Minecraft Snapshot 24w40a Patch Notes: New Features in Pale Garden, Creaking, and More

Importantly, Mojang has confirmed that all the newly introduced features will be accessible to fans in upcoming previews and snapshots.

Following Minecraft Live 2024, Mojang revealed the inclusion of Pale Garden, Creaking, and other exciting features as part of the second game drop. The Minecraft snapshot 24w40a brings a new experimental feature called Winter Drop, showcasing the Pale Garden biome, Pale Oak tree, and much more.

Let’s dive into the patch notes to explore the latest updates in Minecraft snapshot 24w40a.

Minecraft snapshot 24w40a patch notes

Winter Drop

Introduced Pale Garden Biome, Pale Oak tree, Pale Moss block, Pale Moss carpet, Pale Hanging Moss, and a new Pale Oak woodset
Included the Creaking mob, Creaking Spawn Egg, and Creaking Heart block

Pale Garden

The Pale Garden is a unique biome variation of the Dark Forest, featuring:

Pale Oaks that grow here
Pale Moss blocks/carpet that appear on the ground
Pale Hanging Moss that dangles from the leaves of Pale Oaks
No natural spawning of animal mobs in the Pale Garden
New ambient sounds exclusive to this biome
Creaking Heart blocks may appear in Pale Oaks

Pale Oak Tree

Pale Oak Leaves yield Pale Oak Saplings that can be arranged in a 2×2 grid to grow more Pale Oak trees
Pale Oak logs can be crafted into the Pale Oak woodset, which includes:

Door
Fence
Fence Gate
Plank
Sign
Hanging Sign
Slab
Stairs
Stairway
Wood
Stripped Log
Stripped Wood
Button
Pressure Plate
Boat
Boat with Chest

Pale Moss Block

Pale Moss blocks naturally occur within the Pale Garden biome.

Pale Moss Carpet

Pale Moss carpet also spawns in the Pale Garden biome, featuring:

When placed, Pale Moss Carpet can grow up to two blocks high on adjacent solid blocks
Can be bonemealed to fully grow on all neighboring solid blocks

Pale Hanging Moss

Found under the foliage of Pale Oaks, Pale Hanging Moss has the following characteristics:

Does not grow randomly, but can be bonemealed to extend downwards

Creaking Mob

The Creaking mob appears at night in the Pale Garden biome when a Creaking Heart block has formed in a Pale Oak. Gameplay attributes include:

The Creaking remains stationary if a player looks at it
Invulnerable to damage
Displays a particle trail when hit, connecting it to the Creaking Heart block
Destruction of the connected Creaking Heart block will remove the Creaking
Not influenced by light levels; spawns and despawns with the day/night cycle
Cannot enter Boats
Creaking spawned from a Creaking Heart does not go through portals
The Creaking Spawn Egg will generate a Creaking not connected to a Creaking Heart, remaining persistent regardless of day/night, loads and saves, and can be damaged. It possesses one health point (half a heart)
The Creaking from a Creaking Heart cannot be spawned with a spawn egg or through commands; it only exists as part of the Creaking Heart block
Players wearing a carved pumpkin can gaze at Creaking without it freezing

Creaking Heart

Located in Pale Oak trees, the Creaking Heart is a “living” block surrounded on all sides by Pale Oak wood logs. It can spawn a Creaking mob at night, positioned between two properly aligned Pale Oak log blocks.

Active at night; dormant during the day
Releases particle trails when the connected Creaking is hit by the player
Connecting Creaking is removed once the Creaking Heart block is destroyed

New System for Ambient Sounds in Pale Garden

Ambient sounds in the Pale Garden biome are generated by the blocks rather than coming from default biome settings:

Pale Hanging Moss produces soft atmospheric sounds when attached to Pale Oak Logs and Leaves
The Creaking Heart block emits eerie sounds while active at night, surrounded by logs

Changes

Bundle coloring recipes are now activated by dye instead of uncolored Bundle items
Shulker Box and Bundle coloring recipes will no longer work if applied to items of the same color
Added a visibility option to enhance targeted block outlines

Realms

The game mode for the last active world on a Realm will now be displayed on the main Realms interface if applicable

Technical Changes

Data Pack version upgraded to 56
Resource Pack version upgraded to 39

Data Pack Version 56

New particles added: block_crumble and trail

Commands

Riding Leash Knots, Lightning Bolts, and Fishing Bobbers with the ride command is no longer allowed
The rotate command has been added

rotate

Command

This new command allows players to rotate entities.

Syntax:

rotate <target> <rotation>
rotate <target> facing <facingLocation>
rotate <target> facing entity <facingTarget> [<facingAnchor>]

Parameters:

target: The entity to rotate
rotation: Two degree values indicating horizontal and vertical rotation
Relative (~) coordinates may be used to set rotation in relation to current context
facingLocation: Coordinates of the location for the rotated entity to face
facingTarget: An entity that the rotated entity will face
facingAnchor: Defines the anchor point of the facingTarget to rotate towards – feet or eyes (default is feet)

Note: Parameters share the same meaning as in the teleport command.

Enchantment Effects

Renamed effect type damage_item to change_item_damage, now supporting negative amounts

Fixed Bugs in Minecraft 24w40a

MC-64265 – Teleporting passengers do not dismount
MC-108323 – Chat and /title command underlines overlap, causing visual issues when fading
MC-185144 – Item durability and all items misrender in the villager trading UI
MC-272946 – Block outline is nearly invisible for some blocks
MC-273848 – Players can now again spawn underwater in version 1.21
MC-275505 – /tp command forces mounted entities to dismount
MC-275706 – Vanilla clients cannot display items with components in the recipe book anymore
MC-275790 – Non-existent entries in certain tags not required cause validation errors
MC-276005 – Sneaking players’ name tags are rendered completely or barely visible with high “Text Background Opacity” settings
MC-276330 – Bundles no longer emit sound when being emptied
MC-276387 – Bundles continue in open state when using hotkeys to shift them between slots
MC-276391 – Item durability and bundle fullness bars render incorrectly when hovered over recipe book elements
MC-276440 – Items within bundle tooltips can become unselected by scrolling, even with one item present
MC-276596 – Damageable horse armor with “damage_on_hurt”does not receive damage when the horse is hurt
MC-276640 – Riding an entity that is constantly teleported using relative coordinates produces shaky camera movement
MC-276651 – damage_item does not repair items when set to a negative value
MC-276669 – Pausing the game spams console with “Trying to save removed ender pearl, skipping”if ender pearls have landed
MC-276806 – The text for name tags behind blocks or entities is rendered invisible or barely visible with high “Text Background Opacity”
MC-276876 – Lava cauldrons now deal less damage to boats and minecarts than before
MC-276947 – Command server output in singleplayer appears in chat
MC-276948 – Split boat entity types have a capitalized ‘With’
MC-276949 – Old boat entity type translation keys are not deprecated
MC-276956 – Cannot access registries within container block entity “lock”field
MC-276980 – Projectiles resting against walls in water continue to create bubble trails

Minecraft snapshot 24w40a is now available for download via the official Minecraft launcher. To install it, navigate to the Installations tab and create a New Installation. Select snapshot 24w40a as your version. If it doesn’t appear, ensure snapshots are enabled in the Installations tab.

After installing snapshot 24w40a, create a new world and activate the Winter Drop toggle under Experiments to summon a world populated with exciting new features like the Pale Garden and Creaking.

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