How to play Minecraft Pocket Edition on the Mac and PC

BlueStacks is a new free product from..well..Bluestacks that allows you to run Android games and apps on your PC or Mac with a little effort. Almost any game works, and one game I successfully got working is Minecraft Pocket Edition 0.5.0. I've made a little guide on how you can do this as well. This game works very well if you have a computer with a touchscreen, like a new Windows 8 PC. If not, it's a pain to use but it's still really cool. Make sure you have the requirements and we can get started!

Requirements

• BlueStacks, which you can download for Mac and Windows here. BlueStacks is beta software, so it's not 100% stable.


• Minecraft Pocket Edition for Android, which you can buy for $6.99 on the Play Store. If you have already purchased the game for an Android phone/tablet, you don't have to buy it again.

Setting up BlueStacks

• After BlueStacks has been installed, open it up. On first launch it will ask you to accept it's Terms, click Accept. It will take a while to open because it is generating the Android system files, so give it a little time.


• After it's done you should see a 'home screen' with a bunch of available apps. Click the black and white settings button in the bottom right corner.


• Click 'Manage Accounts' and click Add Account, then Google, then Next, then Sign in, and enter the Google account that you used to purchase Minecraft PE in the past. When you are finished click Sign In.


• After you sign in you will notice an alert pop up on the top of BlueStacks telling you there are updates available. Drag your mouse down from the message and click the Update menu item.


• There will be a message saying the Android Market is upgrading to Google Play. Click Continue. Then click Accept when the alert pops up.

Downloading Minecraft PE

• Now that you are at the Google Play store, you can re-download Minecraft PE. On BlueStack's bottom bar, click the menu button (it looks like three lines inside a circle), and click My Apps.


• Drag your mouse to the left until all of your apps appear. These are the apps that have been downloaded/purchased with your Google account. Find Minecraft and click on it. Then click Install, then Accept and Download. When it's done, click the big Open button.

Setting up Minecraft PE

• When you open Minecraft PE, there is a chance you will see nothing but a brown screen. There is a simple fix for this. Click the settings button on the bottom right of BlueStacks, and then click the back button on the bottom right.


• Tada, you now have Minecraft installed on your PC or Mac!

If something didn't work for you, leave a comment so I can help. Have fun!