Minecraft Secrets Hidden in Plain Sight

– [Skip The Tutorial] 23 Minecraft things you maybe didn’t notice. When you’re playing Minecraft, there’s a lot to take in. And that’s why today, we’re taking a deep dive on the details that might’ve passed you by. And hey, according to YouTube, it’s impossible to subscribe with your device upside down.

So to prove them wrong, flip your screen and aim for that red sub button above. It’s free, and it helps out a ton. Number one. With so many blocks to choose from, Minecraft is bound to have a few repeats. And while it’s to be expected, it makes it all the more impressive

When Mojang hides those variants. Take the jungle log, for instance. As such, it doesn’t look too much like the standard oak selection. But, if we flip our oak log to its side, then it’s a bit more jarring. See, what’s happening here is that the jungle log

Is actually a color shift of the sideways oak texture, even having the same details when you overlap them. Which I’ll admit is pretty cool, since I always thought their similarity stopped and started with the planks texture. But even if they do match, that color combination is still hideous. Number two.

Beacons are a great asset in your Minecraft world, and part of that is the abundance of colors to choose from for your beacon beam. But while we’re all familiar with doing this using stained glass blocks and glass panes, there’s actually one more to that list. See, beacons are transparent blocks,

Meaning our beam can faze through them just the same. But while you don’t see anything different here, look what happens when you use a beacon in conjunction with a glass block. And in fact, the results are the exact same that you would get from using a white stained glass block in its place.

And what’s the practical use for this? I’ve got no clue. I mean, obviously it’s more cost-effective to use white glass, but I guess this is possible. Number three. Since Minecraft has so many items, you could see a texture a hundred times without taking the time to study the details.

And I think the iron door fits that category. Now, from this zoomed out view, it looks the same as any door that we put in our hot bar. But take a closer look at the item itself, and you’ll notice that the door doesn’t have a handle on its sprite,

Which honestly seems like a clever detail. After all, we can’t open the door without a redstone signal. So it makes sense there’s no player accessible handle on the thing. And it’s amazing to me how just two little extra pixels can really show how much care went into the design. Number four.

Underneath its surface, Minecraft is packed with a fair amount of references. And whether that’s in the splash screen, the advancements, or even the sound effects, there’s plenty to find if you look for them. Though, this might be my pick for the best unintended Easter egg. Because as you’ll see,

If we place a set of white glazed terracotta like so, the patterns merge to create something of a penguin head along the bottom. And whether you think this looks more like Club Penguin or Tux from Linux, I think it’s a funny detail nonetheless. But it’ll definitely be hard to unsee,

So might as well add some half slabs and make it a penguin peek-a-boo in your next build. Number five. Traveling across the different Minecraft biomes is a lot of fun. But while you’re doing all that exploring, it’s easy to miss the small details you pass by.

And if you did take the time to stop and smell the roses, you might realize this cool fact about the flower forest biome. See, if you were to bonemeal all of the blocks in the area, a grueling task, I know, you’d start to see a flower gradient, like so.

Since the game only generates one type of flower per each block in the space, you get some cool sights to see. So while you’ll likely never see it this readily apparent again, I guess you and the forest now share a little secret. Number six. Finding Minecraft details can be a tricky process.

And sometimes the real secrets don’t come from the game itself. For instance, take the iron Golem. Now in game, I always figured this red pixel functioned as the pupil. But no. All it takes is one look at the official 2019 Valentine’s day post from Mojang’s Instagram

To see that the red part is actually the golem’s sclera. So does that mean that this is canon? Well, I guess I don’t know. After all, there was the famous bluestone incident from the Village and Pillage trailer. So maybe promotional art isn’t always to be trusted.

But if I had to bet on my assumption versus the artist’s rendition, I pick the official every time. Number seven. Minecraft villagers have something of an odd fashion sense, and you can see as much. And the Village And Pillage update of 1.14 made that even more of a spectacle.

And while the swamp villagers’ lily pad hats are a personal favorite of mine, the librarians are equally peculiar. Because it only takes a steady look at their noggin to realize that these bookkeepers are actually keeping a book on their head, which is safe to call ridiculous. But you know what?

The lead artists from Minecraft confirmed that villager fashion was highly inspired by the 2018 shows of Gucci and the like. And considering that, I’d say a book beret fits right in. And hey, it probably means the villagers have good posture, for what that’s worth. Number eight.

