(If you have not yet read my earlier post, "Developing a Minecraft Classic Mod", make sure to read it before continuing on with this one, as it gives more background into the entire Legacy+ project.)

What is Minecraft Indev?

Not many people are aware of Minecraft Indev, or how important this phase in the game's development really was. Minecraft Indev consists of a series of versions for the game released between December 23rd, 2009 and February 23rd, 2010. These versions introduced a lot of core gameplay elements which would become staples for the game, such as crafting, smelting, farming and a proper survival mode, complete with a day-night cycle.

What makes Indev unique, however, is the fact it has limited world sizes. Much like Classic, Indev only has a finite space to work with. This, combined with the proper and more mature survival mechanics, makes for an interesting and compelling experience which you would be hard pressed to find in modern versions of the game. I decided to take this concept and build upon it, improving the overall experience and adding actual end goals to the game, despite the limitations in world size. The end result is Indev+, the second part of the Legacy+ Project and a complete overhaul mod for the last version of Indev, before infinite terrain came to the game.

As before, I will be going over the three keywords: Create, Survive and Explore.

Create

Starting with create, I have implemented creative mode into the game, including flight and a brand-new, self-made inventory system. The original version had creative mode almost entirely removed, with only small code snippets of it left, so bringing it back is already a huge improvement.
I did not stop there, however, as I wanted to give players a lot of opportunities for builds. Therefore, I implemented a lot of new building and decorative blocks, some backported from newer versions such as walls and fences, whilst others being entirely new, such as tables and chairs.

I also made a color palette for the mod, consisting of mostly saturated colors and textures to match the saturated textures of the original (such as grass, bricks and the colored wools). Much like modern, the mod adds several types of wood, stone and ground tiles, each with its own distinct look and color. This adds for even more variety to builds.

The primary focus in the create section, however, was interior decor. A lot of the new, more advanced tiles, can be used to further improve interior decorations. I have previously mentioned tables and chairs, but there are also beds, flower pots, item frames and advanced bookshelves which can store books and change texture based on how full they are. The tables can be connected to make even bigger or differently shaped tables, similar to fences, and chairs can be made into stools to further add variety to interior designs.

The creative inventory is similar to the Beta 1.8 - Early Release creative inventory. However, instead of it just being a huge list of items, I rewrote it to support a search function and several organized tabs (Blocks, Decorations, Items, Tools and Survival Inventory) to better aid players in finding what they want. Overall the UI is very clean and works quite well for what it is.

Lastly, I implemented a form of redstone that I like to dub "Cogs and Machinery". Originally, Notch was planning to have cogs that power machines, but ultimately dropped the idea in favor for redstone. My cogs function like vertical redstone. They have a range of only 8 blocks, but can go vertically as well as horizontally from a power source, and even around inner and outer corners. The machines I added include: Generators, which power adjacent cogs and blocks and eat up fuel while doing so. Transformers, which turn adjacent generators off after a while when powered. Regulators, which turn adjacent generators on after a while when powered (both have adjustable delay). Detectors, which force adjacent generators to power if they detect an entity in front of them. Pulleys (essentially pistons, iron are regular and gold are sticky). Fans, which push items when powered. Vacuums, which suck items into their inventory (reverse dispensers) when powered, and pumps, which drain a 5x5x5 area of liquids around them when powered. There are also note blocks and lamps, but those are more decorative than anything.
Of course, these are also obtainable and usable in survival mode, but I listed them here as they are more for creativity than a neccesity for survival.

Not much else left to say here, so let's move on to the survive aspect.

Survive

With survival being the main focus of vanilla Indev, it was also heavily emphasized in this mod. Original Indev had a lot of flaws with its survival due to being stuck on a single island/world. The limited world size lead to a variety of issues, such as running out of space to build things, being able to neutralize all threats by just lighting up the entire world and not being able to explore much of the world due to its limited size. To address all of these issues, I implemented a plethora of features and massive overhauls.

