The Minecraft Baddies

Minecraft has several different types of enemies and neutral creatures. Some of these are useful, some are useless, and one will destroy half of that house you just spent hours building.

These creatures are commonly known as mobs. Some mobs will only spawn in darkness. Here's a short list of the hostile creatures and what you can do with them. The pictures are from the Minecraft wiki. There's much more detailed explanations over at the wiki.

Zombies

Zombies will only spawn in the dark. This means at night, they'll come out, and if you're not protected inside a house, they'll make a bee-line for you. You are just a tasty snack to them. Kill them and they drop feathers. Zombies will burst into flames on sight of the sun. Arguably this is even worse, because the only thing worse than a zombie, is a flaming zombie...

Skeletons

Skeletons are similar to zombies, and spawn at night or in dark places. Unlike zombies, though, skeletons will shoot arrows at you. Keep this in mind when building your fort. They also have the terrifying ability to ride our next friend, spiders! Skeletons drop arrows when they are killed. Skeletons will also burst out into flames in the morning.

Spiders

Spiders have very good mobility thanks to how well they can jump. Spiders are a strange creature because at night, they are hostile, yet during the day, they don't even seem to notice you. Kill them to get string. 1% of spiders also have a skeleton riding on them.

Creepers

Creepers are one of the most dangerous mobs in the game. They spawn at night, and will stalk you while you're not paying attention. Once they get close enough to you, you'll hear a hissing sound. This is their fuse. They'll then explode in a few short seconds, and probably take out a good chunk of your house. They won't explode if they can't get close to you though, so you'll be safe inside your house. Creepers don't combust on sight of the sun, however, so watch out for them in the early morning.

Slimes

Slimes are one of the more elusive hostile mobs. They only spawn in very deep caves, and can split into smaller slimes when struck. There are three sizes of slimes: small, normal, and large. Only normal and large slimes can harm you.


These are all the hostile mobs currently in the game, although there will soon be new additions. The update coming at the end of October should bring some scary new Halloween mobs!