A new, free-to-play Minecraft game just appeared out of nowhere, but it's only available to some right now

It's not every day we get a new Minecraft game, yet developer Mojang has just quietly snuck one out into early playtesting. Minecraft Blast has been built for mobile devices in collaboration with King, the studio behind Candy Crush, and while its existence has appeared out of the blue, it shouldn't really come as too much of a surprise. It was only a matter of time after Microsoft's acquisition of Activision until it found a way to fuse its world-beating sandbox game with one of the biggest puzzle games around. If you're in Malaysia, you can try it right now, with future tests due to arrive in other regions soon.

Minecraft Blast isn't just 'Candy Crush Saga, but Minecraft,' although it does share quite a bit of that block-matching gameplay. The goal in each stage is to break matching blocks to destroy adjacent ones, and eventually clear out all the dirt on screen, or whatever other target object has been chosen for that level. Some groups will have icons that activate firework rockets, TNTs, and potions for more targeted or explosive effects.

Between missions, you're crafting tools and building out a base, and while the options are pre-constructed rather than fully freeform, you do get a selection of different designs for each piece you add. The first playtest has just gone live, although it's currently limited just to the Apple Store in Malaysia. You can get an early look at it below, courtesy of 'PatarHD' on YouTube.

Mojang says that the current test build of Minecraft Blast includes just "a small portion of content and features," noting that it's "still in the early stages of development" and will be expanded based on player feedback. I'm certainly curious to see whether we'll eventually be able to expand beyond the initial base area; Mojang says we can expect "the ability to unlock and build imaginative Minecraft-style spaces."

As much as it was an inevitability, there's definitely potential for the combination of Minecraft and Candy Crush to become huge. Unfortunately, it looks like we'll be dealing with all the usual mobile trappings of King's other games, from limited energy to lives and consumables, which is likely to be where the monetization creeps in. We'll have to wait until further in development to see exactly what that looks like, however.

The Minecraft Blast playtest is available now to players in Malaysia via iOS, and will be running for "up to a week or two." Mojang says it plans to expand this to additional regions and platforms for future tests. "We understand that many players around the world are excited to try Minecraft Blast, and we appreciate your enthusiasm." There's also currently no mention of a PC version, but I'd be surprised if it didn't follow Candy Crush Saga there eventually.