For starters, I knew game balance was thrown out the window due to finite levels. In order to return the looming threat of night, I introduced a blood moon mechanic. After the first 5 in-game days, there is a 1 in 10 chance for every night to be a blood moon. During blood moons, several things happen that can linger a player's progression. The biggest thing is the torch burnout. Every tick, torches have a certain chance of going out, needing to be relit in the morning when the blood moon has passed. The chance scales with difficulty, so higher difficulties mean more torches will burn out. This makes it impossible to light up your entire world within the first few days and never have to worry about hostiles ever again, as once a single blood moon arrives, a good chunk of the island will once again be uninhabitable. To keep this from being too annoying and dangerous, I implemented lanterns, which act as a permanent light source (one could also use lava incased in glass, but that's riskier and more annoying). To obtain a lantern, one must first slay a Giant and get the adminium it drops. Using said adminium, combined with glass, gold and a torch, one can make 4 lanterns per craft, allowing them to light up and fortify their base against future onslaughts. It is also possible to make lamps using less adminium than lanterns, but those requrie fuel to be powered and kept lit.
Giants will only spawn during blood moons, meaning in order to fully fortify your island, you need to survive a series of blood moons, making the progression slower and ultimately more rewarding.
The last thing to note with blood moons, is that mob spawn rates are increased to be triple that of normal nights. Some zombies and skeletons can also be armored (another new feature of the mod), and the chance of them being more heavily armored is increased during blood moons.
In the end, blood moons provide an extra layer of challenge, which is much needed when dealing with finite levels. They also provide for a more balanced experience with the torch burnout limiting the player's ability to remove all threats early on.

Since you would be stuck in the same world for a while, I wanted to give players a sense of passing time. To do this, I implement a seasons system. Using a new season time variable, the game calculates how much progress there is through one of four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Based on the season progress, the grass and foliage color changes accordingly, and during each season's peak, certain environmental effects begin occurring. At the peak of spring, one can hear bird chirping sounds outside during the day. At the peak of summer, crickets can be heard at night and firefly particle effects appear on grass. At the peak of autumn, leaf particles fall from tree leaves. Only the winter peak has no definitive effect. Each season lasts 30 in-game days, meaning a full year in the mod is 120 days. Seasons also affect the day length, with the peak of summer being 75% day and 25% night, peak of winter being the opposite and peak of spring and autumn being 50/50. Other things affected by seasons include slower crop growth and less passive mobs spawning in colder seasons.

In addition to seasons, I also implemented an advanced weather system. The type of weather depends on the current season. During spring, there is only occasional rain, similar to modern Minecraft. In summer, there are frequent thunderstorms. Autumn has windy weather, where wind changes force and direction at random. Wind pushes projectiles, thrown items and particles in its direction and only works aboveground. Winter has snow instead of rain, which lasts for much longer and creates snow layers, which have different states based on how full they are, going up to a full block height. Winter weather also includes fog, which changes distance at random. The distance is the same as the previously used render distances, and the fog closes in in a smooth transition, acting very subtle and natural.

With all of these additions combined, playing a single world for extended periods of time is more viable and fun than in vanilla. However, I did not want to end there, as there is one more aspect of the game that needed serious improvement, and that is...

Explore

Exploration in Indev is basically non-existant. You make a level, you go to the center and build up, look around and you have already seen all that it has to offer (not including caving). Even bigger worlds can only get you so far. So to remedy this, I implemented a character mechanic, similar to the one in Terraria. Gamemode and game rules such as cheats, difficulty and keep inventory are tied to the character you create. Once you have a character, you can then take that character into any world you want, without losing your items and having to start over. This allows for endless exploration of all of the mod's world types and themes, without fear of losing progress as your inventory, stats and everything will carry over. It is also essential and even required if one was to 100% the mod, as some items and resources are only available in specific world types.

Speaking of which, just like Classic+, I added new world types to Indev+. However, I took it a step further, making each world type unique in not only terrain generation, but also what mobs and resources can be found in each. In addition to the four base world types (Island, Floating, Flat and Inland), there is a slew of new world types, each with its own quirks:

Deserts are as you would expect. They are mostly filled with sand and sandstone underneath. Cacti and pits of quick sand are frequent, adding some environmental hazards to the world. There are frequent oasis' with water, grass and new palm trees. These oasis' actually serve as safe havens, as the sands are deadly, for you see, in desert worlds, there is a constant threat of two new mobs: Mummies and Antlions. Mummies are just husks, reskinned zombies that do not burn up in the sun. Antlions are different, however. They are tinier, faster spiders that like to hide in the sand and shoot while hidden. If you attack them while they are hiding, they bury under the sand and emerge at a different location nearby (essentially teleporting). If you instead dig out the block they are in, they will emerge and attack head on, and will also do that if you move away from their range of sight. Both of these mobs spawn only on sand and make deserts a very dangerous environment, even during the day. Antlions are also essential in getting an ingredient for one of the charms (more on those later).

