The game has potential in the fields of computer-aided design, education and even town planning.

Bega held it’s very first Minecraft Camp as part of the Far South Coast’s recent Regional Innovation Week at the Bega library.

“Even though we have a broad range of Minecraft reference books available and had them out on the day, these kids understand the game intuitively,” library programs and partnerships officer Scott Baker said.

“To see them create complex items for their creations by combining raw materials that they have to mine it teaches them resource management, manufacturing and engineering as core principles of the game.

“The underpinning knowledge to piece things together involves mathematics, geometry, problem solving and creative thinking with a dash of geology thrown in.”

Mr Baker described the game as an “open sandbox”, allowing players to explore and build upon.

“With all of the kids in the same world you see how even social skills are needed to respect one another’s creations and property and to see the chaos ensue when some one blows up another players creation ‘just for fun’,” he said.

This interference is known as “griefing” and Mr Baker said it forces players to protect their inventory as well as themselves.

“Even with the ‘griefing’ in the game, out of the game they freely share their building knowledge with each other,” he said.

“The collaborative aspect was defined with two of the youngest girls building an entire village together with houses, a village market, farms and a jumping castle that actually worked.

“I can’t imagine what raw materials they combined to make the jelly substance to make it.”

He said demand for the camp was overwhelming with tickets selling out in just three days

“The key partnership has been with Bega Valley Shire Council IT department and IT trainee David Perry, who helped set up the library for the camp including configuring three servers for participants to connect to and play,” Mr Baker said.

“It is great that the library can facilitate such an event for the youth of the region and that the whole of council is behind it.”