Designing Two Minecraft Updates
For this challenge I wanted to design two back to back Minecraft updates. I have worked on numerous Minecraft projects and have watched the game evolve since it was in Alpha. I love the game and I wanted to try my hand at making two updates that fill out the existing game and help refresh systems that were created 10 years ago. I know what makes Minecraft Minecraft and how the vanilla feels when compared to modded Minecraft. Through this design challenge I aim to strengthen my design skills by designing two updates that fit the Minecraft game and breathe new life into the game.
The Magic and Mystery Update
The first of my updates is the "Magic and Mystery Update." This update sets out to refresh the Enchanting, Brewing, and
Magic
Enchantment System
The enchanting system will get an update by allowing the use of Chiseled Bookshelves, Lecterns, Candles, Potted Plants, and Jars in enchantment setups. The Enchantment table will have increased chances for specific and higher level enchants if existing books or items associated with it are nearby the enchantment setup. For example, Having Fire Aspect books, Jars of Blaze Powder, or Potted Crimson Fungus will help increase the odds of it appearing and it might even appear with a higher than average enchantment like Fire Aspect 3 or 4.
Magic
Brewing System
The brewing update dives more into potions and physical crafting. The cauldron when above a fire source and filled with water will bubble and potions can be made by throwing items in. Brewing in a cauldron rather than a Brewing Stand yields 5 Potions instead of 3. Right clicking a cauldron with a bottle creates the potion. If mobs or the player jumps into the cauldron they will have the potion effect applied for a short amount of time. If the cauldron is under a heat source it will also damage the player.
Throwing Dyed items in a cauldron with water will remove the dye. Throwing Concrete Power into a cauldron with water will harden the powder.
Glass Jars will be added which are placeable and items can be displayed in them when they are placed. Potions can also be jarred allowing 1 jar to hold the amount of 3 potions, but they can only be used with cauldrons.
Magic
Blocks and Golems
The Chisel tool is added which grants the player the ability to Right Click to remove chunks from blocks that can be mined by pickaxes and axes. This would work similar to the cheese block in the 2023 April Fools update. Shift Right Clicking on a chiseled block allows the player to place blocks from their inventory pre-chiseled to that design.
Golems will be updated to require a core to bring them to life. This core will be crafted from Copper, Gold, Redstone, and Glass.
The Copper, Cobblestone, Clay, Straw, Plank, and Redstone Golems will enter the game.
The Copper Golem interacts with the world randomly, can get struck by lightning, and can oxidize.
The Cobblestone Golem attacks mobs that enter a radius around the block they were created on.
The Clay Golem can cook items given to it and set enemies on fire when they attack.
Straw Golems speed up plant growth when nearby.
The Plank Golem is similar to the one in Minecraft Legends where it fires arrows given to it as a mobile turret.
The Redstone Golem is a Boss mob that spawns rarely in caves near the lava level. It is similar to the one in Minecraft Dungeons and drops a Redstone Tool when killed that allows the ability to place Redstone Dust inside of blocks.
Custom model support is also added to the base game which grants the ability for resource packs to change models and animations in the game.
Magic
Magic Meets Technology
Rusted stages of iron blocks, bars, doors, trap doors, chains, tiles, grates, spikes, and sheets are added.
Iron Tiles, Iron Grates, Iron Sheets, and Iron Spikes are added.
Copper Wire when powered with Redstone Dust damages players.
Copper Cells can be right clicked on chargers to charge and then can be held in inventory to attract items to the player from a greater range. Placing them on item pedestals also makes this effect active.
Copper Tanks can attach to other tanks to hold large amounts of liquids.
TBD
I designed a Seep minion and spell for each class as well as a weapon for Shaman and Demon Hunter. For them I leaned into One Night in Karazhan setting revisited with some new inspirations from old god style cards. This is a keyword I can see working really well alongside a return of the Corrupt keyword in a core set similar to how Magnetic made it's return in the year of the wolf.
Mystery
3 New Hostile Mobs
Wraiths float around the deepslate levels of the caves and fade in and out of walls. They drop chains and Cloth.
Crystal Sentinels spawn around Amethyst Geodes and have crystal spikes track the player and come out of the floor.
Enchanters buff nearby mobs and drop books and sometimes enchanted books.
Mystery
Forgotten Towers
Forgotten towers are home to Enchanters, Witches, and Illagers. These structures generate with 5 varying block palettes to fit the biome they are in. These structure have many enchanting, potion, and tech related items and blocks. These towers are 3 floors high and also have a lower basement dungeon layer. This makes them excellent structures for exploring and their loot rewards those who dare take on tough mobs.
