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Like Dungeons & Dragons, Minecraft makes its constituent parts explicit from the moment you hear the name. Which is why it's wholly disconcerting to discover on booting up Minecraft Pocket Edition that mining and crafting don't feature. But given the popularity of XBLIG clone FortressCraft and the appetite for unofficial Minecraft apps like World Explorer, even the idea of a stripped down official version in your pocket is enough to raise most people's pulse.
Just as it did with the desktop version of the game, Mojang Specifications is approaching Pocket Edition with the long view in mind, planning to iteratively build upon an initially basic template over time. As such, Xperia owners get a stripped down world-building app akin to the creative mode that came with the release of Minecraft 1.8 last week.
You access blocks and items through a row of eight customisable buttons on the handset's touchscreen (more can be found by tapping another button to bring up the full menu). You have unlimited stocks, negating any need to mine. You can still break blocks, taking a single swipe to destroy each, but the only time you'll find yourself doing it is to clear the way for your next stunning architectural feat.
And such feats will come thick and fast at first. Freed from the need to accumulate building materials, we immediately set about building the Church of Edge, a giant hilltop construction complete with a candle-lit altar, ham-fisted approximation of a chandelier and an E-shaped jetty on a nearby beach. But standing back, admiring our creation, it was impossible to shake the feeling that this was a hollow undertaking.