The Spawn Chunks 111: Warden Deep, Mountain High

Login

Minecraft News

FROM: Julia (excerpt)
SUBJECT: Glow Squid & Bioluminescence

Greetings Johnny and Joel,

(Side note: This email is excruciatingly long so feel free to only read sections that sound interesting to you. I’ve bolded all the central topics)

I actually just started listening to your guys’s podcast very recently and I love it! (It’s really nice for my 30 minute commute to school, driving can be so lonely! So I listen to about an hour of it everyday, and now really look forward to driving to and from school) Anyways I’ll get right to the point, I have some ideas on features for minecraft for the update and just in general.

First off the glow squid:

I believe that the glow squid is inspired by the real life Firefly squid. They look super awesome so I’ll include some photos.

Anyway Firefly squid are bioluminescent, and I watched part of a nature documentary about them which is why I love them so much and voted for them. The main reason being is that a few times a year All the firefly squid come up to the ocean’s surface at night around the same time. This is fairly unusual, as the squid are deep ocean creatures and surfacing requires adjusting to pressure changes. This event is so beautiful as you can see thousands of teeny blue glowing lights around the ocean’s surface. (This happens in real life in japan, specifically Tamarama bay). 

I think it would be super amazing if minecraft incorporated it in, first it would make attaining the glow squid a lot easier, (like you are able to capture it when it comes up and killing it for drops is easier) and it would be so beautiful! My idea is that it would correspond with the phases of the moon. Something I barely ever noticed until researching slimes was that the minecraft moon actually has phases! The phases do pretty much nothing except correspond with slime spawning in swamps. I think maybe there could be a 1/3rd chance for a large spawning of surfacing glow squid every new moon above a deep ocean, or something like that. But anyway the event would be fairly rare and it would be breathtaking to be rowing across the vast oceans of minecraft and suddenly billions of mesmerizing bright blue lights light up the vast stretches around you. Also I find the glow squid for some reason to remind me of cuttlefish (actually they are fairly closely related) which would also be a very fun addition to the game. But anyway cuttlefish’s skin changes color and have these strange animations they use to hypnotise their prey. The glow squid could also have this since minecraft has been adding in more animations, their skin could move and change at times like a cuttlefish’s does and maybe that would lead to a hypnotizing effect on fish and the player or drowned or something ect. Like you were talking about last week just with an animation. Maybe the squid would also kill the fish that get lured too close.

That leads into my next topic, bioluminescence in general:

So for caves I think there are so many things you can do! I love caves, they are just so fun. (I’m kind of a science nerd if you couldn’t already tell) And when I think of caves I just immagine little insects (like fireflies) that are blue and they would light up the top of caves, whirring around. I think that they should specifically live above lakes so they can reflect their light onto the water. (I’m imagining all of this with RTX because I hope that technology will improve and rtx will be a part of vanilla minecraft. I mean don’t we all) Anyway you could capture these insects in a jar and light up various places like fireflies in a jar, which would create some very fun ambient lighting. This would also work with regular fireflies and might make some fun lighting for certain situations like the citadel forest path. In my mind these cave fireflies would spawn in very uncommon mini-cave biomes, maybe like the crystal formations, and they could have other glowing plants too. I think minecraft could have a lot more of these rare mini biomes, like an oasis in the middle of a desert or a river that cuts into a mountain to form a cave-river, ect. These “mini” biomes I especially see being beneficial in caves and that leads me to toxic caves.

Toxic caves: 

