Minecraft Modding Is Easier Than You Think
One reason Minecraft has become so popular is that players can modify ("mod") the game, adding new features and rules that aren't present in the standard Minecraft experience. In this article, I'll show you how relatively simple the process of modding is, and I'll share some pointers and hazard warnings to help you get started on creating your own mods. It's probably easier than you think. Let's take a look.
Modding Minecraft
Because the standard Minecraft server provided by Mojang isn't easily modifiable, here are a few projects (of many) devoted to making Minecraft modding possible:
- CanaryMod
- Forge
- Spigot
All of these frameworks provide application programming interfaces (APIs)a set of procedures that can be called, enabling mod creators to add new features to the game.
Because Minecraft is written in the Java programming language, each of the modding frameworks also uses Java and requires mod creators to understand Java. Java is a full-featured language, most commonly used for business applications, but it can be a difficult language to learn if you're just starting out in programming.
ScriptCraft
ScriptCraft is a project I created to make it easier to create Minecraft mods. ScriptCraft makes it possible to create mods using the JavaScript programming language. Java and JavaScript have similar names, but they are very different languages.
JavaScript
JavaScript is most commonly used in web pages, but because of its power and simplicity it is increasingly used in other applications as well. JavaScript is concise, enabling you to do more with less code, and its simplicity makes it easier than some of the other languages to learnespecially for beginners.