Dev Diaries

Mojang Employees

• Covered the pillars of the Nether Update's design: creating a "Nether oasis," making the Nether feel alien, and introducing piglins.
• Highlighted new features such as the respawn anchor, warped forest (as a safer biome), and piglin mechanics (offering multiple playstyles including bartering, sneaking, or fighting).
• Discussed the Piglin's ecosystem with hoglins and the balance between them.
• Introduced the strider as a unique lava-walking creature with quirky animations.
• Reintroduced crying obsidian, once intended for respawning but now used to enhance ruined portals.

Mojang Employees

• The Nether is designed to feel alien, unlike the more naturalistic soundscape of the Overworld.
• The warped forest disrupts reality, and even music does not play in this biome, emphasizing its strangeness.
• The crimson forest features disturbing sounds, such as creaking, to evoke a feeling of something stretching and bending.
• The soul sand valley has a ghostly atmosphere, with ambient sounds that suggest the souls are trying to communicate.
• The basalt deltas were given a radiation-inspired soundscape, creating a post-apocalyptic vibe.
• For the basalt deltas, the same music used for the soul sand valley was selected, emphasizing a spooky tone.
• Selecting and placing music in the game is a complex process, requiring careful consideration of where and how it plays in each biome.
• The piglins were originally voiced using actual pig recordings, combined with human voicing for variety.
• The sound for striders was inspired by a toy and combined with human voice acting to give them an emotional quality.
• The sound experience in the Nether was carefully designed to work consistently across all Minecraft platforms, with adjustments for different audio capabilities.
• Creating sound for video games involves both music and sound design, with an emphasis on designing impactful sounds for the players' experience.

Mojang Employees

• The Caves & Cliffs update focused on balancing reward features (new mobs and blocks) with journey features (biomes) to create a fun exploration experience.
• The team aimed for realistic yet fantastical caves, inspired by personal travels and in-game experimentation with varied environments like waterfalls and underground lakes.
• Mountains were made more dramatic with steepness and height, featuring powder snow traps and goats for added challenge and realism.
• The lush caves biome was designed to be vibrant and welcoming, with bushes and axolotls replacing traditional trees for a unique underground feel.
• Dripstone caves feature organic formations made from plant-like shapes, adding contrast to traditional cave systems.
• The update introduced rare ore veins and adjusted world height to negative 64, adding new opportunities and challenges, like water level management.
• Textures like polished granite and diorite required fine detail to fit the game's aesthetic, while community feedback shaped the update’s direction.

Mojang Employees

• Cory, Nir, and Chi discuss developing mobs for the Caves & Cliffs update, focusing on the axolotl, goat, and glow squid.
• The axolotl was chosen for its "ugly-cute" appeal and to raise awareness about endangered species. It helps players in underwater battles, with a play-dead mechanic for survival.
• A rare blue axolotl has a 1 in 1200 chance of spawning, symbolizing their endangered status in real life.
• Axolotls follow players with a bucket of tropical fish, providing regeneration and combat aid.
• Goats are mischievous and can knock players off cliffs, with impressive jumping abilities suited for mountainous terrain.
• The glow squid, unlike regular squids, glows in the dark but doesn’t emit light. It drops glow ink sacs used to make glowing signs and glowing item frames.
• The developers appreciate the community's creativity and hope players enjoy the Caves & Cliffs update.

Mojang Employees

• Agnes, Henrik, and Cameron discuss the importance of community collaboration for the Caves & Cliffs Part II update.
• The team focuses on world generation, performance improvements, and iterating on player feedback through betas and snapshots.
• Direct interaction with the community helps developers gather input, refine features, and balance player preferences (e.g., river and mountain terrain).
• Community feedback plays a key role in Minecraft's success by offering diverse ideas and improving design decisions.
• Cameron highlights gathering feedback from platforms like X (Formerly Twitter) and Reddit, and even anonymously joining public servers to observe real player experiences.
• All feedback, whether detailed or brief, is valuable, making players feel like co-creators of the game.

Mojang Employees

• The Caves & Cliffs Part II update introduces massive mountains and caves, but the focus is on creating balance and variation in terrain generation.
• Players will experience different types of caves and landscapes, making exploration more surprising.
• Existing worlds won't change initially, but new terrain (mountains, caves, etc.) will generate as players explore further.
• The bedrock layer is replaced by deepslate, and new caves are generated below it.
• World blending helps old and new terrain fit together smoothly, preventing hard edges between old and new chunks.
• There was a bug where blending caused structures like villages to warp, creating amusing formations, but it was fixed.
• Bedrock Edition faces specific challenges like maintaining backward compatibility and performance across different platforms.
• Mineshafts were adjusted to fit into larger caves by adding pillars and chains. Feature placements like ore generation and desert temples had to be recalibrated for the new world height.