The next world type is Caves. Caves worlds consist of a large series of underground caves, from the top of the world to the bottom. incased in bedrock. These caves worlds have massive ore veins, but as a result, are a lot more deadly. Mobs are everywhere due to the overwhelming darkness, there are stone spikes that are an instant kill if landed on, bats which only spawn in this world type and are fast, aggressive flying buggers that are hard to kill, and lava at the bottom of the world. There are also frequent lush areas in these cave worlds, consisting of moss, which is the primary source of seeds for food, and trees. Caves worlds are also the only worlds where adminium ore can be found naturally in small blobs near the bottom of the world. This is the only other way to get adminium, especially in early game before your first blood moon, but is still tough given all the previously mentioned hazards.

Ocean worlds are possibly the most unique world of them all. The entire world is one huge ocean, with the sea level being the height limit. The ocean floor consists of sand, dirt, gravel, magma and coral reefs, with large seaweeds dotted around. Each world has 6 (12 if large enough) glass spheres, each sphere having different contents. Some have grassy terrain with trees, others are shaped more like a desert and some have a lot of stone and ore. These worlds are the only place where fish and jellyfish spawn naturally, which are required to craft the sea charm.

Moon worlds started out as a joke world type, and still kind of are. The entire world consists of only one block type: Moon rock. These are the only worlds where the MD3 mobs from early Indev (Rana, Steve, Black Steve and Beast Boy) spawn naturally. Out of these, only Rana is important, as she drops the blood tear, a vital crafting ingredient for some late game items. It is always dark on the moon and there is low gravity. You can also fall off the edge and die in space.

The other new world types are just terrain generators and have no unique blocks or mobs (besides lily pads in marshland worlds). These include mountains and marshlands, both of which have unique terrain and visuals and work nicely with the world themes.

Speaking of world themes, these received some improvements as well. Hell themes are by far the most different, with added brimstone spikes in lava, magma generation on the surface, proper sand generation and dead trees dotted across. Hell worlds are also the only worlds where fire imps spawn, which are vital for crafting the Hellfire Ring charm. Woods themes have more tree variants, in particular birch and apple trees. Paradise remains untouched. There is also a new world theme called "Shroomland", and it is essentially the mushroom island biome from modern applied to all the existing world types, complete with Mooshrooms.

With the addition of the new world types, improved world themes and character system, it is not only possible to explore several worlds at once, but the game overall has a very interesting and unique gameplay dynamic from that of modern Minecraft.

Progression

In order to add player progression, I implemented several features. The first and most obvious is Achievements and Challenges. There are 50 achievements, split into multiple categories. Almost all of these are unique in their own way and are intended to teach players the basics of the mod and game as a whole. Some are the same as Beta, whilst others are exclusive to the mod (e.g. survive a blood moon). Challenges are essentially just achievements but harder to acquire and intended for the late game. Some examples include get 100,000 points, slay one of every mob, craft all 9 charms etc.

The end-game of Indev+ consists of crafting special "charm" items. There are nine of these in the game, and each gives the player special perks when equipped, as well as a special ability which can be triggered by certain means. Almost all the charms are crafted with adminium and special items only acquirable in certain world types. Below is a brief summary of all the charms, what they do and how to craft them:

