Being the biggest game in the world means you never stop growing, like a completely out of control katamari. Such it is that Minecraft 1.12 has begun development, with snapshot 17w06a available to the public and thoroughly analysed for new bits and blocks. Here’s the basics.

For the live game, here are the best Minecraft seeds available.

Most of note are these blocks being added:

  • Concrete
  • Concrete Powder
    • Effected by gravity.
    • Creates Concrete when it touches water.
    • Created by mixing Sand, Gravel and any dye.
  • Glazed Terracotta
    • Created by smelting colour clay.
    • Can create patterns by being placed in certain ways.

Wool and Banner blocks got new textures, while various bug fixes and quality of life changes were applied, as laid out on the wiki. The change to Wool also effected Sheep. Naturally.

The only wider-scope change is the addition of savable toolbars in creative mode, letting you more easily make that giant statue of Mega Man, or whatever it is you get up to in there. Unsurprisingly, you can have nine of them as they use the number keys for loading and saving – ctrl+# and shift+# respectively.

Some more deets over on the official wiki. Goodness knows when it could release, but there’s usually a few of these before it all goes live and Mojang have been working out the deets on 1.12 since late last year.

Minecraft snapshot 17w06a gives first glimpse at 1.12 update