Minecraft: Pocket Edition gets patched to version 0.12.1 today, adding quite a lot of community-requested features and putting it even closer to its PC version daddy.
Content updates include the Nether, with its friendly and not-so-friendly inhabitants, along with a host of additions as small as Ocelot mobs and as robust as the Enchanting and Experience systems. What’s more interesting is that there’s also a new five-player cross-platform play feature between Pocket Edition and Minecraft’s Windows 10 version—which affects just one part of the player base, sure, but might show the direction Mojang wants to take the game with regards to multiplayer.
Here’s a partial list of what’s new in this version, courtesy of the Minecraft wiki. Even the partial list is massive, so make sure to visit them to look at the full list.
General
- Cross platform play for up to five players between Pocket Edition and Windows 10
- Controller and keyboard support — Can change controls within options.
- Options — Option to reverse the location of the Sneak and Jump button. The jump button has been moved to the right side of the screen. Added a sneaking button in place of where the current jump button is (these are the new default controls.) Option to disable the auto-jump feature. Added camera mode slider in options (First-person, Third-person, Front third-person). FOV option slider.
- New interact buttons — Feed: Used when breeding mobs; the “feed” button did exist for breeding wolves; now it exists for all mobs
Gameplay
- Hunger
- Experience
- Weather — Rain Snowfall Thunderstorm
- Sprinting and sneaking
- More difficulty modes — Peaceful Easy Normal Hard
- Animation for switching blocks and items.
- Critical hits
- Enchanting
- Brewing
Blocks
- Enchantment table — Version exclusive: Book on table glows.
- Anvils — All 3 damage types
- Brewing stand
- Mob head — Inventory icons are not 3D. Wither cannot yet be created.
- Flower pot
- Soul sand
- Nether brick fence
- Nether brick slab
- Nether quartz ore
Items
- Glass bottles
- Potion
- Splash potion
- Gold nugget
- Golden carrot
- Nether wart
- Glistering melon
- Golden apple
- Enchanted golden apple
- Rabbit’s foot (creative only as rabbits have not been added yet)
- Blaze rod
- Blaze powder
- Ghast tear
- Spider eye
- Fermented spider eye
- Bottle o’ enchanting (creative only as villager trading has not been added yet)
- Poisonous potato
- Enchanted books
Creative inventory additions
- Spawn eggs: Ghast Blaze Ocelot
- Glowstone dust
- Gunpowder
- Redstone dust (brewing only)
- Slimeball
- Sugar
- Magma cream
- Apple
- Coal
- Charcoal
- Iron ingot
- Gold ingot
- Emerald
- Diamond
- Raw porkchop
- Cooked porkchop
- Steak
- Raw chicken
- Cooked chicken
- Baked potato
- Bread
- String
- Stick
- Beetroot
- Beetroot soup
- Mushroom soup
- Packed ice
- Boats: Spruce, birch, jungle, acacia, and dark oak variants
- Leather armor
- Chain armor
- Iron armor
- Gold armor
- Diamond armor
World generation
- The Nether — Nether portals can also be up to 23x23 in size.All items previously obtained through the Nether reactor are now available through their normal means.
- Nether fortresses
Mobs
- Iron golems
- Snow golems — Version exclusive: Shows jack o’ lantern as the head if used for building, in place of the pumpkin.Version exclusive: The pumpkin can be removed using shears, revealing the face of the snow golem.
- Ocelots
- Zombie villagers — PC 1.9 feature: Villagers retain their profession and clothes, which appear tattered, and have green wart on their noses.
- Baby zombie villagers
- Blazes
- Wither skeletons
- Charged creepers — Spawned when a lightning bolt strikes a creeper during a thunderstorm.
The 0.12.1 patch is currently out on Windows Phone and on iOS, following a one-day delay due to Apple’s certification process, with the Android release coming soon (not soon™, actual soon.)
Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.