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Interesting factoid that had been completely absent from my mind for years: the villager purifier has not worked since Minecraft 1.11.

I realized this in the last session when I needed to capture several zombie villagers. This means that we can close off the exit point for zombie villagers and eventually turn this back into a regular zombie farm. It still exists as stage one of the Tetraquin Project, because it did work for a hot minute three years ago.

The other two stages (iron and gold farms) are working well, but there is an overdue fix we need for the Gold Grinder that has been a nuisance for a while. I don’t know why I haven’t fixed it yet.

Feathers from jockeys end up clogging the system after long AFK sessions, resulting in the chests backing up with swords and drops ultimately being lost because they just sit atop the hoppers. This prevents me from doing true AFK sessions (overnight, for example). The solve for this is easy:

I just need to sort out feathers, too. I am also not going to replace the furnaces with blast furnaces because otherwise it would not be able to process the chicken we get from the jockeys. Regular furnaces keep up just fine, you know, when feathers are not clogging it.

With these tweaks amended, it’s time to focus our energy on the next step of the Tetraquin Project – and it’s a big one.

A witch farm is one of the most important and most useful resource farms that I think exists, right up there with iron and gold (and in some ways superseding them). It provides a wide-range of resources: sticks, bottles, sugar, glowstone, spider eyes, gunpowder, and most importantly, redstone. These drops are incredibly useful for potions, but they all have wider uses as well. Considering that we have been churning through our redstone supply as of late, it is time that we erect this farm properly.

I know what you might be thinking: “You already have a witch farm!” This is really only half true. Let’s take a look at the current “witch farm”:

We have the prerequisite groundwork for a witch farm. The spawning spaces are enclosed, the item sorter is built, the swamp is drowned, and most of the caves underneath are lit up.

The issue is that we don’t have a way to automatically move the witches. Currently I rely on them to walk off the sides, which does not work effectively if you’re more than 32 blocks away. Since building this farm back in Session 143 (this was almost five years ago), it has not been touched. I now have the resources and knowledge to turn this into the proper, maximum-efficiency farm it should have always been. Welcome to stage four.

For this farm, I’ll be using a somewhat expensive design by ilmango, which automatically causes the witches to glitch through the floor immediately upon spawning. Then, I can utilize the entity cramming rule to kill them almost instantly, opening room for more to spawn.

The way the farm will work is based on tripwires. String covers the entire top block of the 7x9 spawning space for the witches. This is multiplied by two because there are two total layers (since this witch hut was generated prior to 1.8, there can only be two spawning floors).

Once the witches spawn, the tripwires will cause a sticky piston to move an observer which triggers the bottom layer of pistons to move the floor back and forth, allowing the witch to glitch through.

^ Here, the repeaters are set to three ticks only on one side – this is how the floor will be pushed back to the correct position after being moved by the other side.

In order to correct the floor whenever glitches occur (witches may not glitch through immediately), we will need to install a hopper timer to automate this movement whenever a witch is present.

Above, you can see the hopper timer. It will always be running, as it isn’t necessary to turn it off. The witch farm is the only build in this area.

The killing area is quite simple, identical to that in the Gold Grinder to be exact. The witches will fall below and be funneled into a single block which will contain 24 minecarts. Since this is the maximum number of entities that can be crammed in a single space, the witches will die very quickly. Using cobblestone walls allows two to fall at once.

Next, I need to cover it up properly. This means destroying the ugly spruce slab roof that currently mocks the farm underneath.

I find that burning is an appropriate approach for a roof this large.

I am using purpur slabs to denote the 7x9 spawning area for the witches. This will also help me find the center of the farm and keep the roof symmetrical.

Yeah, it never needed to be nearly as big as the version I previously built. Blocks only need to extend fourteen blocks from the spawning platform to keep a light level of zero. This design is much prettier, too.

The ideal AFK spot is right up here, and it actually means that the lighting of the caves underneath is almost pointless. From up here, there is not a single spot other than the witch farm that mobs can spawn. This makes it ideal for an overnight AFK.

Time for a test run!

I spent an hour testing the farm’s rates, and here is what we got:

Not too bad! For the next test, I am going to run the farm overnight for seven hours.

I won’t go through all the chests, because the yield is roughly the same (doubled for sticks). What is that yield? Magnificent, that’s what:

Damn, I may not even need another AFK run for a while. What am I going to do with all those spider eyes?

