About
Minecraft is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios, released as an early-access alpha in 2009 and formally in November 2011, and has since been ported to numerous platforms. Terasology began as a Minecraft-inspired tech demo and has grown into an open-source voxel-world platform for various types of gameplay, built and maintained by a community of developers, designers, artists, and musicians. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, ships with its own free assets, and its module-based architecture lets separate gameplay modules be developed and distributed independently.
How it differs from the original
Unlike Minecraft, Terasology is explicitly designed as an extensible platform for many different gameplay modules rather than a single fixed game, and is fully open source (Apache 2.0 for code, CC BY 4.0 for artwork).
Getting started
The easiest way to play is via the official Terasology launcher, which handles downloading and updating; players who already have a Java 17 JDK installed can alternatively use a direct download release. An initial internet connection is needed to download the game, but it can be played offline afterward.
History
Terasology grew out of a Minecraft-inspired tech demo into an independently maintained platform, developed by the MovingBlocks community.