Minecraft enthusiasts, prepare to embark on a thrilling journey through the blocky realms once again, as the gaming world eagerly welcomes the latest and greatest update to this beloved sandbox adventure! With each new release, Mojang has consistently pushed the boundaries of creativity, expanding upon the game’s already boundless potential, and while I’m typically underwhelmed by the latest updates, this is an exception! In this blog, we’ll delve into the exciting features, changes, and additions that this update brings to the game, giving you an inside look at the fresh adventures awaiting players old and new. So, grab your pickaxe, ready your (new) crafting table, and let’s explore the wonders of Minecraft’s latest update!
Trial Chambers
Trial Chambers are a new procedurally generated underground structure that serves as a well-crafted combat challenge. These structures are designed with an assortment of new decorative blocks and light sources which will be added in the new update as well, and they contain multiple difficult combat challenges for players who are looking to test themselves.
Digging around caves will allow you to find these new chambers, and this structure has been added to appease the combat-loving players. In the center of the chambers, you’ll find the corridor, a fairly large area leading to different rooms and supply chests. You can find things that will challenge and things that will help. These have been designed with replayability in mind, with the team commenting on how every trial feels fairly unique while still maintaining the awesome design of the trials.
Breeze
The Breeze is a hostile mob that attacks with wind charges that can interact with Redstone components. It is found in specific rooms of the trial chambers, the new procedurally-generated structure. This fancy new mini-boss can spawn from trial spawners, leaping around to attack players with its wind charge attack. Right before jumping, the breeze compresses itself like a spring. The bursts of wind it fires can deal knockback but don’t deal any damage unless they hit a player directly.
On top of the neat design with the angry eyebrows which I’m very fond of, I’m also super interested in the Breeze’s impact on Redstone, allowing its wind to trigger buttons, levers, and trapdoors. Not only does this have implications for the room you find them in, but this can probably be used for some crazy contraptions. Dope!
New Copper Stuff
Copper is getting a ton of uses in this new update with the addition of Copper Bulbs, Grates, and Doors. The Copper Bulb is most interesting, with its own set of mechanics adopted from copper. This is a light source that oxidizes over time, causing its brightness to dim. This may be preventable with the use of honeycomb to wax the block. The Copper Bulbs naturally spawn in the trial chambers and are the main light source of the hallways and trials.
Since the light dims depending on the stage of oxidation, players can actually scrape the oxidation off using an axe to increase the light level back to its original state. They can be toggled on and off with redstone pulses and can interact with comparators, making compact t-flip flops possible.
Next are the Copper Grates and Copper Doors. These are fairly simple additions. The Copper Grate is simply a semi-transparent version of the Copper Block, which has perforations that can be seen through. The Copper door is just a door…made of copper…Yeah, there’s not too much to discuss on that front, but I like the design!
Trial Spawner
The Trial Spawner is a new type of spawner that resides in the Trial Chambers. Similar to normal spawners, these are semi-transparent blocks with skulls on the sides. These spawners summon a limited amount of mobs, scaled based on the number of nearby players. When these mobs are defeated, the spawner drops a reward for each player and enters a cooldown period. A demonstration of this mechanic in the Minecraft Live event shows the spawner producing emeralds and diamonds, however, these items are merely placeholders and may not appear as rewards in the final release, and may vary over time. Who knows what awards await us?
Crafter
The Crafter is one of the most interesting blocks added to the game in a long time. This new utility block powered by Redstone allows for automatic crafting! The interface is similar to a crafting table, displaying a 3×3 grid of slots where items can be placed. A player can enable or disable individual slots in the crafter to control where slots items are able to occupy.
When a crafter receives a redstone signal, a single item is crafted using the ingredients from the nine inventory slots. The crafted items are subsequently spit out from the front of the crafter, or moved into an inventory there, unless they are taken out by a hopper. For shaped recipes, the position of the items in the inventory matters. Because disabled slots prevent items from entering the slot, crafters can be used to craft any item in the game automatically without any input from the player, using a series of hoppers and/or droppers and the correct configuration of disabled slots for the recipe. When connected to a comparator, the comparator emits a redstone strength related to both the amount of items and the number of disabled slots. The rules for determining the strength of the emitted signal are unknown.
Armadillo
The newest mob added as a result of the mob vote, the Armadillo! The Armadillo is fairly simple, as it’s simply just a real-life animal imported into Minecraft. Spawning in Savannas, the Armadillo can become startled and hide in its shell when the player confronts it. It can also drop scute which can be used to make wolf armor, keeping man’s best friend safer during combat!
Conclusion
1.21 is looking to be an impressive update! This is only a fraction of what is to be expected with the final release, and I’m actually quite fond of the changes. While I believe there is still massive discontent with the mob vote and how it is managed, I think overall people will be more pleased with 1.21 than they have been with the most recent updates. In any case, I can’t wait to see what is revealed next. Until then, have a good one!
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