This farm is, without a doubt, one of the most important developments so far this season. We now have renewable (and fast) ways to get sticks (which we use for lots of different things), redstone (which we use for everything), glowstone (no more needing to find it in the Nether, which is honestly a pain), sugar (speed?), and gunpowder (I mean, mass amounts of TNT anyone?).

As such, it deserves an official name of its own: the Alchemy Farm. Starlight HQ is going to love this addition.

With the Alchemy Farm complete (with relative ease, might I add – this farm was quite easy to build compared to some of the other major builds like the Gold Grinder and guardian farm), I’ve decided to touch on an overdue update needed for Starlight HQ’s multi-purpose mob farm: killing witches.

Currently, the drop tower is only 24 blocks – it kills all regular mobs sans armor. Extending the tower lower has always been a challenge because a lot of redstone for the farm’s features is directly underneath. I always decided it just wasn’t worth it. Now, however, I think it’s possible.

I’m making this hatch a feature that you can toggle, so that you still have the option to use the farm’s old functionality (plus, if you do the Starlight Parkour, then you don’t want to fall all the way down to the bottom).

Fence gates are the only option here because you cannot move hoppers with pistons (in fact, they wouldn’t even fit here).

^ Indeed, I’ll need to move this redstone so that it goes around the 2x2 space. This will require important considerations as I don’t want to mess up the timing (a crucial part of some of the features).

You can already see some of the challenges associated with this renovation. This farm has eight different features – all of them are wedged into this small space.

The main challenge, ergo, is trying to wire another four redstone lines throughout here to activate the fence gates, which themselves are right beneath four pistons that toggle the farm’s XP mode.

I have to move some of the torch towers so that we can fit the repeaters underneath these pistons. That is the only way to power the fence gates without powering the pistons above.

^ Here is one of the gates being powered – I have to use more repeaters to keep the redstone lines separated. I have a headache.

Above, you can see two more of the gates being successfully powered. Getting wires there wasn’t easy though – I had to move most of the redstone. The area is quite cramped now:

^ The last gate to power is in a weird position, and again it requires me to use more repeater/torch combinations than I would like.

Unfortunately, it looks like I broke something. The ‘XP farm’ trigger has just activated a timer that pushed both sides back and forth continuously. I have no idea why that happened.

I have also caused the lava kill switch to break, the water sweeper to stop working, and the bottom gates not to power. That’s a lot of bugs. Lol.

Thankfully, I managed to follow the wires one by one and amend these bugs. The timing is a little off from its old design, but every feature still manages to work as intended. Now we’ve got one more.

With the ‘kill hatch’ feature, we can choose whether we want the mobs to fall the 35 blocks or 24. Advantages of the former are obviously that it will kill witches (we already sort their drops, but of course those chests are mostly empty since they have had to be killed manually until now). However, we may still want to keep the 24-block floor, not just for Starlight Parkour but also to kill mobs manually (say, if we want to get potions from witches or certain armor pieces from mobs that fall and do not die, without the worry of creepers).

That is a lot of accumulated mobs that I’m about to drop.

Such is another advantage of the new kill hatch – I can safely drop mobs that are held above without worry of blowing up the entire farm (again).

Voila, our new kill hatch feature is complete! This feature is a big deal, because for years I had claimed it wasn’t possible to implement due to space restrictions. Once again, I have upgraded the multi-purpose mob farm in a big way, making it even better than before. The next upgrade will be some sort of timer that periodically opens the fence gates, because if you have them closed, drops can still rest on top of them. That will be for another day when I can figure out where it will go.

This took long enough.

Candyland is more than just a haven for clay collecting. In fact, over the course of the past several months, this purpose has been re-delegated to the new Utopia we found a while back, about 6,000 blocks directly south of Quintropolis Island. What does this mean for Candyland?

It’s time to repurpose the soon-to-be city. And I know just how to do that.

One of my favorite ways to designate a location in this world is with... you guessed it: a parkour course! For Candyland, I have had a very particular thematic course in mind.

This entire peninsula is actually not the Candyland you know, but rather a small sub-section of the same mesa biome, just a short flight north across the bay which separates the two sides. With this biome segment being separated like this, we have the advantage of transforming the entire peninsula into a course. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.

It is more than just a course, though. This peninsula hosts a beautiful river gorge running straight through it. We’re going to utilize this scenery to construct a playful course that incorporates the entire landscape. It’s going to be very fun.

For this course, therefore, I’ll be using a hefty stockpile of materials, including most clay colors. That’s because this course will also serve as a fitting monument for LGBT pride. Hey, Quintropolis can celebrate, too!

