Three Years!

ComputerCraft 1.0 was released at 10pm on December 24th, 2011. This means that, as of 10 minutes ago, ComputerCraft has been available for download for three years! Thanks to everyone for sticking with it for all this time.

Merry Christmas from ComputerCraft

For the next week, all the Turtles in ComputerCraft will be wearing their hats to celebrate. I hope you’ll join them.

ComputerCraft 1.65

Hey all. This is just a small update to fix some small bugs that have been getting in the way of people enjoying ComputerCraft 1.64:

Downloads:

ComputerCraft 1.65 requires Minecraft version 1.7.10 with an up to date version of Minecraft Forge installed. Once you have Forge, drop the files into your /mods/ directory, and launch Minecraft.

Changelog:

  • Fixed a multiplayer-only crash with turtle.place()
  • Fixed some problems with http.post()
  • Fixed fs.getDrive() returning incorrect results on remote peripherals

Enjoy the update! And while I have your attention, check out the new game I’ve been working on: Redirection. End of plug.

ComputerCraft 1.64

Better late than never, ComputerCraft has been updated to Minecraft 1.7.10! There’s also some powerful new functions that allow Turtles to inspect blocks and items in much more detail. As always, thanks to everybody who helped beta test this release over the last few months!

Downloads:

ComputerCraft 1.64 requires Minecraft version 1.7.10 with an up to date version of Minecraft Forge installed. Once you have Forge, drop the files into your /mods/ directory, and launch Minecraft.

Changelog:

  • Ported to Minecraft 1.7.10
  • New turtle functions: turtle.inspect(), turtle.inspectUp(), turtle.inspectDown(), turtle.getItemDetail()
  • Lots of bug fixes and crash fixes, a huge stability improvement over previous versions

For those interested, the reason this update has taken so long is that I’ve been busy working on my new game Redirection, which has now been released! Head over to itch.io to check it out. Every purchase helps me to earn a living, which means more games, and more ComputerCraft updates. It’s also quite a fun game, and getting it now gets you a chance to make levels and have them be included in the release on Steam, so I hope you’ll consider it.

Enjoy the update.

Redirection – ComputerCraft Edition

Today I recorded a new video showing how to play the new “redirection” minigame in ComputerCraft 1.63, I’m rather proud of it:

Just download ComputerCraft 1.63 and type “redirection” as shown in the video to play it. If you like the look of the “real” Redirection shown at the end of this video, be sure to visit Redirection on Steam Greenlight and vote “Yes”. We’re 85% of the way to the elusive top 100 list now, so we need all the votes we can get to cross the finish line. If you’ve already voted, tell your friends to!

ComputerCraft 1.63

Hey everybody, it’s update time! This one brings a handful of bug fixes reported by our beta testers, and some new cosmetic features you’ll be dyeing to try out:

The game on the right is Redirection - ComputerCraft edition, vote for the real thing on Steam Greenlight!

Downloads:

ComputerCraft 1.63 requires Minecraft version 1.6.4 with an up to date version of Minecraft Forge installed. Once you have Forge, drop the files into your /mods/ directory, and launch Minecraft.

Changelog:

  • Turtles can now be painted with dyes, and cleaned with water buckets
  • Added a new game: Redirection – ComputerCraft Edition (type “redirection” on an Advanced Computer to play)
  • Turtle label nameplates now only show when the Turtle is moused-over
  • The HTTP API is now enabled by default, and can be configured with a whitelist of permitted domains
  • http.get() and http.post() now accept parameters to control the request headers
  • New fs function: fs.getDir( path )
  • Fixed some bugs

Thanks a lot to everyone who helped beta test this release and report bugs. The huge refactoring in 1.6 was a rocky road in terms of bugs, but I think we’re pretty steady now. See you after the Minecraft 1.7 port!

ComputerCraft 1.62

We found some more crash bugs, so had to do another update. This is what happens when you decide to refactor an entire mod from the ground up! Consider that lesson learned. There is one new feature though: “chat” now supports IRC commands!

Downloads:

ComputerCraft 1.62 requires Minecraft version 1.6.4 with an up to date version of Minecraft Forge installed. Once you have Forge, drop the files into your /mods/ directory, and launch Minecraft.

ComputerCraft 1.61 – Bug fix update

Hey all,
With an update as large as ComputerCraft 1.6, it was inevitable that a few bugs would slip through testing. This update addresses those. Specifically: it fixes cases of Computers not rebooting on Server restart, and of new Computers with different IDs all sharing the same folder structure. Enjoy!

Downloads:

ComputerCraft 1.61 requires Minecraft version 1.6.4 with an up to date version of Minecraft Forge installed. Once you have Forge, drop the files into your /mods/ directory, and launch Minecraft.

ComputerCraft 1.6 is here!

After the longest development period in ComputerCraft history, comes the biggest update in ComputerCraft history! Here’s direwolf20 with the lowdown on what you can expect to find inside:

Downloads:

ComputerCraft 1.6 requires Minecraft version 1.6.4 with an up to date version of Minecraft Forge installed. Once you have Forge, drop the files into your /mods/ directory, and launch Minecraft.

