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Minecrafting 112: Horse Door

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We’ve all been there. You’ve got yourself a horse, built a stable, and now you’re in trouble. A Minecraft horse doesn’t fit through a regular fence gate, and if you just leave a hole then it’ll wander off. Sure, you could craft a leash, but for that you need leather and perhaps you’re a strict vegetarian. No. There’s got to be a better solution.

There is.

Introducing HORSE DOOR. It’s like a door, but it only works when you’re on a horse, using a really rather simple combination of redstone, pressure plates and sticky pistons. Its creator, Cnwy, explains everything in the video above – but basically you run up to the gate on your horse and then do a little jump. That jump shoves your head through the ceiling (less painful than it sounds) and activates the pressure plate, which then opens the door. Ingenious, and simple. I love it.

Or perhaps you want something a little more flashy to augment your base. In which case, Docm77 and ZipKrown have just the thing for you. Their Epic Ghast Cannon Tower hurls fireballs at anything approaching your base. The ghast is imprisoned in a tower, sitting in a minecart, and lifted up when defence is needed. You can direct its fire by running around inside the tower, and it can’t be killed thanks to the fence. It’s even possible in survival mode. Just about.

Next is a horror map called The Staircase, created by iMinecraft1337. It’s loosely based on SCP-087, and uses command blocks and a custom resource pack to scare the bejeezus out of you. I’ll be honest, I’m too scared to try it. But if you want to see someone giving it a go then Darmelton’s your guy.

Another nice build was put together and documented this week by Redditor EpicSpam. His totally innocuous alpine cabin hides a vast underground complex with libraries, sprawling farms, mushroom factory and an animal storage facility with huge animal faces staring down at the player below. Terrifying and impressive in equal measure.

Finally, on a lighter note, if you’re a fan of C418’s beautiful soundtrack to Minecraft, and consider yourself a bit of a pianist, then you might want to pick up the official Minecraft Volume Alpha sheet music. It has the scores for 19 of the tracks from the game, and you can find a sample pagehere if you want to try before you buy.

That’s all for this week. If you’ve seen anything in the Minecraft community that you think I should be highlighting, tell me about it by dropping me an email. I’ll be back with another roundup this time next week.