Impossible Minecraft – Our Guide
The whole family recently went through a playthrough of Impossible Minecraft by McMakistein and it was a HECK of a ride. It's very difficult and frustrating, but we made it all the way through. We didn't see a lot of people playing this and there were no guides, so we figured we'd take a stab at what we discovered. You have to be on 1.21.1 for this datapack.
Below are all the features we found, and most importantly, the things we did to fix/deal with them. In the end, we had an incredibly successful playthrough, accomplishing villager breeding, farm animal farming, finding 2 copies of pigstep, a conduit, and beating the dragon:
- Anvil
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.anvil
- Extends giant spikes in all cardinal directions breaking blocks
- Fix: Approach from diagonal
- Armor
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.armor
- Wearing armor gives you a level of slowness, up to 4
- Arrows (Skeleton, Piglin, Pillager):
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.skeleton
- Much more health, and arrows do extreme block-breaking damage - this applies to pillagers and piglins as well, which can quickly destroy a huge area
- Arrows fired NOT AT YOU will home in towards you even without line of sight (a piglin shooting a hoglin with a crossbow will inadvertently fire at you, even if you are far away and wearing gold)
- Mitigation: Arrows that hit you don't break blocks, so shields help a ton.
- Bat:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.vampire
- Bats turn into vampires, giving you blood thirst, killing you if you don't kill a mob within a minute
- Fix: Punch the bat, if it dies after you do damage you get credit for the kill
- Bed
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.bed
- Standing on a bed catapults you into the air, breaking blocks above you
- Fix: Place slabs over the bed
- Pro tip: Strip mine and place beds and step on them to drop all blocks above you, without mining penalties for coal, iron or diamonds
- Blaze:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.blaze
- Bigger burn radius, targets through walls, extra health, extra damage
- Boat:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.storm
- Getting in a boat or chestboat summons a lightning storm which will destroy your boat and light fires
- Brewing Stand:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.brewing_stand
- Must have 20-25 blaze powder; more burns you, less freezes you
- Cactus:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.cactus
- Deadly spikes shoot out 1-2 blocks
- Fix: Approach with eyeline below the cactus
- Chest:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.chest
- Opening any chest near a single chest will make a shulker with a water gun pop out and shoot you
- Only use barrels and double chests
- Pro Tip: There's a bug where chests on top of each other can glitch to bedrock, do not directly stack chests.
- Chicken:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.chicken
- Proximity means their heads shoot off and homing-missle you
- Coal:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.coal
- Mining coal ore will drop coal which explodes if not picked up in 3 seconds
- Cow:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.cow
- Stands on hind legs and shoots milk bullets from udders
- Crafting Table:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.crafting_table
- Spawns horizontal saw blades, then a cannon out the top, which fires a homing missle
- Fix: Encase crafting table in a 3x3x3 air space and approach from below
- Pro Tip: Use a crafter
- Creeper:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.creeper
- Spawns a circle of 10 creepers which blow up a massive radius
- Diamond:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.diamond
- Flashbangs you for nearly half health, then spawns little diamonds which run around and must be killed
- Fix: Contain an area before mining diamonds, and prepare to heal
- Dragon:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.dragon
- The dragon fight is a whole mess of a difficult 3-round fight, and you get a book when you approach the dragon, which explains it all before the battle begins. It's very hard.
- The dragon is sleeping when you get to the end and there are no endermen in the end
- Dragon has 3 heads, each representing a battle round. It has a tail that can be attacked, broken as an item, and used later (it will regrow it)
- Obsidian pillars have end crystals surrounded by a shield which only drops when healing, and you have a very narrow time window
- After crossing a segment of health, it will attempt to heal over and over until you break a crystal it is attached to, then it will not heal until under the next health segment
- While regenerating on a crystal, it has a chance to re-grow another end crystal, meaning breaking them fast is critical
- The dragon might speed up as the health decreases; it's hard to tell
- If you stay above a certain height (maybe 32 blocks) you encounter "dragon fog" which is large damage, so you have to stay below
- Round 1:
- The dragon has 3 heads
- Attacks
- Does a lightning strike which damages you and destroys whatever item is in your main hand; be ready to quickly switch to an empty hotbar slot
- Hovers and its tail sparkles, indicating 3 pools of dragons breath incoming. Tail is vulnerable.
- Hovers and its tail generates a ball, indicating a slam attack. Tail is vulnerable, and if you place a crystal where it slams, it will be stunned.
- Dive bombs the player for massive damage
- Round 2:
- The dragon now has 2 heads
- Obsidian pillars now have small blackstone walls around them, making the crystals harder to shoot
- Attacks
- All attacks from Round 1, but the dragon's breath forms 2 pools instead of 3
- The dragon has a perch attack where it generates a rotating wall from the end portal in the center; it is vulnerable to arrows in this attack
- Round 3:
- The dragon now has 1 head
- Obsidian Pillars now have large blackstone walls around them, making the crystals much harder to shoot
- Attacks
- All attacks from Round 2, but the dragon's breath forms 1 pool instead of 2
- The dragon has a laser wisp attack which strikes you for insta death but does not go through blocks
- Pro Tip:
- A single end portal is open even when you enter the end. You can get to the outer end islands and get elytra via this, or bridging.
- Having 1 dedicated fighter in the air to attack crystals is a huge buff, especially with keep inventory on via the Totem of Preservation.
- Our fighter routinely dive bombed into the crystals which was the key to making progress.