Mojang Employees

• Minecraft Caves & Cliffs Part II adds more strategy to mining with changes in ore distribution and world height.
• Large ore veins create a mini-game experience, offering vast resources and encouraging exploration.
• Noodle caves and ore veins share similar implementation, adding elegance to world generation.
• Mob spawning now only occurs in complete darkness, making lighting clearer and easier to control.
• Candles can now prevent mob spawning creatively without fully lighting an area.
• The lighting changes make it easier to protect builds from creepers by ensuring spaces are fully safe.

Mojang Employees

• Minecraft Wild Update introduces new music with an "earthy" feel, inspired by the mangrove swamp.
• The mud texture was challenging to develop, needing to look organic within Minecraft's blocky style.
• Mangrove roots have a unique plus-shaped design and the water in mangrove swamps is a clean, tropical blue.
• Frogs in the update are designed based on real-life species: white frogs in warm climates, green frogs in colder ones.
• The frog design went through multiple iterations, including resizing and behavior adjustments (e.g., tongue mechanics).
• A bug allowed frogs to eat goats, leading to funny moments during development.
• The goat horn is a highly anticipated item with various versions, including a fun party horn.
• The warden's digging animation was complex to create, focusing on making it feel realistic and rage-driven.

Mojang Employees

• The allay was designed as a helpful creature that collects items for the player.
• Its connection to music and note blocks allows for automated item collection systems using redstone and hoppers.
• Allays spawn in pillager outposts and mansions, leading to interesting lore questions about their origins.
• During development, the allay would sometimes get in the player's way, but a strong connection between the player and the allay now prevents accidental damage.
• The allay's sound design is magical and mystical, with subtitles reflecting its emotional reactions, such as when the player takes an item.
• Favorite features include the musical redstone system for item sorting and the allay's ability to make bases feel more dynamic and alive.

Mojang Employees

• Minecraft Legends is an action-strategy game where players unite mobs to fight a piglin invasion, set in the familiar Minecraft universe with new elements.
• The story is a "what if" legend, with the player as the hero, and mobs that are traditionally enemies now serve as allies.
• The game appeals to both new and experienced Minecraft players, featuring piglins as chaotic yet familiar antagonists.
• Developed in collaboration with Blackbird Interactive, the project started in 2018 under the codename "Project Badger."
• The game introduces new environments, creatures, and a story, with more information to be released soon.

Mojang Employees

• The deep dark biome is located under tall mountains, with only a small part visible.
• Inspired by Lovecraftian horror, the biome focuses on a mysterious, eerie atmosphere rather than jump scares.
• Sculk blocks are designed like organs of a living entity, with sculk catalysts acting as the "stomach" and sculk sensors as the "hearing" mechanism.
• Sculk sensors detect vibrations, and sculk shriekers can summon the warden if triggered by sound.
• The deep dark is silent, with no regular mobs to prevent constant triggering of sensors and shriekers.
• Players are advised to use potion of Night Vision instead of torches to avoid alerting the warden.
• The warden is extremely powerful and designed to be avoided rather than fought, as it can kill players easily.
• Sculk and the warden seem part of a living entity, found near ancient cities with mysterious origins.
• Ancient cities contain hidden redstone rooms with contraptions for players to discover and learn from.

Mojang Employees

• Minecraft Legends features classic mobs like creepers, skeletons, and zombies, alongside new ones like the plank, cobblestone, grindstone, and mossy golems.
• Mobs in Legends are friendly allies, not hostile, and retain their iconic look with added friendly features like hats and larger eyes.
• Skeletons and zombies wear hats to prevent burning in the daytime, staying true to their vanilla mechanics.
• The peaceful Overworld is disrupted by the chaotic, childlike piglins, who add humor to the game with their oversized weapons.
• The game balances new content with Minecraft's core mystery and story, introducing unique golems for various roles: Plank (ranged), Cobblestone (melee), Grindstone (disruptor), and Mossy (support).
• These cute, innocent-looking golems are powerful and strategic, offering different advantages for players.

