Minecraft 1.2: Jungle Biome

I'm glad to see that Minecraft hasn't just been abandoned in terms of content patches (Though whatever happened to Adventure Mode?) as it may otherwise stagnate eventually, though with Minecraft that could take a fair while.

I could talk about my opinion of 1.2 but I could basically sum it up with the phrase: Jungles are awesome, OMG Kittehs!!!11!!

So instead I wanted to talk about how these changes affect the Design of Minecraft, and the way we interact with it.

Jungles

So I like the Jungles simply because they're massive, look stunning and are filled with wood (Though I don't think I'd like to spawn in one) and the changes to vines mean you can climb up to the canopies of those massive trees and have access to a whole other layer.

I'm assuming that the other mobs going in beside the Ocelot are going to be somewhat dangerous to the player during the day, making the jungle a sort of risk/reward type thing, if not it may just seem like a giant cache of free wood.

In terms of what they add, I think it's just nice to have another visually distinctive biome to explore, which was my problem with swamps as they never really felt like much of a change to the forests surrouding them.

Ocelots

These little guys are awesome, and I think I prefer them to wolves on the basis that you can actually go out to intentionally find these. If you wanted a wolf you'd just have to sort of aimlessly wander around the forests they could inhabit, you know Ocelots live in the jungle, so you can just go straight there to find one.

From what I've seen their AI can be a little derpy but, it's still a work in progress so I have no problem with that. Speaking of AI...

New Zombie and Skeleton AI

This is fantastic. It's a small change but now the Skeletons and Zombies will actually try to hide from the sun when it rises. This does mean an increase in danger but it does add another layer to that mechanic in the sense of "All these areas must be well lit, otherwise the enemy will just try and hide" which I think will benefit the survival gameplay in the end. (If your house has a balcony, make sure the area under it is well lit, you'll appreciate it)

Spawning enemies with Dispensers

From my personal perspective as a Map-Maker, this is a fantastic addition, since it allows the spawning of enemies without the use of the somewhat unpredictable spawners. This means that the same lever you pull to open a door to a room, could also fill that room with the undead, adding a new layer of challenge to adventure maps and the like.

It can also just add a visual element to a map. For instance, want your players to free villagers as part of it? Just put a villager egg in a dispenser and have them pull the switch, suddenly the villager is as free as can be.


These changes don't exactly massively change the game (Except perhaps the AI changes) but at the very least they add some interesting content without detracting from what's already there. I'll be interested to see what else they add to the jungle in the coming weeks.

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