New Features:

  • Added Pocket Computers
  • Added a multi-tasking system for Advanced Computers and Turtles
  • Turtles can now swap out their tools and peripherals at runtime
  • Turtles can now carry two tools or peripherals at once in any combination
  • Turtles and Computers can now be labelled using Name Tags and Anvils
  • Added a configurable fuel limit for Turtles
  • Added hostnames, protocols and long distance routing to the rednet API
  • Added a peer-to-peer chat program to demonstrate new rednet capabilities
  • Added a new game, only on Pocket Computers: “falling” by GopherATL
  • File system commands in the shell now accept wildcard arguments
  • The shell now accepts long arguments in quotes
  • Terminal redirection now no longer uses a stack-based system. Instead: term.current() gets the current terminal object and term.redirect() replaces it. term.restore() has been removed.
  • Added a new Windowing API for addressing sub-areas of the terminal
  • New programs: fg, bg, multishell, chat, repeat, redstone, equip, unequip, falling
  • Improved programs: copy, move, delete, rename, paint, shell
  • Removed programs: redset, redprobe, redpulse
  • New APIs: window, multishell
  • New turtle functions: turtle.equipLeft() and turtle.equipRight()
  • New peripheral functions: peripheral.find( [type] )
  • New rednet functions: rednet.host( protocol, hostname ), rednet.unhost( protocol ), rednet.locate( protocol, [hostname] )
  • New fs function: fs.find( wildcard )
  • New shell functions: shell.openTab(), shell.switchTab( [number] )
  • New event “term_resize” fired when the size of a terminal changes
  • Improved rednet functions: rednet.send(), rednet.broadcast() and rednet.receive() now take optional protocol parameters
  • turtle.craft(0) and turtle.refuel(0) now return true if there is a valid recipe or fuel item, but do not craft of refuel anything
  • turtle.suck( [limit] ) can now be used to limit the number of items picked up
  • Users of turtle.dig() and turtle.attack() can now specify which side of the turtle to look for a tool to use (by default, both will be considered)
  • textutils.serialise( text ) now produces human-readable output
  • Refactored most of the codebase and fixed many old bugs and instabilities, turtles should never ever lose their content now
  • Fixed the “turtle_inventory” event firing when it shouldn’t have
  • Added error messages to many more turtle functions after they return false
  • Documented all new programs and API changes in the “help” system

The changelog speaks for itself, but this update was an absolutely massive endeavour, and I hope it shows. In addition to the new features, almost every part of the mod has been rewritten or refactored. To everyone who helped with Beta Testing: thanks! Your efforts were needed this update more than any other. To everybody else: Have fun!

Coming Soon: ComputerCraft 1.6

They say nothing makes a website look unmaintained like Santa Hats in the new year, so it’s time for a ComputerCraft status update: For the past month, I’ve been working solidly on a huge feature update for ComputerCraft that I’ve been unimaginatively calling ComputerCraft 1.6, I’ve been posting regular status updates on Twitter, but since not everybody reads that (though I recommend it!), here’s a rundown of the new stuff:

Additionally, I’ve refactored or rewritten huge parts of the codebase, the benefits to this are twofold: first up, old parts of the code that were buggy or error prone (because I was less experienced with Minecraft when I wrote them), are now a lot more stable. Secondly: cleaner code makes a happier programmer, hence all the fun I’ve been having adding new features!

TL;DR: there’s a lot of stuff, plus more to come. It’s great to be able to devote some serious time to modding again. Expect a release for Minecraft 1.6.4 and Minecraft 1.7.4 as soon as I stop adding features and start polishing things for release. Given all the links in this post, I’ll leave it an exercise for the reader to work out where the best place is to go for updates :p

ComputerCraft Year Two: Reflections on another year in modding

Twas the night before Christmas...

Two years ago today, on December 24th 2011, I was sat at my computer at my families house, putting the finishing touches on the very first version of my very first Minecraft Mod, ComputerCraft. At the time, I didn’t know anybody in the Minecraft community (I didn’t have a forum account, and I’d never been on IRC or Twitter), so I registered, uploaded the first version to mediafire, wrote a quick blurb and clicked “post”. Unsure of what the response would be, I went to sleep. By the end of the next day, it had been downloaded 50,000 times. By the end of 2012, it had been used by millions, and my future had been irrevocably changed.

This year saw new features, 3D Printed Turtles, Minecraft Expo UK, Minecon 2013, multiple media appearances, and the opportunity to work on other Mods like Billund, qCraft and ComputerCraftEdu (more on that soon!). In June, inspired by my success in modding, I quit my job to work on Minecraft stuff and my indie games full time, and so far I’ve been lucky enough to keep paying the bills!

I’d like to thank everyone who plays my mods for making everything I’ve achieved this year possible. Special shoutouts are due to everyone in the ForgeCraft community (in particular, direwolf20 and Slowpoke101) for being great friends and giving exposure to what I do, my friends at TeacherGaming, for giving me so many fun projects to collaborate on and cheerleading me at every opportunity, and to Mojang, for letting me be part of Minecon this year, and for always working hard making Minecraft the best game it can be. May they long continue to do so!

So Merry Christmas, and remember to play ComputerCraft before December 31st; if you do, you’ll find your Turtles will be dressed rather more festively than normal! And keep watching this site or my twitter in the the new year: I’m back to working on the mod full time, and my mind is buzzing with plans and designs for new features to implement. It’s gonna be fun!