That’s the kind of game Minecraft is. There’s no one to hold your hand.

Interesting, huh? You can read the rest of Stephen’s post here: What the Hell is Minecraft and Why the Hell Should You Care?

So how did Minecraft became the first global LEGO CUUSOO model? Simple; they have an incredibly passionate fan-base of over 20 million people, who have taken upon themselves to bring a LEGO Minecraft project to life. Inspiring and impressive to say the least! 😛

What do you think of the LEGO Minecraft Micro World set so far? Is this LEGO set on your wanted list? If you are a Minecraft fan already, do you think this is a good representation of the online game? Let me know your thought in the comment section below. 😉

And if you would like to read more about LEGO CUUSOO check here:

• CUUSOO – Where LEGO Dreams Come True…
• Navigating LEGO CUUSOO