close enough, welcome back pink wither
I'm a modern minecraft enjoyer but I think I could write a thesis on why this is probably my least favorite feature ever. what are they doing
ok i was gonna be brief but nvm it's full speed ahead autism infodump time. I'm gonna break this into Categories
1: Intimacy (teehee)
minecraft normally takes great care to create a deep and intimate relationship between you and your surroundings. climbing a mountain, getting down from a mountain, boating through a river, crossing an ocean, navigating a forest, and traversing between end islands are all examples of traversal that Feels crunchy and unique. I find that I develop an intimate relationship with my worlds in large part through these different flavors of traversal within them, which are full of their own little micro traversal puzzles, inconveniences, and small dangers. conversely, whenever I open creative mode, I'm kind of struck by how sterile and lifeless it makes a world feel, and a large part of that is because all the above flavors of traversal and more are flattened down into one universal "fly over it" solution. I think this is a large part of what players are talking about when they say elytra are OP (well, really elytra + rockets). I have a little pet theory that they may be a large contributor to the "two week Minecraft phase." elytra flight is really exciting on its own, but I find it absolutely decimates the intimacy I've built up with my world and leaves it feeling cold and sterile, despite how fun the flight is. happy ghast flight doesn't even seem to have the fun factor of elytra...! no sense of gravity, no speed, no big swoops, no resource management, not even the tiny risk of maybe running into something too fast and getting hurt. seemingly the only reason not to use the happy ghast over ground-based transport is that it's kinda slow (though it'll make up for some of that lack of speed via the ability to fly directly toward a destination without needing to curve around things or climb over them, which adds to the travel time)
2: Building
building in survival is normally textured by a million tiny puzzles and their solutions. a common example being building up your walls underneath yourself so you can walk on top of them as you raise them up, solving the problem of not being able to build them up very high from the ground. scaffolding is one approach to many of these problems that comes with its own crunchy micro-puzzles. building your scaffolding in a way that accommodates their horizontal distance limits, building it in a way that won't get in the way of building, aiming your cursor through the holes in the hitbox to place things, building it to avoid losing any of it via pieces landing on top of parts of your build when you break it down, the resource management of the scaffolding itself depending on how much you brought (and planning ahead to judge how much you should bring!). the happy ghast is seemingly just creative mode flight but slower, solving almost every building micro-puzzle in the same way, though I will say it might be occasionally interesting to need to accommodate the size of it. building up high, though, normally has the deepest and most interesting micro-puzzles, but I guess not anymore if you have one of these
(also, speaking of transport, I love making paths and bridges and tunnels and such to get around my worlds more easily, but doing so feels meaningless once I can fly. though maybe in practice it will be slow enough that infrastructure would still feel meaningful... we'll see!)
3: Emotional Ambiguity
imo, emotional ambiguity is vital to minecraft's tone. I have so many reasons for this that I'll just break it into bullet points
Intrigue: vague, unclear, or conflicting emotions make things interesting and mysterious. the normal ghast is actually a perfect example, expressing a confusing mix of sorrow, indifference, rage, and even a hint of contentment in some of its sounds. it'll scream and shoot at the player and then just wander off. it'll fly into lava and catch on fire and not seem to care. is it crying right now or are those dried tear trails? does it care that I'm here or not? why is it crying? why does it sound kind of content? by expressing an ambiguous blend of emotions, it raises interesting questions and deepens the intrigue and mystery of the game's world, which is a vital aspect of minecraft's appeal imo!! it also leads to...
Interpretation: ambiguous emotions invite players to interpret things in various ways, both consciously and unconsciously. not only does this empower players to invent their own lore by raising open questions, it's honestly an elegant solution to the problem of needing to make living creatures in one of the most dynamic games in the world react believably to any situation. is the happy ghast still gonna smile if you're attacking it? or will they make a unique "upset" texture for that situation? what if you kill other ghasts in front of it? will it just keep smiling? no matter what, there will always be situations where it seems completely wrong for it to express what it's expressing, making its joy come off as meaningless and thus making the player's relationship with it feel hollow. I think, over time, players will start to see the happy ghasts themselves as sterile. best case scenario this makes them unsettling in an interesting way, worst case it pokes at the fourth wall and breaks the fantasy. I think this is the first mob in all of Minecraft to smile, but they could have added at least a little ambiguity by turning the eyebrows down to make it more of a "bittersweet" smile, or maybe even removing the brows entirely...?
Hamfistedness: "grimstone" was the original name for deepslate, and I'm very glad they changed it. "grimstone" got too close to telling the player how they should feel about it, rather than creating a grim vibe and letting the player experience it organically. I think names like that tend to feel kind of cheap and hacky, like a halloween decoration. it's antithetical to the mystery and intrigue of minecraft, and it feels almost condescending?? the name "happy ghast" feels so hamfisted and insincere that I hate even typing it out hsgshsgsgs. at least call it the mellow ghast so we can start calling them marshmallows...
