One menu for every world

Each mode used to have its own menu, and the same things sat in different places. On October 19 the menu got a shared base, crates learned to open with either button, and the Magpie and Thunderhead got new bodies.

A shared base

The menu was built in three places as three copies, and the shared stuff drifted apart: “Friends” and “Ideas and bugs” only existed in Anarchy. The decision went like this: the menu “has to be shared across all servers with their own separate tabs… a shared base, for example leaving a bug report, people, the tab, friends — all of that has to be shared in every world.”

Now every world has a “People” tab: clan, friends, “Who's online” (it opens the “Online” window) and “Ideas and bugs”, with “Help” at the bottom. Everything else each mode adds as its own tabs. A tile only shows up if its command works in that world — no more empty buttons. Four days later the “People” tab will also get “Report player” and “Hide player”.

Crates — with either button

“When I press on a case, it doesn't matter whether I press with two buttons or one, it should open it.” It turned out that right-clicking creatures didn't reach the server at all, and the crate on the spawn map is a creature model. Now the creature in your crosshair takes the right click, and the crate opens with either button. The exceptions are the bow, crossbow, harpoon and spyglass: they need the right button themselves.

The Magpie and the Thunderhead

The old Magpie was a little man almost two blocks tall, in a vest and with a pouch. The verdict was short: “Redo this one.” The new Magpie is a small black-and-white bird on matchstick legs under a patched sack taller than its head. The sack's mouth glows with a ragged pink seam, and behind it you can see a piece of someone else's sky with stars. When idle, a star sometimes pops out of the sack, the magpie looks around and shoves it back in with its wing. It moves by hopping on two legs.

Next we redid the Thunderhead. The old one was a pale lump with an angry face. The new one is a low, dark storm cloud with a flat anvil top and thin streams of rain down to the ground. It has no face: in the cloud's belly there's a ragged rift into the night sky, with a pink branching lightning bolt frozen inside. When idle, the lightning flashes twice and the cloud's dome swells. While we were drawing it, the cloud managed to be a stone pillar, a crate, a screen, a boulder, a grill grate and a gaping mouth — we removed each of those finds until only the storm was left.

Block icons

Saplings, flowers, mushrooms and vines in your pockets were a tiny cross — now they're a flat picture, as they should be. Fences and walls became two posts with crossbars, glass and bars a single pane, the bed a pair with a pillow, the lantern bigger. The darkest blocks got a light edge: before, you simply couldn't see them on a dark slot. And eleven technical placeholders and duplicates that a player has no reason to see left the creative catalog.