What do you think of when you see a wandering trader? Well, if you’re anything like me, you see this as a free source of leads and leather. But that’s only part of the story. Since, when we take the llamas away from their trader companion, we can actually breed them for some special results.

No joke, all it takes is breeding the special llamas, and you’ll get an offspring with their same unique design. Which is a pretty cool souvenir to have. So while it might still be more valuable to pocket the leads, this could be a way to dress up your next caravan.

If that’s something you’re interested in. Number nine. Scale in Minecraft is a funny thing. And while some of it makes no sense, like why are the husk taller than the zombies? Other examples are pretty satisfying. Say we grab ourselves a dropper. Now by itself, there’s nothing too satisfying about it.

But, throw a button on the face, and you’ll notice that it’s the exact right size for the dropper’s mouth. And in my book, it makes the dropper look more like a wine bottle than a piece of Redstone. Though, I’ll add that this only works with certain orientations. Because thinking about it,

It’s probably for the best that we don’t gag them anyway. But if you want to need detail for your building, this might fit that bill. Number 10. As we all know, when you see something, the trouble is unseeing it. And that exact thing happened to me

When I took a closer look at Minecraft’s signs. Now, when you face them dead on, they seem just fine. Normal, if anything. But once you step to the side, it’s easier to notice this hidden detail. And in fact, the text that we typed floats right off the sign. Which is a bit peculiar,

But I guess it makes some sense. After all, you can’t expect the texture to change itself. So the solution is to generate the text on top of it. But even if I know the reason why it’s there, it doesn’t make recognizing it any less weird. Number 11. To be honest,

Few things are more satisfying than landing a shot with a ghast fireball. And intercepting the shot with an arrow of your own is cooler as well. But if we were to look at the mechanics at play, there’s more going on than just a cool moment.

See, the way that it’s coded is so that the fireball, when shot with an arrow, will move the direction of the player’s head. So shoot a fireball and then look up, that fireball’s going to the sky. Or if you’re looking for a real challenge,

You can aim your head below and you’ll shoot a fireball right towards that subscribe button for new notifications on future videos. And thank you, by the way. And while this is likely to save time with the coding process, it’s barely noticeable most of the time.

Because after all, if you can land that shot, you’re trying to kill the ghast anyway. Number 12. Oftentimes an animator’s work goes underappreciated. Since, if they did their job right, you shouldn’t be able to notice it much. It should just fit right in. But today, I’d like to give a little spotlight

To an animation you might not have noticed. And luckily, our subjects for that are these adorable sleeping foxes. See, if we move in for a closer look, you’ll notice that these snoozing somethings actually have a subtle breathing animation. Is it a big detail? Not at all.

But I do think it’s nice to recognize the little tidbits that the developers added in. And as far as that goes, this is right up there in my mind with the sea lantern’s glowing animation. Number 13. If you’ve watched a couple of speed runs, you probably heard the term damage boosting.

That is using the force of knockback to push us into prime locations. And in Minecraft, that works just the same. Since taking damage pushes our players slightly, we can time that with a jump to make something of a super-leap. And that’s best displayed with the fall damage. As this user shows,

We can use the power of pain from this situation to launch ourselves up a couple of blocks. And essentially, this makes any block in the game bouncy to some degree. Though I wouldn’t recommend trying this more than once at a time. It might be too much for your life bar. Number 14.

Truth be told, villagers do not seem like the smartest mobs. And more often than not, I’m racking my brain trying to figure out their logic. But occasionally, they have their moments. For a case study, take a look at this unemployed villager. Not too impressive, right?

But add any workstation within a distance of 32 blocks, and they’ll start some serious pathfinding. No joke, these NPCs can even work through mazes to try and find a job, which I’ll admit is serious dedication. But why that same villager refuses to restock when the block is right next door,

That, I’ll never understand. Number 15. Minecraft is known to reuse a few textures. And while they can sometimes be groan-worthy, or even confusing, other times it goes unnoticed. Like, take the smooth and regular stone blocks, for example. Looking at them like this, the difference seems pretty big. And honestly, their biggest similarity

Seems to be in the name, not the texture. But add a pressure plate to the top, and now it’s easier to see. As is, it’s tough to recognize which block is which when the borders share the same texture. So while it’s a very minor detail, I do have to commend Mojang here.

They reused a texture, and I was none the wiser until it was pointed out. Number 16. Render distance can make a world of difference. And it’s one of the more clear benefits to playing Minecraft on a beefy computer. But it turns out, on Bedrock, that draw distance is even more impressive.

