New Year, New Builds

Fun fact: 2019 is the final year that ends in 'teen' that we'll enjoy this century. We're going to have to wait 94 years until the next one, so enjoy the year two thousand and nineteen while you can! Or you could just wait for the year 2113? Maybe take a long nap or something? Your call.

While you're waiting, why not pass the over-nine-decades-of-time by trying something new in your Minecraft builds this year? We added a ton of new blocks, items and mobs in 2018, and we want to see them used in more builds. Then we want you to show those builds to us! Email us screenshots of your builds to scoops@minecraft.net and we may even feature them on the website!

(And if you ignore all the suggestions in this article and make your own awesome thing in Minecraft, we still want to see it. Flood scoops@minecraft.net with incredi-builds please!)

BAMBOO GARDENS

We love your garden builds here at Minecraft.net. But if you just read that last sentence, then lowered your Creeper mug, spat out your drink across the room and yelled “THAT’S A LIE, MOJANG” at your phone/computer/person who regrets agreeing to read this article to you, then, er, here’s a link to a story we wrote about great garden builds to prove it. Also, maybe work on your rage a little this year, bud?

Hey, I know what’ll calm you down. Gardening! It’ll be extra soothing for your green-fingered soul in Minecraft in 2019 too, thanks to bamboo. This new item isn’t just panda food (you wouldn’t believe how many pandas chased me during the making of this article). It’s also a fine addition to the flowers, foodstuffs, and other vegetation-based delights that help you craft a Minecraft garden into a picturesque slice of homegrown paradise!

Oh, but word of warning. Bamboo grows fast.

AVAILABLE ON: Xbox One, Windows 10 Edition, iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch. If you want to try bamboo in Minecraft Java then try the latest Java snapshot.!

SCAFFOLDING

Scaffolding is a block you can climb through! An excellent idea, one that makes crafting ambitious builds in Survival Mode slightly easier than it was at the start of 2018 (building in Hardcore is still a stressful nightmare though, as it should be).

Scaffolding helps you reach the top of your builds with ease. Just keep stacking them as you go! It’s also handy for avoiding fall damage, as you can gently get your delicate body to the ground by lowering yourself through the scaffolding blocks, instead of just leaping off a cliff and hoping you land on a particularly soft Creeper (which never works btw). Plus you can build all kinds of great things out of scaffolding itself!

Be warned: if you break the bottom scaffolding block on a tower of scaffolding, all the scaffolding blocks above it will break too. Still, this is a handy way to get rid of a lot of scaffolding blocks quickly or to quickly end a friendship with anyone who’s stood at the top of all that scaffolding. So if you’re just using scaffolding stacks solely to help you craft your non-scaffolding builds, it’s easy to clear away afterwards, making it a block Marie Kondo would be proud of.

AVAILABLE ON: Xbox One, Windows 10 Edition, iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch. If you want to try scaffolding in Minecraft Java then try the latest Java snapshot.!

PANDA PALACES

Have you been making Minecraft’s newest mobs feel welcome? Rolled out the bamboo carpet? Said ‘welcome’ in Panda-nese? Well don’t bother doing either of those things, because 1) they’re possibly impossible 2) they’re definitely stupid, and 3) you should build them a great new home instead!

I spent most of this week putting off writing this article so I could keep building a Giant Panda Palace for all my pandas to live in. What better place to keep a pack of adorable pandas than in a gigantic one? Don’t think about that too hard. I certainly didn't.

But I did find out that apparently, the collective noun for a group of pandas is an embarrassment of pandas. This fun fact is so brilliant that I’m not going to stop randomly bringing it up for at least 94 years. An embarrassment of pandas. Ha!

We want to see you build your own comfy-as-actually-hugging-one panda enclosure this year! You could use the new scaffolding blocks. Or you could build the walls out of bamboo, then wonder how the pandas keep escaping. Or you could keep them in a giant pig made of pink wool blocks and open a very misleading zoo.

If you try building your own panda palace, email it to us!

AVAILABLE ON: Well, you can make a panda palace in any version of the game you like, but pandas themselves are currently in Xbox One, Windows 10 Edition, iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch versions of the game. If you want to see pandas in Minecraft Java then, for now, try the latest Java snapshot.!

UPDATE AQUATIC BLOCKS

Hang on, didn’t the Update Aquatic happen about four billion years ago? It was either then or last July, but we still want to see more builds that use the blocks it added. Coral blocks! Stripped wood! Dried kelp! Please make something awesome out of dried kelp, so we can finally throw this screenshot of my dried kelp house away and never speak of it again.

There’s so much potential pouring out of Minecraft’s oceans. Just last week we featured this charming underwater palace. You lot clearly love crafting boats almost as much as we love looking at them. Plus, I still don’t understand why people keep referring to it as ‘The Lost City of Atlantis’ when it was discovered in Minecraft by a community builder years ago.

These are all great underwater builds, but we want to see more community creations that take advantage of the Update Aquatic features! Take a deep dive into this page of the Minecraft wiki (captained by Minecraft experts that never stop impressing us) and see if you get inspired.

AVAILABLE ON: Xbox One, Windows 10 Edition, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Minecraft Java. That’s almost every version of Minecraft, so get to work on that dried kelp mansion!

JAVA SNAPSHOT BLOCKS AND MINECRAFT BETA BLOCKS

Why wait for the official release of the upcoming Village and Pillage update when you can try tons of their new features in Minecraft Java and on Xbox One, Windows 10 and Android through Snapshots and Betas? Well, if you want everything neatly presented in one big, stable package, then maybe some waiting is warranted. But if you’re feeling adventurous, I say go for it!

Java Snapshots are playable betas released every wednesday by the Minecraft Java team. You can read about the most recent Java snapshot and how to access it through Minecraft: Java Edition by clicking here.

Minecraft Betas are accessible to Minecraft players on Xbox One, Windows 10 and Android and are also packed with upcoming Minecraft features! Find out how to access them by clicking here.

Word of warning! The purpose of betas/snapshots is to test upcoming features, so they can be pretty buggy! Make sure you back up your Minecraft worlds first and build with caution. Better yet, give us your feedback on how to improve the new features here!

Features like the slick white wonder that is the smooth quartz block.

Whatever you decide to build in Minecraft in 2019, we want to see it. So don’t forget to email us screenshots of your best builds to scoops@minecraft.net. Here’s to another incredibly crafty year!

UPDATE: The original article said we'd have to wait 97 years for the next year ending in 'teen'. A Facebook comment pointed out that we'll actually only have to wait 94 years. I apologise for the error and promise to be ashamed of it for at least 9794 years.