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Written By
Chris Priestman
Published
10/5/19

How to Make Great Traps

Wish Minecraft was less safe? We’ve got you covered!

You can do almost anything you want in Minecraft. Like building lovely things with your equally-lovely friends! Isn’t that wonderful? Everyone holding hands and sharing their favourite flowers? Singing tra la la la la laRGHHHH!

Oh, sorry buddy! You just fell into one of my traps. Because friendship is nice, I suppose, but tricking people is clearly so much better. I love spending my weekends throwing pals down pits and blowing up TNT in their once-trusting faces. You can do almost anything you want in Minecraft, and sometimes, I just want to be a total jerk.

Here’s an introduction to making traps to trick YOUR friends with! I had plenty of time to write this guide, because none of my friends want to hang out with me anymore. No idea why.

Spike Trap

This first trap is easy. Just create a corridor with a chest at the end and use a sign to lure in any thieves passing by. Who could be able to resist having a look at what’s inside the chest?

[1/3] - Create a narrow corridor with a chest at the end and an enticing sign at the entrance.

[2/3] - Along the bottom of the wall, install a Dispenser (or more if you like) and put some arrows inside it. In front of it, on the floor, lay down a pressure plate.

[3/3] - Now, when someone steps on the pressure plate, the Dispenser will fire an arrow into them!

Greed should blind the thief as they walk over the pressure plate and get an arrow to the knee. What makes this trap even better is that it works on Creepers and other mobs too. All must be punished for their curiosity!  

PROS: Easy to make. Works on mobs and other players.

CONS: Doesn’t do much damage. Well, apart from to my permanently-damaged friendships. Hooray!

RATING: 3/5

Lava Pit

To help motivate you into constructing this trap, imagine someone on your server has just made you a terrible financial offer (“Oooh, I like your mansion made of diamond blocks! I’ll give you one rotten flesh for it? Well, not give - you can have it on alternate weekends.”)

How better to punish a cheapskate than through commerce itself? Just lure them into your fabulous shop and tell them to go to the counter to buy some incredibly-cheap goods...

[1/4] - I mean, just look at this inviting shop. Who wouldn't want to head inside?

[2/4] - Now we're inside, you can see that there are two pressure plates and two trap doors just beyond them. Hmm...

[3/4] - Here's an overhead view of the trap before the customer walks up to the counter to talk to the shopkeeper.

[4/4] - And here's what happens after they walk up to the counter. Yes, a lava pit! Muahahaha!

Yes, upon entering the shop, your victim will fall right into the lava and will be unable to escape. Enjoy your lava bath, penny-pincher!

PROS: Very satisfying.  

CONS: Not very hidden. Requires lava. All valuables your friend drops will likely burn up in lava, so no one’s getting that rotten flesh on any weekends. Bah!

RATING: 2/5

Painting Trap

If you know anything about building hidden doors in Minecraft (and if you don’t, this article should help) then you’ll know that you can hide doorways behind paintings. In fact, most burglars will know about this. Which makes it easy to trick them!

[1/3] - It's a well-known trick that people hide rooms behind paintings in Minecraft. Let's see if there's one behind this one...

[2/3] - Oh no! You fell right into my trap. Serves you right for being so nosy! Sorry if you're just really into art : (

[3/3] - To build this one, put signs inside a small doorway so you can hang a painting on them. They dig a hole inside the doorway and fill it with lava.

Just build a hidden doorway behind a painting (you need to put signs on the inside of the doorway to hang the painting on) and then dig a pit. Fill it with lava and you’re done. Any burglar searching for a hidden door will fall right into the lava. Minecraft: the game that never stops punishing curiosity!

PROS: Catches burglars out. Takes seconds to make.

CONS: It’s literally a crime against art. Hey, but I guess art won!

RATING: 4/5

Lever Trap

[1/4] - Roll up, roll up! Pick a lever to win a prize!

[2/4] - Shh, don't tell anyone that the yellow lever is connected to TNT.

[3/4] - Oh look, here comes our first sucker. I mean valued customer!

[4/4] - FOOL! Your prize is a trip back to your spawn point!

It’s important to remind your friends how much they mean to you. What better way to do it than giving them front row seats to a firework display? Just create a wall lined with a bunch of levers and ask them to pick one to get a prize. Who doesn’t love a game show?  

Behind one of the levers, place a block of TNT, so that when the lever in front of it is pulled… KABOOM! It’s probably best to hide the TNT inside a wall so your friends can’t cheat and peek a look at their prize. Don’t want to spoil the surprise!

PROS: Explosions!

CONS: Hard to trick people into pulling the levers, even when I make loud chicken sounds at them. They usually just walk off, never to be seen again. Fair.

RATING: 2/5

Hidden Button Trap

[1/4] - This button is positioned above a trap door. Press it and a hole opens up beneath you.

[2/4] - Now we just need to hide it behind a banner and wait.

[3/4] - Oh no! You've found my hidden button. Whatever shall I do?

[4/4] - I know! Laugh at you as you fall into my latest trap! Heh heh heh...

If you read my guide to building hidden doors (and you probably have, considering that’s the second time I’ve shamelessly plugged it in this article), you should remember that one trick is to hide a button behind a banner. It works unless someone knows to look for a hidden button. And if they do, we can now turn the tables on them by laying a trap!

Just build a hole in the floor next to a wall in your house. Cover it with a trap door and then put a button on the wall next to it. Now, if you press the button the trap door will open. Any nosy neighbours will fall to their doom!

PROS: Very sneaky.  

CONS: The victim might dig their way out. Hard to remember which banner I put the button behind. Oh darn....

RATING: 3/5

Chest Bomb

[1/4] - Build a chest first. Then place a hopper underneath it. Behind that, put a redstone comparator facing away from the hopper. Finally, place a block of TNT.

[2/4] - Then you just need to build a house around it so your friends are invited to place their goods inside your trapped chest.

[3/4] - When they place anything in the chest, they will trigger the TNT, and then...

[4/4] - BLOWN TO SMITHEREENS!

Follow the instructions in the images above and you’ll be able to rig a chest to blow up whenever something is placed inside it. You’ll need to get some more advanced tools to make this trap work, and you’ll end up blowing up some of your hard work. But come on, these are your closest friends you’re trapping - they deserve the effort!

PROS: No one will suspect a thing.

CONS: It blows up some of your house (but it’s worth it).

RATING: 5/5

Advanced Techniques

You can take the basic ideas I outlined above and make them more complex by adding redstone circuits to better hide the mechanisms. Instead of pressure plates, use buttons and make the lava pits bigger so there’s no way to escape them.  

You can also combine some of the traps above so that arrows push people into lava pits. Or you can reconfigure the lever trap so that it just looks like an innocent lever sat inside your house. The best traps are the least suspicious ones!

Anyway, I have to go now, because my friends have just called to say they’ve completely forgiven me. They’ve even invited me on their new server, and they say I get to be the first one to try out the shop, open all the chests and pull all the prize-giving levers. Wow, lucky me!

Oh, but before I go, did I mention that I wrote another article about how to build hidden doors?

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