Editing Zombie Town (section)

==History==
[[File:L4kD.gif|alt=|thumb|''Left 4k Dead'', a zombie game by Notch. This is the predecessor to ''Zombie Town''.]]
[[File:L4kD2.gif|alt=|thumb|''Left 4k Dead 2'', a sequel to ''Left 4k Dead''.]]
Before Notch started to work on ''Minecraft'', he took part in various editions of the Java 4k Game Programming Contest from 2005 to 2009. This competition, initiated by Java programmers, was about writing the best possible computer game with a maximum size of 4 kibibytes (4096 bytes). Notch submitted the following games:<ref>https://theintraclinic.com/archive/</ref>

*2005: ''[https://java4k.com/index.php?action=games&method=view&gid=28 Sonic Racer 4k]'': a racing game, featuring Sonic the Hedgehog.
*2005: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20050407102657/http://www.mojang.com/j4k/dungeon4k/ Dungeon4k]'': a dungeon crawler.
*2005: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20050218004835/http://www.mojang.com/j4k/hunters4k/ Hunters4k]'': a first-person shooter.
*2006: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20060424151658/http://www.mojang.com/notch/j4k2k6/miners4k/ Miners4k]'': a mining game likely inspired by Lemmings.
*2006: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20071012045040/http://mojang.com/notch/j4k2k6/dachon4k/ Dachon4k]'', a space shooter.
*2007: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20061205093025/http://www.mojang.com/notch/j4k/l4krits/ l4krits]'', a ''Luxor'' clone.
*2008: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20071229202948/http://www.mojang.com/notch/j4k/t4kns/ t4kns]'': a real-time strategy game.
*2009: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20081226100544/http://www.mojang.com:80/notch/j4k/l4kd/ Left 4k Dead]'': a zombie shooter, inspired by [[wikipedia:Left_4_Dead|''Left 4 Dead'']].
*2009: ''[https://java4k.com/index.php?action=games&method=view&gid=238 MEG4kMAN'']: a ''[[wikipedia:Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' fan-game.

Due to the nature of the contest, these games were extremely simple. In ''Left 4k Dead'', the character walks through a labyrinth of corridors and rooms that are sparsely illuminated by the player's flashlight. Zombies frequently attack and have to be shot, and there are red powerups that restore health and yellow powerups that restore ammo randomly distributed throughout the increasingly hard levels. Notch also made a sequel called ''Left 4k Dead 2'' with slightly different graphics,<ref>{{citation|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181212104948/https://notch.tumblr.com/post/234292519/new-game-release-left-4k-dead-2|title=New game release: Left 4k Dead 2|website=The Word of Notch|date=November 5, 2009}}</ref> as a joke on the recently released ''Left 4 Dead 2'' having most of the same content as the original.<ref>{{tweet|notch|649264256303525888|@gamejolt Left 4k Dead 2 was a joke release about how Left 4 Dead 2 was basically just the SAME GAME released so soon after the original.|September 30, 2015}}</ref>

The zombie theme appeared to be prevalent throughout Notch's games, and he was planning an improved sequel to the ''Left 4k Dead'' series, which he called ''Zombie Town''.<ref>{{citation|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813064921/https://notch.tumblr.com/post/227922045/the-origins-of-minecraft|title=The origins of Minecraft|website=The Word of Notch|date=October 30, 2009}}</ref> Notch wanted three-dimensional pawns, inspired by [[wikipedia:Grand_Theft_Auto:_Chinatown_Wars|''Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars'']]. For the first time in his life, he programmed a completely three-dimensional representation of figure textures from scratch.<ref>{{citation|url=https://archive.org/details/ZombieTown_Video|title=Zombie Town|website=Archive.org|author=Notch|date=October 30, 2009}}</ref>

In May of 2009, Notch started developing ''Minecraft''. Notch realized that the blocky design of the ''Zombie Town'' characters would fit well into ''Minecraft'', and that the low texture resolution meant that every player could have a totally unique skin. Three days into ''Minecraft'''s development, he added ''Zombie Town''<nowiki/>'s characters into ''Minecraft'' as [[Human|humans]].<ref>{{citation|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507203659/https://notch.tumblr.com/post/107611170/exhausted-but-happy|title=Exhausted, but happy|website=The Word of Notch|date=May 14, 2009}}</ref> They were the first tests for the [[player]] character, which was necessary for the later introduced [[multiplayer]] mode.

Notch mentioned the game on his blog, [[The Word of Notch]], that same day. Several months later, in a blog entry titled "The Origins of ''Minecraft''", he talked about it some more, revealing the name and also uploading a video of it to his YouTube channel [[Nizzotch]].