Also, nitpicks!!!
what's up with the giant steampunk goggles? I don't mind if they want to put a dash of steampunk in the game, but it feels very tropey and straightforward the way it's done here. jarringly out of place. also, at the risk of sounding like cinemasins, why would it wear them only when a player rides it? does it not need to keep the wind out of its eyes at other times...? does it even need to worry about that considering it's so slow? knowing that it's to let players on the ground know whether someone's riding it just makes it feel contrived for the player's benefit, a feeling Minecraft usually avoids
similarly, why did they say it's "tempted" to come toward you if you hold the harness? what is "tempting" about the harness? framing it that way makes it feel like the mob's desires are nonsensical and just contrived for the player's convenience, making it feel hollow. though hopefully in context it feels more like a pet loyally coming to its owner when it's wanted or something like that?
also... are they gonna update the original ghast's texture to match the strangely high resolution of this one?
I mean, the pixel density compared to the size and simplicity of the model looks kinda nasty, like a hi-res texture pack that looks uncanny because it tries to fake too much depth and detail on too simple a model. the lo-res texture of the normal ghast already felt kinda wonky if you got up close, but I think upping the texture size without also upping the model complexity in some way kinda makes it worse?? they've painted themselves into a corner here by making a ghast you're supposed to get close to, I think
the texture is also kinda nasty cause the eyes and mouth like, seem to be trying to still invoke the pixel size and shape of the normal ghast, but then, up next to the curve of the harness's cloth, it looks like inconsistent pixel sizing even though it isn't. if they're gonna change the texture, they should probably just go all in, cause doing a half measure like this looks horrible next to the harness texture
overall, I just think minecraft is designed much more interestingly and creatively than this. this mob feels very uninspired in the same game that added the strider when players were suggesting obsidian boats. a flying mount could have been really cool and interesting!! riding ghasts is one of those obvious ideas that I'm sure a lot of players have thought of, but I'm not convinced it'll be good for the game at all (we'll see...!)
lord I wrote a lot wtf
yeah lol idk. I'm a big modern minecraft enjoyer! even when I'm not sure about a new feature, thinking about it more deeply tends to make me appreciate it more and eventually love it. but I've kinda experienced the opposite with this mob. thinking about it feels like a rabbit hole
I probably come across as nitpicky and overly negative, but I do really like thinking through all these small things! it's fun! and it helps me better understand and appreciate what I do love about this game and its design. hopefully when this feature comes out it turns out to avoid some of the issues I mentioned above, maybe with some mechanics we don't know about yet!
actually hang on I'm not done
Some rework ideas...
-its mere presence attracts a unique flying mob (or just phantoms) at night, adding a little danger to spice up long trips. you'd also have to be careful where you leave your ghast or else you'll be swarmed. airborne combat could be pretty cool! could be some hellish (or angel-like? allay-like?) entity trying to bring them back to the nether. maybe they could actually succeed in teleporting you both to the nether, and you'd end up at the equivalent coordinates, adjusted to drop you off somewhere reasonable, similar to how nether portals work
-when flying over larger bodies of water, it will sometimes spontaneously drop out of the sky to go for a quick dip, dumping you in the middle of the ocean til it decides it's done swimming. maybe it does this when you fly over squids cause it wants to visit them. tentacle gang
-they dry out over time and will do something like sink to the ground, start taking damage, or maybe straight up drop players. or turn back into the dry ghast block, which could have gravity like falling sand! they can be rehydrated with snowballs, water buckets, water bottles -- all things with limited stack sizes, so you need to stop to replenish frequently. or maybe you could just park it in water for a bit. maybe it sponges up the water til it's full
-maybe it just wanders off if you don't pen it in, and it can't be attached to a lead, so you have to build big pens for it wherever you want to leave it behind
-normal ghasts are hostile to it, freaked out by its unusually chill demeanor. they aim for its large hitbox rather than your tiny one
-maybe it has a really volatile temperament and will act like a normal ghast if it feels threatened, shaking off riders and shooting at them... or it could just do the shaking them off part. some possible fears: hostile mobs, the night, confined spaces, fire, lava, torches, pigs and piglins (implying maybe piglins hunt ghasts in the nether?), cats (it's trendy to be afraid of cats in minecraft. oh I guess ghasts are also voiced by a cat...! spicy irony), being over the end void for too long, deserts (too dry!), being in the nether at all, pale forests, the deep dark, or phantoms (careful making long journeys!). giving it some irrational fears could also make it seem kind of emotionally unpredictable, which could mayyybe make its inevitable unfitting reactions to other things feel less weird?
-your dogs and golems don't trust it and will attack it on sight. passive mobs run away from it, maybe even leaping over fences lol
-thunder really likes striking it if there's a storm. maybe god is angry
-maybe, after a while of ferrying players around, it has repaid its debt of gratitude, ascends to a higher plane, and is never seen again
