Welcome, friends, to Gravity Gorge.

Our lobby will consist of two features that we’ll build later. The first will be a book/quill denoting some information about the course. This will be hoisted upon a lectern for visitors. The second feature will be a shop wherein you will be able to purchase goods from the bonus coins you’ll obtain throughout the course (in the form of emeralds). Oh yeah, there are going to be collectibles. Ever played Ty the Tasmanian Tiger?

The course will feature various genres, but a signature component will be its wavy ice-rink paths designed for speedrunning. I am not looking to build a difficult course. In fact, this will be one of the easiest courses in Quintropolis, if we are referring strictly to difficulty. It’s undoubtedly going to be the largest, though.

I am keeping a zombie villager trapped here, because I’d also like to eventually turn the lobby area into a small village. As of yet, we have no way to access Gravity Gorge aside from flying over the bay.

Jack-o-lanterns will be a fine light source, mostly because I do not have enough glowstone or sea lanterns to support the stacks of sources we will need!

^ You can see the first ice path finished, situated on the tip of the peninsula. Ideally, I’ll have you climb up the initial mountain, at which point you will race and hop around the gorge to the other side of the peninsula. It will very much be setup as a speedrunning course.

The climb portion takes up just a small portion of the course, and is not particularly difficult.

^ I wish I could clean this up a bit, and what I may do is swap the packed ice for regular ice to prevent mob spawns (in this way, I won’t even have to light it up). But alas, you can begin to capture an idea of how this course will be designed.

I am using torches to lay-out the rest of the course, which will be linear in nature rather than exploratory. Though, because I will be featuring collectibles throughout the course, that means there are going to be certain... tangents, if you will, from the straightforward path.

^ Above is the largest valley on the peninsula, and I have some ways I’d like to utilize this.

Bouncing is one of the ways in which you’ll hop across the gorge. You won’t get a lot of height from it, but I can work around that.

I’ll clean up the borders later (because that will be a whole task), but for now, I’m going to focus on just building the principal elements of the course. Dialing on the minute details this early will just make the whole process a headache.

After bouncing across, you’ll take another ice race around the slope towards the other end, where you will make another bounce.

I went ahead and began using regular ice to prevent having to light up certain parts of the course, such as this tunnel, which will take you through the next mountain and out towards the big valley we looked at earlier.

^ Above, I’ve skipped to the other side of the big valley to construct the next part of the ice race, which is also the most iconic aesthetic section of the course, being bordered with rainbow roads.

I’d say the curves are looking good, if not completely symmetrical. That’s okay because we are mostly interested in keeping with the shape of the mountain.

Skipping to what the end of the course will look like, I’m building a large ice road which will be a sort of “victory lap” once you complete the rest of the course. I’ll decorate later.

Leading up to the final ice ramp is something of a wall-bumping challenge. Since this is a speedrunning course, I thought it might be fitting to feature a winding road that will make it challenging for you not to hit any walls (which will slow you down).

Here we have some more segments of the “perfect run” idea, wherein the goal is not necessarily just to beat the course, but to beat it in the shortest amount of time.

Leading up to the large valley which itself precedes the rainbow road, we’ll do an ice-hopping challenge.

We’ll be working on the big valley in the next session, because it is going to feature some particularly unique elements. Starting off, I’ll begin building some of the platforms that it will feature.

And now to finish the colorful curve.

Candyland is starting to look a little more like, well, Candyland! Some of the colorful aesthetics that constitute Gravity Gorge’s construction are going to make their way throughout all of Candyland. Eventually.

We still have two major parts of the course to complete before we get to the additional features. Oh yeah! There are going to be additional features.

First is the completion of the rainbow cliffs here in the gaping valley, connecting the ice hopping challenge to the rainbow road.

Second is the large valley section directly following the rainbow road which connects to the end of the course.

Take a look here – I’m hiding from the phantoms! Hmm, this could have been a neat mechanic to utilize in the course. But maybe for a different one.

^ I’m going to erect a few “bryce” canyons if you will, following suit on the color palette we have chosen for the course.

I will reiterate that Gravity Gorge is not going to be a difficult course. In fact, it will be one of the easiest courses in this world, because it is designed as a speedrunning course. That means you should try to complete it as fast as you can!

As such, in designing each segment, I am leaving room open for shortcuts if you are brave enough. The fall damage should not kill you if you miss.

Following the cliffs, you will follow the ice path through the mountain, finally connecting to the rainbow road we built in the last session.

