The Secrets of Minecraft

from Minecraft

• The rose was replaced by the poppy at the same time as the addition of the rose bush due to roses more often growing as bushes
• Crystallized honey was mistakenly added to a Java Edition snapshot before being removed. It was never officially added due to its gameplay similarity with honeycomb
• In the Indev version of the game, the player originally spawned inside of a starting house. This was removed in order to encourage players to construct their own house.
• During the development of the phantom, it originally had a mouth and more closely resembled the sketches presented during MINECON Earth 2017. This was changed to a mouthless design due to it resembling "a sock puppet."

particularly stressed Mojang developers

• Developers disagreed on whether dolphins should be cute/cuddly or more realistic. The compromise was making them steal items.
• There were concerns that the Village & Pillage update's name was inappropriate, and the alternative name "It Takes a Village" was considered.
• The Better Together update was particularly difficult to develop, primarily due to the conversion of worlds from
• the Legacy Console Editions to Bedrock Edition.
• The Nether Update was originally slated to enter development years prior, but the developers decided to prioritize Update Aquatic. This delay was never publicly announced.
• The Cave & Cliffs update was split in two in order to focus development and meet the high expectations of the playerbase

• Screaming goats were inspired by a viral video posted in 2012. When came the choice whether to record real goat screams or a human voice actor, the decision was made to add both.
• Some alternative names considered for the Caves & Cliffs update include the "Caves & Climbers Update", "The Caves & Peaks Update", "The Update that Rocked the World", "Update Tectonic", "The Miner's Delight Update", and "The Highs and Lows Update."
• A large amount of research is done prior to the addition of a real life animal to Minecraft, as well as considering its interactions with other mobs.
• The Sơn Đoòng cave in Vietnam was a major inspiration for both dripstone caves and the Caves & Cliffs update as a whole

an occupation

• Effectively working in a team is vital, even above programming abilities
• Game development can start with modding. Several Mojang developers are former Minecraft modders.
• Learning a programming language may be required. For example, C++ and Java are the primary programming languages of Bedrock Edition and Java Edition respectively.
• Education is essential to game development and forms the foundation of learning new skills. One of Mojang's developers is a former doctor.
• There's no right way to enter game development. The most important step is beginning.

for Minecraft

• The death sounds of animals are created with heavily edited versions of living animal sounds, usually via a negative pitch bend
• The axolotl uses both the sound of a real axolotl burping excess air as well as pitched up dog sounds
• One of the phantom's sounds is a baby crying
• The fox uses a combination of pitched up dog and cat sounds
• The baby panda's sneezing sound is a combination of a real panda sneezing, a parrot imitating a sneeze, and the sound designer's cat

warden

• During initial development, sculk was imagined as rust-like, bone-like, or a rotten disease. A particularly common inspiration was trypophobia.
• Before the name "warden" was chosen for the mob, the names "stalker" and "hollowed" were considered.
• There was great challenge in establishing a balance between the warden being scary and family friendly, and designs included trypophobia, tall narrow monsters which could crawl through spaces, etc.
• Originally, the warden was intended to inhabit the entirety of the world below Y level 0, but it was restricted to the deep dark to avoid introducing challenges players might not want to participate in.

allay

• The allay was originally named the "wisp" and was intended to be a part of the Nether Update. Another alternative name option was "pixie."
• Early into development, it was made clear that the allay would not be able to open chests, mine blocks, etc. It's not intended to automatically play the game.
• Initially, allays targeted hoppers when dropping their items before this led to the idea of using note blocks to direct them.

frog

• Mobs like alligators and other real world animals were not considered for addition to swamps due to the possibility of damaging their reputation by adding them as a hostile mob
• Initially, frogs were able to eat fireflies. However, this was removed when it was discovered that fireflies are often toxic to frogs.
• The reason frogs which spawn in desert biomes are light colored is due to real world frogs which have light skin in order to reflect sunlight.

• Initially, trading was planned to involve the player dropping an item for villagers and then an item being thrown back in return. However, this system made it difficult to know what was being purchased.
• When communication between players and villagers was being considered, ideas such as thought bubbles and dialogue were considered.
• The wandering trader is based on the idea of providing items that might not be available to the player, either due to the biome or difficulty (eg. gunpowder on peaceful mode)
• Wandering traders are used as a method of introducing items which don't yet have any other method of obtaining them
• Villagers being unable to talk or build is intentional game design, the goal being to encourage the player to construct the world as they see fit.

and ancient cities

• Ancient cities were inspired by Mayan temples and Roman ruins, specifically a feeling of a once-occupied land.
• Initially, sculk was much more sensitive and would detect sound even when stepped on
• Initially, the deep dark was designed to be a water biome devoid of its water. This included mobs such as ghost-like floating jellyfish. Another concept which was well loved was bioluminescent blocks.

• Initially, there were ideas of the player sinking in mud approximately 6 pixels and, once they exit, their boots would come off. However, this was never added as there was no way for the player to know what happened to their boots.
• Mud baths were considered, but it was decided that mud should be a more consistently solid block.
• Care had to be taken to ensure that the recipe for mud bricks was not so difficult it'd be discouraging but not so easy it'd be insulting to cultures which use mud bricks.