endermens

Minecraft was released in its alpha form in 2010, and has been receiving constant and consistent updates for over 5 years, which is rather impressive. More impressive is how it’s become a cultural phenomenon, and in many ways, the face of modern gaming, at least as far as the mainstream populace is concerned.

The latest update for the block-breaking, block-building game is out – but it’s one of those odd snapshots that you’ll have to specifically enable.

Here’s what the new changes are:

  • Rebalanced armour.
  • Changed damage & protection enchantments to match new armour system.
  • Fixed a few AI bugs across lots of mobs.
  • Made endermen creepy again.
  • Vwooop.
  • More optimisations! Many optimisations!
  • Added player collision again.
  • Fishing rods can now catch entities properly again.
  • Added team-based options for collision.
  • The world may corrupt slightly less times now! Or slightly more, we’re not sure!
  • I like hugs!

A note from Mojang:

“To get snapshots, open your launcher and press the “New Profile” button. Call it “snapshots” and check the box saying “Enable experimental development snapshots” and save. To switch to the normal version, you can select it in the dropdown at the bottom left corner of the launcher. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (See the “new profile” dialog).

Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds.”

I don’t play Minecraft myself, but my kids love it – and I’m very, very impressed with the new Windows 10 beta of the game, which is essentially a tweaked and modified version of the mobile game. While it doesn’t support mods yet, its lack of reliance on Java makes it significantly more efficient, less resource intensive and a wee bit more polished.

In tangentially related news, Minecraft is the most streamed game on Youtube, and the service’s most popular ‘Tuber is now British gamer Daniel Middleton – known The Diamond Minecart – usurping the accolade from PewDewPie.

New Minecraft update makes endermen creepy again