Mojang Employees

• Minecraft Legends PvP focuses on chaotic fun, with massive armies and creative base-building, offering a fresh take on Minecraft's strategy.
• The PvP mode builds on campaign elements, where two teams (blue and orange) with up to four players each compete to destroy the opposing team's base.
• Players can build structures that offer buffs, which can be targeted and destroyed by the opponent, introducing counterplay strategies.
• The game embraces chaotic gameplay, with procedurally generated maps and limited resources, creating intense combat over hotspots like diamonds.
• Resource gathering is managed by allays, which collect materials based on player instructions, adding a unique dynamic to gameplay.
• Strategies in PvP can vary based on resource availability, such as diamond, iron, or redstone, encouraging different approaches each game.
• Piglins also appear in PvP, adding an extra layer of danger and strategy, as players must balance fighting both the opponent and the piglins.
• PvP offers a variety of gameplay styles, from base-building to exploring and battling, ensuring a rich experience for different player preferences.

Mojang Employees

• Minecraft started with the Steve skin, a simple character with blue shirt and pants, becoming a symbol of nostalgia in the community.
• Alex was introduced for more variety, with a slimmer design and inspired by Jens Bergensten’s personal look, offering additional appearance options.
• The introduction of new skins expands the diversity of characters, with unique color schemes to make them iconic.
• Bedrock Edition's character creator lets players customize characters using premade pieces or select from new default skins.
• Skins are crucial for self-expression in Minecraft, helping players tell their own stories, with names chosen from various cultures worldwide.
• New skins are available in both Java and Bedrock editions of the game.

Mojang Employees

• The camel was chosen as the new mob after discussing various ideas, with a simple teddy bear-like model created initially.
• The mob’s behavior is tested and refined in the game, including the camel’s unique ability to sit down and stand up.
• Initially, the camel would sit unbothered when attacked, but this was changed to have it jump to its feet and panic.
• The camel fits into the desert biome, eating cacti, and offers unique gameplay like being able to walk over fences and ride two players at once.
• An Easter egg related to the camel’s floppy ears is hidden in the game.
• The 1.20 update emphasizes a journey theme, with the camel serving as a way to explore the world.
• The development team is thankful for the community’s dedication in reporting issues, as it helps them improve the game.

Mojang Employees

• Decorated pots were improved to store items, with contents hidden until the pot is broken or smashed with a bow or anvil. They can also be used with redstone to create hidden locks.
• The crafter allows automated crafting and simplifies redstone use, with a visual design featuring a goofy face, switches, and lights to indicate when it's crafting.
• Beginners can use the crafter with a button to craft items like rockets, and it opens up new possibilities for redstone contraptions.
• The crafter and improved decorated pots are available in Bedrock Edition Betas and Previews, and Java Edition snapshots.

Mojang Employees

• A new block, the vault, is coming to Minecraft, requiring a trial key to unlock.
• Trial keys are found in trial chambers and dropped by trial spawners.
• Vaults provide loot like chests but can be looted by unlimited players, solving multiplayer looting issues.
• Players can only unlock each vault once, encouraging exploration of new trial chambers.
• The feature allows continuous access to loot, even in previously explored structures.

Mojang Employees

• A new weapon, the mace, is being added to Minecraft, designed for unique combat situations.
• The mace is a heavy weapon that deals more damage based on how far the player falls before striking.
• It negates fall damage if you land a hit, but if you miss, you'll take full fall damage.
• The mace pairs well with the wind charge, allowing players to become a fast, bouncing combatant.
• The wind charge is crafted from breeze rods dropped by breezes, combined with a heavy core.
• The mace can be found in vaults using trial keys, but it is a rare and challenging item to obtain.

Mojang Employees

• The armadillo mob and wolf armor are being introduced to Minecraft.
• Armadillos live in underrepresented biomes like the savannah and badlands, adding life to these areas.
• When brushed, armadillos drop scutes, which can be used to craft wolf armor.
• Wolf armor protects wolves from physical damage and can be repaired during combat.
• The design is inspired by armadillo shells, with armor scutes placed over the wolf.
• Players can dye the wolf armor, allowing for millions of color combinations and 16 wolf variants.
• Armadillos also scare away spiders and help detect undead mobs.

Mojang Employees

• The Tricky Trials update, includes new features like the crafter, mace, breeze, bogged, trial spawners, new paintings, and music discs.
• Trial chambers, hidden underground, are discovered by digging or using explorer maps from villagers, featuring trial spawners that scale based on the player group size.
• The trial spawners are complex blocks with multiple states, capable of ejecting trial keys to unlock vaults, and have technical mechanics like line of sight checks to ensure mobs spawn correctly.
• The design of the trial chambers draws from Meso-American civilizations, combining geometric beauty with a futuristic feel, using new blocks like block of copper for an industrial touch.
• Each room in the trial chamber is unique, offering varied experiences, and the vault's design features an "alive" keyhole that makes sounds, inspired by a 'Got Your Pot' machine.
• Sound effects for the trial chambers include throat recordings and mic breathing for added atmosphere.
• The update introduces creative possibilities with copper blocks oxidation levels, and the trial chambers themselves offer a deep, multi-mechanic experience for players.

