Minecraft Earth (Early Access) is now available... and I've had my first look at it on my iPad.
I already have reservations about it for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it looks like it is almost entirely dependent on physically walking around looking for items - and you need to 'tap' objects while you are literally out searching for them. I can't see myself playing this on my iPad in the streets of Glasgow somehow... also, my biggest pet peeve at the moment is mobile phone zombies... this kind of game almost requires you to become a mobile phone zombie in order to play it.
It is possible to buy in-game currency which in turn allows you to buy 'Build Plates'... while you can earn in-game currency (rubies) by playing the game, the price of the build plates looks high... and the (literal) price of the rubies is pretty ridiculous. For example, one of the larger build plates costs 325 rubies... and you can buy 400 rubies from the Minecraft Store... for £20. That seems absurdly expensive.
On the plus side, placing a build place in AR looks brilliant, and being able to build 'life-size' minecraft models looks pretty cool, though I don't think the scale of models you can build is particularly big.
I may install it on my phone and see what is what, but sadly I don't think I am going to be playing this much.