When I started playing Minecraft many years ago, the options for minigames were pretty slim. Aside from recreating the Hunger Games in a beloved experience known as survival games, the only thing we really had was spleef. If you don’t know what this is, it’s basically when you and a bunch of other players are unleashed into an arena, where the floor is usually made of an easily broken block like snow, and given a shovel.
The aim is to break the floor underneath your fellow players to knock them into the lava pit below. It sounds really simple, but when you’re in the moment, it’s possibly one of the most tense things I’ve ever played. But my days of relying on spleef arenas for minigames is coming to an end thanks to the addition of the Sulfur Cube—Minecraft’s new mob coming in the Chaos Cubed update.
As revealed at Minecraft Live, the Sulfur Cube is capable of absorbing different blocks and taking on their attributes to change the way it moves. At its reveal, we saw it sliding around like a hockey puck after absorbing ice, as well as having the same movement physics as a ball after consuming wood. Outside of these two materials though, the full extent of the Sulfur Cube’s capabilities was unknown, until the snapshot notes, which added the Cube to testing, were shared.
Now, we can see the full extent of what the Sulfur Cube is really capable of. There are seven regular archetypes for the block: regular, bouncy, slow flat, fast flat, light, fast sliding, and slow sliding. These are all characterised by the speed of the block when hit, as well as its ground friction, air drag, and whether or not it floats in liquids. So you know, a lot to consider. But, what this does mean is that this mob can be used when creating far more minigames, and players have wasted no time in putting the skills of the Sulfur Cube to the test.
“the sulfur cube is useless!” from r/Minecraft
Saying that, in a video shared to Reddit from u/uglyratfromsewers, the Sulfur Cube has been turned into a mode of transportation rather than a tool for a minigame. By attaching a lead to the Cube and then to a boat, a potion of slow falling, and a spear, they have made the Sulfur Cube function almost like a reindeer pulling a sleigh. Except it’s so much faster than Minecraft’s existing transport like elytra, horses, or minecarts.
I can’t say I’m surprised. I didn’t think it would take long for someone to discover a crazy exploit for the Sulfur Cube, but the downside is that there’s a high chance it’ll get patched given the feature is in testing. At least we’ve got a little window now to see what else it’s capable of, because there’s bound to be more like this which we haven’t discovered yet.
