Dragon quest builders is like linear / story mode Minecraft. And there's Dragon quest builders 2. I've never played dragon quest but I freakin love builders. For me it's far less stressful than Minecraft because I'm not having to be creative to figure out what i want to do. There's a story line that I can choose to participate in, and I can creatively build whatever I want alongside the tasks and quests. Best of both worlds.

Also blockheads was like a 2D knockoff of Minecraft (so physicality linear. No plot) I loved it so much, and if you kept going right you'd eventually hit the equator, the south pole, the equator, the north pole and then your original spawn point again. It was amazing