^ Here is an overview of this segment of the course, from the ice hopping challenge to the rainbow road. We still need to connect the first half of the course to the ice hopping challenge.

A bridge here and there should do it.

And the force of gravity is put to the test as I fight a swarm of phantoms tonight! I’ll be giving them a taste of their own medicine.

I am jumping to the end of the course to design the finish line. You can see that I am going for something a bit grandiose. A big course deserves a big finish, right?

A view of the finish line from afar:

The last segment we need to build is the section connecting the rainbow road to the final ice run! And I’ve been saving the best for last…

This will be the exploration village of the course. A key element, as you can see above, is that the entire segment will be elevated two blocks, such that while you cannot enter the course from outside, you can accidentally fall outside the bounds of the course. So, explore at your own risk, but don’t fall off!

I LOVE these big arrows! They will point you in the right direction.

^ I may have gone a bit crazy with the arrows. I just love how they look here. But now we need to make the village!

From the village, you will hop across towers up to the final ice race.

…but now it hides the beautiful arrow I just spent a lot of time building. Let’s move it!

Ah, that is much better!

The village will feature the signature ice roads that comprise the rest of the course to help you along.

A couple small buildings here and there, and then I’ll use lanterns to give it a more complete feel.

What is behind the door, you ask? You will have to explore the village and find out!

I am cleaning up the look of the village, adding some spruce trees, and a definitive landing pad, so that you can see exactly where to go.

Next, we need to fix the final ice race.

The construction of the course is finished! Oh wait, you may have forgotten that I mentioned “additional features.” Yes, those features are actually integral to completing this course. Let’s take a look.

Certain segments of the course, specifically the rainbow cliffs and exploration village, will include these tipped arrow dispensers. When you cross them, you will get shot with either an arrow of slow falling or of jump boost, or both! These will help you complete these sections of the course.

^ For the end of the rainbow road, you will simply jump off and be stung with slow falling on your descent! It’s very fun, trust me. Just follow the big arrows.

The final ice race is going to be spruced up, no pun intended (because there are spruce trees).

First, you will get a dose of Speed II as you enter the final race.

Then, you will cross a tripwire that will activate two dispensers at the end of the ice path. These will shoot out a lingering potion of slow falling and a lingering potion of jump boost. You’ll need to hop through both in order to make the final jump…

…to the finish line!

Upon completing the course, you’ll be celebrated with fireworks!

Now, once you complete the course, you will be asked a very important question: Did you find all eight bonus coins? “Huh?” I hear you asking. I never mentioned those! Well, that’s because they are hidden throughout the course.

Because this is an easy course, I wanted the option of an additional challenge. Scattered throughout the course are eight bonus coins in the form of emeralds. Finding them will require you to explore the course. Speedrun, explore, and then speedrun for all the coins. Running the course with the coins is a very different experience than doing it without them, and it will give you a nice challenge indeed.

And that, my friends, is Gravity Gorge. One of my favorite builds so far this season, and possibly in this world. When the next world download releases, you will get the chance to play this course yourself. In the meantime, let’s take a moment to celebrate by putting the course on the Parkour Wall of Fame.

It has been a hot minute since we have explored brand new territory here in Quintropolis. In fact, I believe the last time was back in Session 241 when we discovered Utopia south of Quintropolis Island. However, we did not do much exploring beyond that region. And those are 1.12 chunks.

Today, we are preparing to take a deep dive south of Utopia into brand new 1.15.2 chunks in a quest to explore some new oceanic biomes! The goal for today’s adventure is to find and collect every new type of block/item that exists in these new chunks. Can we do it? I think so!

Coming from one mesa to another, here is the exit portal to Utopia. This will be grounds for a new base at some point in the future because it sits on a fruitful corner bordering a mesa, desert, and savannah. Oh, and not too far away is the new ocean.

I am starting a map for Utopia, but it looks like we will need a few. As we explored much of the desert area south of the mesa back in Session 241-242, we did not head too far north. This is where the new territory lies.

Do you see it? I do!

We’re diving in the deep end as we greet our aquatic friends and the kelp forests of this new ocean system.

Check it out! It’s my first shipwreck discovery. What ancient treasures could lie within? Let’s find out.

A buried treasure map!

Hmm, it looks to be not so far away after all.

Wow! There is so much life under these waters. I will have to come back here once we find the treasure.

So, it appears that the treasure is buried underneath this sand dune. I wonder how long it will take me to find.