Mystery
Relics and Relic Recipes
Relics and Recipes are hidden in dig sites and various Minecraft structures. Each structure has a chance to contain it's specific Relic or Relic Recipe. Relics are special unique items and they can only be crafted by using a Relic Recipe in a Forge (Replaces Fletcher Table). A Trowel for example is the Relic found in Ancient Cities which when in offhand randomize block placement from the player's hotbar.
Mystery
3 New Villager Professions
3 new villager professions are added in the update. The professions are the Hunter, Botanist, and Mayor. The Hunter villager sells and buys mob drops. The Botanist villager sells logs and various plants. The Mayor is a unique villager since they give quests that can be turned in for rewards. Doing more quests unlocks harder and more rewarding quests. Quests cannot be locked in like trades and change every day unless taken. There can only be 1 Mayor villager for every village.
Why Magic and Mystery?
I designed 5 neutral legendaries as well as 2 legendaries for each class since each class has a legendary bounty, bounty reward, and normal legendary for the expansion. Card number 1 "Tal'Gran" is the only neutral bounty and he is also the free legendary given out to all players prior to the launch of the expansion. When designing bounties I did a lot of research into notable WoW figures and ones that could be stirring up trouble in the Alterac Mountains. I wanted the bounties to feel exciting, unique, and rewarding while also having the normal set legendaries playing into the themes and ways to kill the bounty targets.
The Farming and Atmosphere Update
All card art used is AI generated and Hearthcards.net was utilized to help mock up designs. The following designs are mine alone. I acknowledge some designs might need some tweaking and balance testing depending on the game state Hearthstone is in. I did my best to test out a majority of my cards with paper print outs and Innkeeper battles.
Farming
Cooking Update
The Cooking Update
Farming
New Plants and Crops
Palm Trees spawn in beaches and in deserts. They have a new wood type and drop coconuts which can be thrown to open them for food.
Hollow Logs spawn on the floor in all biomes with trees and each wood type has a hollow log variant.
Gushberry Bushes are full block bushes that grow outward and connect to other Gushberry Bushes, they can be right clicked for berries and walked through without damaging the player.
Yucca plants produce yucca fiber which can be crafted to make thatch blocks and cloth.
Prickly Pears damage players, but do not destroy items. They also can be right clicked with a sword to harvest spines and prickly pear fruit.
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Cattails grow in shallow water and can be turned into sticks.
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Shelf Fungus grows on the side of blocks and collects water, it also can be cooked and eaten.
Corn
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Peppers
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Atmosphere
Mobs and Mob Variants
White Tailed deer are a passive mob that spawn in the forests and plains biomes. They avoid players and drop Venison and Antlers if they have them. Venison can be cooked to be better than steak, or dried on a drying rack to grant regeneration. Antlers can be turned into Bonemeal or attached to helmets in the Smithy for decoration.
Frilled Lizards
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Pig Changes
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Turkeys
Atmosphere
3 New Villager Professions
5 new villager professions are added in the update. The professions are the: Hunter, Lumber Jack, and Mayor. The Hunter villager sells and buys mob drops. The Botanist villager sells logs and various plants. The Mayor is a unique villager since they give quests that can be turned in for rewards. Doing more quests unlocks harder and more rewarding quests. Quests cannot be locked in and change every day unless taken.
Why Farming and Atmosphere?
I designed 32 core Evoker cards and 10 Evoker expansion cards similar to Death Knight when it came out. I dove deep into the WoW Evoker class with their Preservation and Devastation specializations, lore, play style, and abilities. It may sound weird, but I decided to not split the class into Preservation and Devastation like Death Knight and the rune system. The reasons for my decision is that It felt too similar to Death Knight in testing, it fractured the class identity too much, and it heavily limited future card design. Due to these reasons I explored the dragon aspects and landed with my Dragon Form hero power selection during deck building. This made the Evoker class unlike any other and paved the way for archetypes and the class moving forward without hard limitations.
Designing a class from the ground up is no easy feat and it took me months to fine tune. I designed Evoker to be a easy to learn hard to master class. It has 3 core pieces being Aspect, Empower, and Essence. I'm very pleased with how Evoker played in my paper tests and it become something I can really see entering the game in a couple years. After designing the core of the class it became really exciting to work on the Evoker introduction expansion "Era of the Incarnates" which takes place in the Dragon Isles and has Raszageth as their class Incarnate. For this expansion I wanted to expand on Aspect a bit more as an archetype while also providing hints at where the class could go moving forward.
