Sticky pistons are the building blocks of redstone construction in Minecraft – the glue that holds together secret entrances and deadly trapdoors alike. Their possibilities and limitations have been well-documented by the game’s community – until now. The addition of new sticky slime blocks yesterday enables the movement of large connected structures – including “self-propelling” contraptions for the particularly inventive.
“We are freaking stoked,” said ZipKrowd modder docm. “A feature that we coded was actually implemented into the game.”
The ZipKrowd’s sticky slime blocks pull other connected blocks with them – without altering the piston logic already understood by the Minecraft community.
Attached pistons can now push and pull structures up to a 12-block size limit. Immovable blocks like obsidian will remain immovable – but the addition of redstone blocks will open up “countless possibilities”, including the “self-propelling machines” ZipKrowd demonstrate in the video below.
The mod team reportedly invited Mojang staffer Dinnerbone to join their server a few weeks ago to check out the sticky blocks. “Half an hour” later, the Minecraft developer contacted them to ask if they were happy to see the blocks used as an official feature.
“We said, ‘Of course, man, it’s the best day in our life’,” laughed ZipKrowd.
The sticky slime block is still in testing – so you’ll need to enable snapshots to play around with it. To do that, you’ll want to create a new profile in the Minecraft launcher, name it ‘snapshots’, and check the appropriate box about experimental updates. Best to backup your best-loved worlds first, though, eh?