Mojang Employees

• The Tricky Trials update introduces new mobs like the breeze, which moves by jumping and shooting projectiles, and the Bog, which features mushrooms growing on its head and poisons players.
• The wind charge, inspired by the breeze's effects, allows players to create parkour and redstone contraptions.
• New items include cosmetic rewards like armor trims, banner patterns, and pottery sherds, with the latter providing clues about the timeline of the trial chambers.
• The mace weapon has powerful, rumbling attack sounds, with varying smash effects based on height.
• Three new music discs are added, with two versions of a song by Lena Raine, including a music box B-side.
• The update offers a combat-focused experience with trial spawners, ominous trials, and rewarding challenges.

Mojang Employees

• Minecraft paintings have been part of the game since its early days and are appreciated for their abstract nature, sparking conversations among players.
• For Minecraft's 15th anniversary, the team decided to add new paintings and brought back the original artist, Kristoffer Zetterstrand, to create 15 new ones.
• Kristoffer's process starts with creating motifs in 3D software, adjusting textures and lighting, before painting them in oil and scanning them for in-game use.
• Prior to Kristoffer's return, Sarah Boeving designed new paintings for the game, often referencing or parodying existing art with a Minecraft twist.
• Kristoffer's paintings are abstract, while Sarah's are more straightforward, focusing on readable elements but with distinct artistic expression.
• A good Minecraft painting is subjective, with players seeing different meanings and artistic expressions.

Mojang Employees

• Sound design in Minecraft is about creating unique and fitting sounds, whether from real-world objects or imagined creatures.
• Designing mob sounds is challenging, requiring a character for each one, especially for non-animal mobs, where there are no existing rules.
• Sound designer Samuel Åberg uses various methods, like recording real animals, for authentic in-game sounds—such as his cat Odi for the cat sounds and goats for the Minecraft goats.
• For the phantom mob, he recorded his child's cry and applied filters to create its sound.
• The sound team at Mojang Studios is involved early in the process, working with designers and developers to shape game features from the ground up.
• Minecraft's sound engine is minimal, focusing on pitch and volume, giving each sound meaning and a sense of immersion.
• New sounds are designed to blend with the classic sounds, maintaining the game's distinct homemade, non-library feel.
• Samuel inserted an Easter egg into 'Cave Sound 14', embedding a creeper's sound that was quickly discovered by the community.

Mojang Employees

• Bundles are finally available in Minecraft as part of the Caves & Cliffs update. They function as a bag where players can store items to organize their inventory.
• Bundles were inspired by ancient Roman coin purses, and the design process included exploring various looks, with the final version being simple and functional.
• The new recipe for crafting a bundle requires one leather and one string, making it easy to craft early in the game, unlike the earlier version, which used rabbit hide.
• The bundle has a new feature allowing players to add a row to the tooltip for easier organization and includes dyeable bundles for further customization.
• A fun feature is the ability to put bundles inside other bundles, though it doesn't offer infinite storage. Items inside bundles still take up space.
• The development team worked through bugs, including issues with item duplication and crashes, and they’ve resolved them.
• The creators are excited to see how players will use bundles now that they are fully implemented in the game.

Mojang Employees

• The pale garden is a spooky, infected biome with a sense of dormancy, creating a unique atmosphere for players to explore. It feels different from other biomes in the game.
• New ambient sounds are added, like creaking noises that accompany the pale garden, coming from blocks like pale hanging moss and eyeblossoms. These sounds can be moved to other locations as well.
• The creaking is a new mob in the pale garden that can’t be damaged. It has a unique mechanic where when you’re not observing it, the creaking will move rapidly toward you. To defeat it, players must destroy its heart block.
• The eyeblossom is a new flower that opens at night and closes during the day. It interacts with nearby eyeblossoms and can be used in crafting suspicious stews.
• Players can collect resin clumps from the pale garden by defeating the creakings. This resin can be refined into resin bricks, which are a bright orange block with no special properties but are easy to mine and place.
• The developers are excited to see how players will use these new features creatively and are eager to see the unique structures and interactions players will come up with.