Road to Minecraft 1.0, Day 108: Alpha 1.0.4 (Seecret Friday Update 4)

Monday.
Real date: 26 January 2026
Time machine: 12 July 2010
Recorded playtime: 19 hours, 43 minutes.

I didn't play this version for super long, partially because I didn't have time, and partially because exploring the changes required generating a brand-new world.

The only hint Notch gave for this update, in fact, was that you needed to generate a new world.

I generated a couple worlds until...

Winter mode: a short-lived addition that added some variety to the very simple gameplay loop of early Minecraft. Basically, snow constantly falls, most water is frozen, and animals spawn less frequently. There are a few unique challenges this offers, such as reeds (known as sugar cane in later versions) being very difficult to find. A new world has a 25% chance of becoming a winter world - or, of course, you can just edit level.dat to enable it yourself if you want.

Oh right, also, the loading screen has the Mojang logo on it now, and the title screen is 3D and animated!

Other changes in this version include fixed mob spawning, a sitting pose for the player, and the removal of the ghost chest in minecarts. 

There's some minor jankiness with snow. It does not get automatically replaced when you place a block over it.

I dug myself a little base in the side of this mountain.

It's kinda ugly, I know. If I play more on this world later, I'll make it look nicer.

I had terrible beginning luck on this world and found no coal to make torches, so I decided to just watch the sunset over the snow and then quit for now once it got dark.

My actual view from my real bedroom window is pretty similar right now with all these crazy winter storms the southern US has been getting.

That's all for now. Maybe I'll do some more stuff on the snow world? I need a bit of a change of pace, I think.

Thank you, and have a very safe and productive day.
--Sidney