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    Duncan Geere
    Written By
    Duncan Geere
    Published
    4/6/23

    Mob Menagerie: Allay

    Your symphony-savoring servants

    At Minecraft Live 2021, we gave players a choice of three mobs to choose from. First, there was the spooky glare, which shows players areas dark enough for hostile mobs to spawn. Second was the allay – a fairy-like creature able to pick up items and carry them around. Third was the copper golem – which runs around pressing buttons, and corrodes over time.

    The winner? It was our Mob of the Month – the allay! This bundle of joy will zip around doing your bidding without complaint – picking up your mess and bringing it back to you. They also love music, and will happily take a time-out from work to have a little dance. The others that didn’t win? Let’s never speak of them again.

    Allays are cute little blue creatures that zip around on tiny wings. They’re hunted by illagers, and so the best way to find one is to locate a pillager outpost or woodland mansion and search for cages – which you’ll need to break into to free the allays inside.

    You’d think that the allays would be grateful for their newfound freedom and follow you home, but no. Instead of being motivated by gratitude, these curious creatures are motivated by servitude. Give them an item to carry, and they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, carrying it. Oh, and you won’t be able to hurt one while it’s carrying an item either – so don’t worry about swinging your axe around.

    But here’s where it gets interesting. Along the way, the allay will look out for more of the item and collect that too – bringing it back to you. That’s very handy if you’re collecting resources – ensuring you don’t need to worry about wandering around picking everything up, because the allay will do it for you. When you’re done, hit the use button on the allay to gently take back the original item, and they’ll go back to wandering around aimlessly again.

    I’m sure you have questions about this – which is fine, because gameplay designer Nir ‘Ulraf’ Vaknin has answers!

    “The allay collects any item you give it. An interesting question is: 'What counts as the same item?' We really had to think about it, because if I give the allay an enchanted book with Power 3, is that the same item as a regular book? There was no simple answer, because sure, they all started off as the same item, but they’re not technically the same once they’re enchanted. In the end, we settled on what we thought would be the most intuitive for both the player and for the allay: it will seek out the same base item. If you look at an item and it looks the same, then allay will count it as the same item. That way it's simple.”

    Nir Vaknin

    There are two more things that are important to know about allays. The first is that they love music – and so if they hear a note block play within 16 blocks of their location, they’ll go hunt around that block and drop items there instead. Similarly, if you play music on a jukebox, they’ll have a little dance.

    The second, is that allays can be duplicated. That’s right – give an allay an amethyst shard while it’s dancing and it’ll suddenly split into two allays. You can’t do this too often, because otherwise, you’d be drowning in allays. But over time it’s possible to build up a veritable army 

    What would you do with that army? Well, we’ll leave the last word to Ulraf once again:

    “Personally, I’m super excited at the prospect of having such a dynamic storage system. Currently you can very easily sort stackable items, but you can’t filter for non-stackable items in the hopper. The allay is the perfect solution for non-stackable storage. You don’t need complicated redstone systems, just an army of allays! I have this vision of the allays all whizzing back and forth in my base. It’ll turn item sorting from something that happens silently in the background to something that creates a great atmosphere (not to mention music!) in your base.”

    Nir Vaknin

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