Don’t mind me; I’m just going to collect some kelp while I am out here. Seagrass too.

And hey! We have some turtles! It’s a good thing I brought shears, because I’m about to get some turtle eggs.

Indeed so! And I found the treasure underneath. What did we get inside?

A heart of the sea! Perfect – I can already speculate how we will be using this in Starlight HQ.

Hey, a Utopian village! Let’s check it out and see what we can harvest. This is, in fact, the very first 1.14+ village in Quintropolis, which makes it currently the only working village.

“Welcome to the village of Utopia,” he says.

“Thank you, kind sir. Now I am on a quest to find some new aquatic gems. Where do I have to go?”

“Head off the coast into Witherquin Waters!” he states emphatically. Witherquin Waters? Of course, it would be ominously titled.

Right off the village is a HUGE coral reef! Forget what I found earlier – I’m about to get all up in here.

It’s so colorful! I will plan on taking all types of corals. This stuff is going to look great in the Aqua Lounge.

Another shipwreck! Is this the equivalent of Bermuda? I hope not, but at the same time it wouldn’t be the worst thing.

^ An overview of the desert village and Witherquin Waters as we search for more treasure. This entire area is beautiful – I hope the village welcomes the opportunity for expansion.

What’s this? An underwater chasm? That is new.

Diamonds underwater? Since when did underwater caves descend this deep? I must have missed a lot.

An underwater ravine – also new!

I have found the best hiding spot at the bottom of the ocean, tucked underneath this rock. I am certain that I would win at hide and seek.

Check it out! A cave spider spawner here in the ocean.

Sorry buddy, I have already won this battle.

Sea pickles – underwater torches!

Organizing the corals I have collected, I can see that each type of coral has three variants – a regular coral, a coral fan, and a coral block. My goal is to collect a stack of each.

I caught myself a triggerfish!

Clues to an underwater voyage gone wrong… I am starting to get mildly suspicious of these waters.

This one has bamboo inside! With just a few pieces, I believe I can start a bamboo farm back at HQ without having to locate a bamboo jungle. This would be fantastic news.

A hoard of drowned approach me from the underwater ruins!

From that hoard, I have collected yet another trident.

I have also located a Mending fishing rod.

An ocean monument greets me – I might as well explore it. I need to stock up on prismarine blocks anyway.

This particular monument features TWO sponge rooms! I’ll be taking all of them once I take down the elder guardians.

One thing I am learning about turtles: they do not stop making eggs! Usually there is a cooldown, but not today. I already have half a stack of turtle eggs.

I think we have collected every block out here, so let’s make our way back to HQ. We now have to come up with an area to store them!

I have three shulker boxes full of aquatic blocks and items. So, I am planning to build an aquatic arsenal right here in Mushroom Cove to replace the old storage area for meats (since we no longer have animals here). This also means I am getting all those hoppers back.

Using prismarine and coral to decorate the space, I’ll have three sections for storage: one for prismarine blocks, one for corals, and one for everything else.

For the floor, all I need to do is fill the area underneath with water. I am learning that coral needs to be attached to a water block, whether still or flowing, in order to stay alive.

I am using kelp blocks for the first time, as they accent the back wall nicely.

There you have it! All coral blocks will be stored on the bottom layer of chests, while all coral and coral fans will be stored on the top layer. I have organized prismarine storage (which includes all slabs, stairs, etc.), as well as using the remaining chests to store kelp, seagrass, dried kelp (and blocks), nautilus shells, turtle eggs, and sea pickles.

The last two unlabeled chests will be for sponges (top) and other rarities like our buried treasure maps and hearts of the sea (bottom).

Next, I am switching out dark oak signs for oak signs on the Parkour Wall of Fame. It is easier to read from afar.

Keeping an aquatic theme, remember when we captured these two skeleton horses back during our Starlight Castle reconstruction? Well, as I’d like to keep them in the Aqua Lounge since you can ride them underwater, I need to build for them a proper home.

^ Here, we are at the exit gate into Starlight Bay. The area for the horses will be small but spacious enough.

Now, to get them there, I’ll need to temporarily break down the corridor to prepare a 2-wide space.

Indeed, I got them in with few problems, and now I can ride these guys out into the bay!

Finally, I am adding four turtle eggs to the Gold Grinder in order to attract zombie reinforcements. This should significantly improve our rates in the farm as no longer will zombies simply linger on the platforms.

Ah, it feels good to be back in Starlight HQ after our recent adventures! We have lots of work to do.