A real danger in real life caving is CO2 poisoning. I’m sure you have heard of coal miners testing if there were toxic gases by bringing canaries into the mine. the canaries would get sick and the miners would know to leave. I think it would add another layer to the game if there was a small chance that while exploring pre-generated caves the player could die from toxic gasses that are invisible. Of course there would be ways to prevent this, with the help of our friends…… Parrots! If you bring a pet parrot with you and they come into contact with the toxic gas, then they could make a particular warning cry so you know to leave. Eventually the parrot would start taking damage too. And if you’re not careful and don’t leave soon enough you can die as armor won’t protect you. I think this concept would work even better with the warden, as parrots are extremely noisy and fly toward you, which would attract the warden to you as well. So when mining in early game for diamonds, you might have to choose to be more exposed to the small chance of invisible toxic gas or be better at hiding from the warden. The toxic gas would be difficult without the parrot as it would only start damaging you once you’ve traveled far enough into the cave, so you wouldn’t have enough time to escape it without proper warning. Of course I don’t think the parrot should be the only way to prevent this, especially for late game players as it would become a nuisance. I think the respiration enchantment would act as protection to the gasses, so level 1 would slow the damage leaving you with enough time to escape, respiration 2 with even more time so you can mine some stuff, and respiration 3 complete immunity so you don’t have to worry about it. This would also make respiration a more useful enchantment. Also I think the toxic caves would be their own cave biome, but smaller and fairly rare.

Underwater toxic caves:

Even more dangerous than toxic caves could be underwater toxic caves. Yes these are real and cause problems to many cave exploring scuba divers. Anyway I think you could make it more fanciful in minecraft by having brightly colored clouded water in caves that you have to avoid when swimming as they cause damage when you go through them. Having leather armor or an enchantment/potion would prevent damage and it would add to the dimensionality and atmosphere of underground lake caves, making them look magnificent with pink and orange clouded water.

Just a bunch of random Ideas (not super feasible but fun):

Also underground cave lakes could have eyeless fish as they do exist in cave rivers. Also I believe cave bat colonies would be really fun, maybe also a mini biome type thing. There could be so many bats in this mini bat biome, causing it to become difficult to travel through. Maybe when you place torches or campfires all the bats fly around extremely rambunctiously making it almost impossible to see properly. There could be a larger bat hostile mob even that you have to fight, or these colony bats could all be hostile which would be extremely difficult since you have to fight so many tiny mobs at once. These are just ideas, I understand how difficult development can be so I understand these aren’t all feasible. And finally my last idea. I think having varying types of cave biomes like lush caves is amazing and I thought of another underground biome. Slime caves. I was inspired by toxic sulfuric caves, which are their own ecosystem in themselves. In minecraft there could be many naturally generating slime blocks around. (As sulfuric caves are actually very slimy) And of course many slimes would spawn, and it would be difficult to walk through making it quite dangerous. and there could be geysers of sulfuric gas you have to avoid as not to be poisoned, and acid dripping from the ceiling in certain areas, maybe from a special block (snooties is what they are called in real life). Or instead this could be a mob shooting the acid at you and you would have to attack it, and the acid could do extra damage to your armor. I know my ideas in this section are more like a mod and not so much vanilla minecraft, but I just wanted to point out that there is so much you could have in caves, as they really are like an entirely unexplored dimension.

That is all I have to say for now, thank you for reading my horribly long email, it means so much to me. Keep the awesome podcasts up!

Don’t cave in,

FROM: Crimson Kailua
SUBJECT: Glow Squid Slime

Hey Joel and Jonny,

After hearing your discussion about the glow squid on episode 110, I was struck thinking about how it could please both the technical community and the people who want more ambiance. I thought that maybe the glow squid could have some sort of semi-clear slimy film over its body that the player could scoop up in a bucket. This slime could flow similar to lava, slowing the player down and flowing very slowly in the Overworld, but unlike lava, it would not allow the player to float, which could make it useful for traps. Then, if placed in the nether, it would act like water does in the Overworld, and allow for item transportation which would fill a role similar to the “Nether goop” that you suggested in episode 89.

I also thought that the slime would regrow on the glow squid over time, similar to how sheep regrow their wool when they eat, and would give players a reason to keep the squid around and not just immediately kill if for some sort of drop. Finally, maybe the slime could be collected in a glass bottle and be part of a new crafting recipe for a new light source, as it seems that’s what everyone is hoping for.

Thank you for the super amazing podcast and I can’t wait for every Monday to hear the next episode!

Crimson Kaiju

• Bis-(2,4,5-trichloro-6-(pentyloxycarbonyl)phenyl)oxalate (wiki)

Discussion Topic