Craft the World vs Ylands
Craft the World
Craft the World is the game to play if you enjoy the survival, mining, and crafting aspects of Minecraft. The game's quite similar to Minecraft in many ways. You can plant and harvest crops. You can and will actually need to dig to find rare minerals as well. You can also craft a variety of tools, furniture, and, in general, items that will help your dwarves survive the periodic invasions of goblins, the undead, and other otherworldly monsters or will at least make your dwarves content.That said, there are a few very important differences between Craft the World and Minecraft that made the former so unique. Instead of playing a character, you get to become the omnipotent "god" of small dwarves who you can order to do your bidding or you could even control them individually if needed.
The crafting system is quite different too. Don't get me wrong - you still need to combine raw materials to create the stuff you need like in Minecraft, but similar to the crafting system in a standard MMORPG, there's a progression system in place that will allow you to unlock new "technologies" simply by crafting lower-tech items repeatedly...even if you don't really need that many of them. What can you do with the surplus of items then? Well, you can just sell them. There's a shop that sells resources that you may need in exchange for game cash. You can randomly earn game cash by battling creatures and monsters and you could also sell off your extra items for cash.
Craft the World may not be everyone's cup of tea due to the rather repetitive and slightly clumsy crafting system, but the game is still pretty fun and it does offer a challenge for fans of the survival genre.
Ylands
Ylands is a sandbox adventure game that has a gameplay that's a lot like a massively expanded version of Minecraft with a lot more resources for you to gather, items to craft, and amazing things to build. Instead of being "just a game", Ylands is more like a platform, much like Roblox is, where players are given the tools to create whatever worlds or games they like, be it a fun go-kart racing game that's inspired from Lega Racers or even a watery world where epic pirate-themed naval battles can take place. The worlds are completely interactive as well and every action you do will modify, no matter how slightly, the game environment of that segment of the world you happen to be in. In fact, if you change a terrain and populate it with an entirely different diversity of flora and fauna, you can basically change the climate system there.Unlike Minecraft though, Ylands has opted for a more polygonal appearance which gave it the extra leverage it needed to overcome the painful dismissal and degratory label of being simply a "Minecraft clone" - which admittedly, Ylands is most definitely not. The game has so much going for it and players truly have all the freedom within the game's pretty wide parameters to literally create anything they like. Of course, the game also supports sharing, so you can let other players in Yland enjoy that (for example) crazy maze-running game you've just made!
Ylands is most certainly impressive to say the least. However, due to its indie origins, not many players know about the game, let alone buy it on Steam. So, if you really like Minecraft-like sandbox games, you simply must give this game a try, and if you've had a great time there, be sure to recommend it to your friends or even buy it for them as their Christmas/ birthday gift!