It has taken ‘Minecraft’ 17 years to unlock one of the simplest actions for its players: sit down. And a few days after doing so, the striking thing is not that the players are sitting down. The thing is that the cushions on which they can do so have become, thanks to the ingenuity of the users, a rosetta stone that unlocks many other activities.
It suits you or makes you feel. On July 7, Mojang incorporated into Minecraftboth in its PC version and in its console and mobile versions, an object called cushion (cushion). It is made with three slabs of wool of the same color, exists in 16 different shades and allows, for the first time in the history of the game, to sit without resorting to mods or tricks. The same package adds a straw bed that avoids setting the respawn point when sleeping, designed for long expeditions.
Learn to sit. The need was not new. For years, the community has built fake chairs by hiding a mine cart inside a stair block, or resorting to saddled pigs, boats, and invisible armor supports to simulate a character sitting. The cushion once and for all solves a void that the players themselves had been filling for more than a decade with botched work. Mohjang has only formalized a need.
What have people done? More than sitting, of course. The cushion is classified as an entity and not a block, allowing it to break free from the usual ‘Minecraft’ grid and be placed in heights that a normal block could not occupy. It was not a decision linked to the game mechanics, but it has opened the door to experimentation. For example, there is no cooldown (mandatory waiting time before repeating an action) to sit and thanks to the possibility of being activated remotely and in a similar way to how beds work, chaining several cushions allows you to move faster than walking.
Some players have already built vertical elevators by placing a cushion every six blocks, with the trick of leaving an additional unit at the top to be able to get off. Others use the cushions to decorate the ice roads on which the boats slide, because since there is no collision they do not slow down the movement as any other building block would do. There are those who have integrated them into mechanisms of redstone (the “electrical cable” of the game) to build illuminated dance floors, and who has used them as roof tiles or as the base of furniture previously impossible without mods.
They don’t stop, they don’t stop. And of course, many creative constructions: there are those who have recreated a döner kebab only with cushions, but it is not the first time something like this has been done, this pattern has precedents. The update of redstone 2013 added a handful of technical blocks, including the comparator and the hopper (when the first is pointed at the second, it emits a signal of redstone proportional to the number of objects it contains), and ended up giving shape to a entire engineering subculture. Years later, the honey blocks of update 1.15, intended almost as minor filler, ended up allowing larger and more complex piston constructions than had been seen until then.
Give me cushions. The reception has been, in general, enthusiasticalthough the truth is that the cushions are still in the experimental phase. Mojang may decide that collisionless behavior is too powerful before the part reaches its final release, which will be in Drop 3 in 2026, scheduled for fall. It doesn’t matter, because if it’s not with this, it will be with another inane and harmless object with which the players will build completely unforeseen devices. Such is the greatness of this seemingly inconsequential game.
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