See, you might not have noticed, but with the way that the game loads, we’re able to stand at the main End island and see the outer islands within view, which I’ll admit is a surreal sight. And it’s made even more enjoyable by the fact that Bedrock handles render distance loading

Substantially better than Java. And I imagine this will make pulling off your next flying machine journey a lot easier to do, just as long as you don’t fall off. Number 17. Minecraft not only has plenty of items, but also plenty of ways to get rid of those items.

And whether that’s a cactus, a lava source, or even just letting them de-spawn, we’ve seen these all before. But this method might be a bit more unique. See, items are entities, just like you and me, meaning there’s some way for them to die. And you’ll notice as much here,

Because apparently an anvil drop is just enough damage to do the trick. But why anyone would ever spend 31 iron ingots to delete a piece of dirt is beyond me. Though I must admit, what this lacks in practicality, it more than makes up for in style. Number 18.

The textures in the game are fairly simplistic, to say the least. Which sometimes means it’s hard to make out what’s what. Like the hearts you see while riding a horse. For the longest time, I never understood the texture. But thanks to user LilDominator64 on Reddit, a closer look actually shows they’re saddles.

Which I’ll admit, zoomed out, is still pretty hard to see. But once you put them side by side, the picture clears up. Especially if you recognize the pixels of the metal bit of the spur. Now, I won’t claim it’s a great texture, but hey, now I know what it’s supposed to be.

And maybe you do to. Number 19. Minecraft is a masterclass for reusing textures. Take the end stone, for example. it’s actually just an inversion, geometric translation, and then a color shift of the cobblestone texture. Which is surprising, but the same principle applies to the diamond sword. As you’ll soon notice,

All we need to do is drop the saturation, and this iconic weapon starts to look a lot more like a familiar tool. Sure enough, a desaturated diamond sword mirrors the iron sword texture. If you minus the handle, of course. But I should clarify, it’s a bit misleading. Because sure,

You could get this to happen by desaturating the sword, but since the iron ones predate the diamond variant, it’s more likely that the diamond came from recoloring the iron, instead of the other way around. Number 20. The days in Minecraft are pretty short. And at only 20 minutes per cycle,

You’re sure to see these sun and moon textures fairly often. But have you ever wondered how that rotation works? After all, Minecraft is a game of blocks, so an orbit like this seems pretty nonsensical. But, turns out, we can actually find the science on display. See, if you head underneath Minecraft’s world,

You can see the sun and the moon are constant objects, even rotating under us in the void. And that gets readily apparent when you play on something like SkyBlock, where there’s no bedrock layer to hide it. But more importantly than that,

It gives us this cool shot of a sun on the black sky. And for me, that’s worth it. Number 21. If you ever feel useless, just remember that the furnace minecart exists. And truth be told, that’s tough competition to beat. But while we joke,

It turns out there is a coded purpose for this entity. Yeah, I was surprised too. Apparently, the intention was that you could link a set number of carts behind the furnace engine to make something of a train. And that would allow us to bring friends and entities along our minecart rides.

But this piece of code dates back to the early versions of the game. And it definitely shows its age. The train will just break if it’s presented with any kind of turn or slope. So it’s not that useful, but it’s there, I guess. Number 22. Riptide is a fantastic enchantment,

And it’s definitely a powerful one when mixed with a rainstorm. But even though it’s great, it still has a few quirks I can’t quite make sense of. For example, if we do a side-by-side comparison of using Riptide in a shallow pool versus something with a bit more depth,

The difference is night and day. And for some reason, the shallow option will always win out against the competition. And while I can’t quite figure out why this could be, it does allow us to get some newfound height and distance with our trident. So next time you’re looking for a boost,

Maybe use your water bucket instead of visiting the ocean. Number 23. Villagers are not the easiest mobs to work with. And a big part of that is the fact that they can’t be relocated using the leads or food. So usually we just use a boat as our best option.

But thankfully, there are other methods of persuasion. Like talking. No joke, just interacting with the villager and sparking up a conversation is enough for them to relocate closer to you. And folks, for minor movements and adjustments, that might be all you need. So if you’re tired of building a minecart system

Just to move one fishermen, this might be a solid alternative. And it’s definitely cheaper, so that’s a plus in its own right. And with that, folks, take care and have a good one. All right?