Minecraft update 1.21 players are doing all kinds of crazy things with the new Breeze mob

Just a quick one before I clock off for the day: you would not believe what the kids are up to in Minecraft right now. Well, you probably would, because it's Minecraft, the sandbox building sim that contains all possibility and all human endeavour, with the exception of good PvP mechanics, yes I went there.

Anyway, Minecraft update 1.21 is just around the corner, and a few players have gotten early access via Mojang's snapshot releases. I had thought the crown jewel of the update would be the new Trial Chambers, aka trap-filled mazes. It turns out the real star might be the new Breeze mob - in the hands of imaginative players, at least.

The Breeze mob is a whirly flying critter that shoots puffs of air at you. The puffs of air deal a bit of damage while shoving back players and certain objects. This is inconvenient when you're in a room full of pressure plate traps. But seal that Breeze inside a chamber surrounded by water blocks, with a piston in the middle, and you've got the basis for an extremely powerful skycannon.

You can also position Breezes around a platform made of trapdoors to create a variant on Spleef, the original Minecraft minigame. I know all this because Reddit user GergYT went to the trouble of building it. Here's a video of their endeavours. If you can't get the embed to load, check out the Reddit thread in question.

Minecraft update 1.21 also introduces trial spawners, which cough up a specific number of enemies depending on how many players are nearby, together with new types of Copper and Tuff block. There's no final release date for it yet.

Mojang have also recently added some Star Wars stuff to the game, allowing you to build your own lightsaber. Which is very nifty, but I'll always be more interested in what Minecraft players cook up all by themselves. Besides which, what use is a lightsaber against a skycannon?