• Hellfire Ring: Gives the player full fire and lava immunity. SPECIAL: Right-click with an empty hand to shoot a fireball and consume 15 item durability. Crafted with adminium and a fireball obtained from a Fire Imp.
• Necklace of the Sea: Makes the player see further underwater, breathe indefinitely underwater and break blocks faster when underwater. SPECIAL: Crawl over water to make it turn into ice and consume 1 durability. Crafted with fish fin and jellyfish tentacles obtained from their respective mobs, which can only be found in ocean worlds.
• Lucky Coin: Has the fortune effect applied. Ores can drop 1-3 of their item and gravel/moss have a 100% chance of dropping flint/seeds respectively. Absorbs 1 durability per block mined. Can be crafted with gold and antlion extract obtained from Antlions.
• Adminium Shield: Absorbs all explosion damage and deflects arrows. Takes 1 damage per arrow deflect and as much damage as it blocks from explosions. Crafted from adminium only.
• Skyrunner Boots: Increases player movement speed with 25% and doubles jump height. Negates all fall damage. SPECIAL: Hold down the jump key while in mid-air to glide. While gliding, the boots slowly take damage. Only charm that goes in the boots slot rather than the charm slot, meaning it can be combined with other charms. Provides absolutely no armor. Crafted with a pair of cloth boots, harpy feathers from harpies and slimeballs from slimes.
• Spectacles: Gives permanent night vision. Takes damage equal to the damage the player takes every hit. Crafted with adminium and glodust from gloshrooms found in caves worlds.
• Climbing Gloves: Makes the player able to climb any surface, as if it were a ladder. SPECIAL: +3 unarmed damage (same damage as a wooden sword). Takes 1 point of damage per mob hit. Crafted with adminium and slimeballs from Slimes found in caves worlds.
• Magic Mirror: Allows the player to press R to go back to spawn like in Creative mode when equipped. Takes 25 damage per use, totaling to 11 uses overall. Crafted with adminium and glodust.
• Builder's Bracelet: Increases block range with 2 blocks and applies haste to all blocks you mine (regardless of held item). Haste is 3x faster than no haste. Has a 1 in 4 chance to take 1 point of damage per block mined. Crafted with adminium and a blood tear obtainable from Ranas in Moon worlds.

There are other useful items one can make with adminium, which serves as the end-game resource. These include a quiver with unlimited arrows, a stronger arrow variant, a lighter which can instantly smelt anything thrown in the blue flame it makes or a clock to predict blood moons with.

With all of this in mind, there is somewhat of a player progression. It feels immensely satisfying to light up your world with lanterns, essentially conquering it, and gaining access to all these powerful items to aid you in your journey, and is a huge step up from the simple tool tier system of the original version (going from wood to diamond).

Other

The mod adds so much more content that I simply cannot do all of it justice with this already long enough post. Therefore, I will briefly go over the remaining, smaller features below.

• Survival multiplayer. This is listed as minor, despite the vanilla version not having any multiplayer support whatsoever, because it is essentially beta multiplayer but with the Indev+ items. There is no character system, achievements or world hopping support, meaning only one world per server.
• New combat items: Battleaxes with extra knockback, spears with extra range and are throwable, quivers for extra arrow space.
• Rails and minecarts (backported from alpha, actually very useful for quick traversal in a small world)
• Overhauled water system. Water is still finite, like in indev, but also has some properties of modern water. Instead of evaporating, it spreads in a limited range. Partial water tiles fill up during rain.
• Single-player commands
• Fishing
• Statistics (general, blocks, items and mobs)
• Recipe list (craft something for the first time to unlock its recipe)
• Emerald tools (new tier between iron and diamond)
• Improved tool durabilities (doubled for all tiers, tripled for diamond)
• Golden tools with special properties (silk touch, seed drop guaranteed with hoes and looting with weapons)
• Sneaking and Crawling
• Faster and improved swimming mechanics.
• Quality of life improvements (better crafting, respawning etc.)
• Hardcore and Spectator modes
• New options (mouse sensitivity, FOV, graphics options, audio sliders etc.)
• Improved GUI such as options, world select screen etc.

Conclusion

The end result is the biggest mod of this version of Indev to date, with a plethora of improvements to the core gameplay, all whilst keeping the original charm of finite worlds intact. There is a proper creative mode, a type of progression system with achievements and new endgame items and an improved gameplay loop, seasons and blood moons to keep the same world engaging over a longer period of time, character system that allows for world exploration, an extensive list of world types and themes, each with its own unique vibe and mobs, tons of new combat options and so much more.

If you wish to try the mod for yourself, you can get it here. To run it, I recommend using the MultiMC launcher. Make a new inf-20100618 instance in it, then simply go to edit instance > version tab and replace jar with the Indev Plus.jar file.
You can get the server for the mod from here, in case you want to host a server. There is a readme file with more information on how to run the server.

And here are the three trailers for the mod:

Currently, I am in the process of developing Infdev+, the third and final mod of the trilogy.
I hope you found my ramblings interesting and you have a newfound appreciation for this game's whacky and fascinating history.
Until next time, stay frosty!