- Enchanting Table:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.enchanting_table
- Enchanting spawns 2 book-birds which go through walls and damage you and are hard to kill
- Ender Pearl:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.enderpearl
- Throwing an ender pearl damages you a ton, and destroys blocks in the path you throw it
- Eye Of Ender:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.ender_eye
- Throwing an ender pearl spawns a mini ender-dragon which flies towards the nearest stronghold, then turns back and hits a player, spawning dragon's breath
- When you are near the stronghold it makes a much tighter downward spin when you throw it
- Fishing:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.trident
- When fishing, you will get hit with a trident when pulling in an item. The item launches with the trident, so if you evade, you miss the item
- Fix: Cast far away with a wall behind you and evade when pulling a catch
- Furnace:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.furnace
- Shoots flames out the front when smelting and ignites and deletes any block a player stands on within 3 block radius
- Fix: Surround with waterlogged slabs in a 9x9 area, make a slab barrier 5x5 over the top
- Glowstone:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.glowstone
- Standing under glowstone rains damage onto you and gives you the "Bad Luck" effect
- Gold Block:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.gold_block
- If mined, explodes doing damage and spraying 9 ingots all over
- Iron:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.iron
- Iron ore, or iron golems, drop small 1-block tall iron golems which will attack you and must be killed
- Fix: Contain an ore in a 2-deep hole before breaking, kill iron golems by having them walk on magma
- Land Shark:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.land_shark
- A shark will chase you out of the water
- Lava:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.lava_wave
- Lava will spawn a lava wave which creates more lava sources and replaces a ton of blocks with magma
- Fix: Approach carefully from 3 blocks over and use water/gravity blocks to erase lava...WITH EXTREME CAUTION. This gets out of hand very fast.
- Pro Tip: Lava Cauldrons are harmless, making lava farming possible but EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Encase lava source on all sides and top with glass VERY FAST after placing the source.
- Nether Portal:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.nether_portal
- Spawns souls which are immediately hostile like vex
- Fix: Encase portal blocks in a block frame on all possible sides
- Obsidian:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.obsidian
- When mined, shrinks then explodes for a lot of damage
- Fix: Shield
- Pig:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.pig
- If you get near the pig bounces on it's springy tail and does a "ham slam" with huge splash damage
- Redstone:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.redstone
- Walking on lit redstone damages you
- Fix: Cover redstone with slabs
- Scarecrow:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.scarecrow
- A scarecrow with a cloud of deadly crows attacks you when planting crops
- Fix: Cover crops with slabs, and plant in crawl mode with a trapdoor
- Sculk (Standing At Eye Level):
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.sculk_root
- Sculk deploys damaging tendrils in all cardinal directions at eye level
- Mitigation: Do not approach sculk horizontally at eye level
- Sculk (Standing On):
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.sculk_hand
- Walking on sculk sucks you into the ground and suffocates you while giving you mining fatigue
- Mitigation: Do not stand on sculk
- Shark:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.shark
- Being in water spawns aggressive sharks that kill you and can follow you on land
- Shears:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.shears
- Running with shears damages you quickly
- Sheep:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.sheep
- Explosively shed wool in a large radius; harmless when they do not have wool on them
- Fix: Lure when naked; Classic observer-based wool farm
- Shulker:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.shulker
- Shulkers deploy a shield of about 2 blocks which stop arrows, and interfere with breaking blocks that close
- Fix: Get in close with a sword
- Slime:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.slime
- Shoots poisoning slime balls, leaves poisoning slime puddles
- Smoker:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.smoker
- Standing near an active smoker gives blindness and wither effects
- Soul Sand:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.soul_sand
- Walking on soul sand damages you
- Spider:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.spider
- Turns into giant 16-legged mutant spider which puts down cobwebs and has more health
- Note: Trap it in a 5x5x3 chamber with 1-wide gaps in walls then name tag it. Approach and it'll cobweb you for free string.
- Sugar Cane:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.sugar_cane
- Breaking sugar cane causes spikes to emerge from the ground and stab you
- Fix: Piston-based farming
- Tree:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.tree
- If you mine a log the rest of the tree radially explodes bark, damagine you, EXCEPT WARPED STEM
- Fix: Approach from below, or pre-strip logs at your level
- Villager:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.villager
- Turn into killagers when within range of player with increased speed, 1-block tall off-center hitboxes so they suffocate easily, and chainsaws
- If a killager kills a villager it has a chance to zombify, so keeping them in pens together is impossible
- Fix: Separate them into glass chambers for trading or iron farming, breed in boats
- Pro Tip: They don't restock, sleep, or spawn iron golems in killager mode, so afk a bit away.
- Wither Skeleton:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.wither_skeleton
- Turn invisible when damaged for a few seconds
- Fix: 2-tall wall
- Zombie:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.zombie
- Zombies have more health, and if you kill a zombie, it spawns 4 horned demon baby zombies
-
Fix: 2 block pillar
- Enderman:
- Scoreboard: mcm.itsv.feature_encountered.enderman
- The end is totally devoid of endermen
-
This may be bugged, we never triggered it, and I looked directly at endermen in the overworld and warped forest many times.
- Totem of Preservation:
- Turns the game rule "keep inventory" on for all players
- 4 ender chests in a plus with a recovery compass in the middle
- Extremely difficult to craft. Use a crafter. If you aren't using a crafter, fill inventory with seeds except for 2 slots top and center. Place recovery compass, then right click drag the ender chests, bottom to top, then left to right, shift clicking the totem out as you continue to the right.
- Totem of Nutrition:
- You don't need to eat anymore
- 4 golden apples in a plus with a nether star in the middle
- Extremely difficult to craft. Use a crafter. If you aren't using a crafter, fill inventory with seeds except for 2 slots top and center. Place nether star, then right click drag the golden apples, bottom to top, then left to right, shift clicking the totem out as you continue to the right.
- Dragon Staff:
- Prize for killing the dragon
- Lets you fire the laser whip from a custom dragon-headed staff
