The best Minecraft tools

Minecraft has spawned a huge community of developers making all kinds of complimentary Minecraft programs. Here is my pick of the best, and most useful Minecraft tools available today:

• Minecraft Crafting Guide. This is a neat little app, an encyclopedia of crafting. Newcomers to Minecraft will find the concept of crafting difficult, and in ‘survival mode’, you don’t have time to mess around experimenting with recipes! This is a comprehensive guide to how to make everything in the game, from food to weaponry to portals to another dimension!

• Mineviewer. Has hours of mining not got you the minerals or resources you were looking for? Load your world into this app and you can zoom around, and see exactly where rarer things like diamond are hiding. Then you can mine straight to what you need in Minecraft.

• MCEdit. Like Mineviewer, this app lets you see and explore your Minecraft world, but also lets you edit it. It’s easy to use, and allows you to make some enormous changes in seconds! I made a ball of TNT so big it crashed the game – so be warned!

• MCPatcher. Minecraft is constantly being updated, but if you find you want to play an older version, MCPatcher makes it easy. It features a library of past versions, and allows you to backup your current games, so you don’t have to worry about losing any progress!

What Minecraft applications do you use? Or do you think this is all cheating?