Creeper

The Creeper is an infamous hostile mob that will ambush players and explode, causing damage to the player and the surrounding blocks. Unlike Zombies and Skeletons, Creepers will not catch fire in direct sunlight, meaning they can wander around unharmed any time of day and are still aggressive. Underground or on the surface, creepers will spawn at night and in dimly lit locations with a light level of 7 or less. They are especially dangerous as they are almost completely silent (except for footsteps and their hissing noises when sensing a player), and their explosion is devastating at short range. Creepers run from Cats and Ocelots and will even ignore the player to run away when a feline is too close. As of 1.2.4, Creepers seem to be spawning freely in forest biomes, regardless of light level, albeit rarely.

When asked to describe the physical texture of a Creeper, Notch said they would feel "crunchy, like dry leaves".

Appearance
Creeper is a handless humanoid creature, with four short curvy legs, large empty eye sockets, a mouth twisted into a sad expression and a greenish skin with some gray spots.

Publicity
Creepers have a formidable reputation among players because of their potential to damage players and destroy player-made structures, which has made them a widely-recognizable Minecraft icon. They are referenced in several of the items available at the Minecraft merchandise depot, and have become an internet meme complete with fan art, web comic references, and demotivational posters. A central part of the meme is the creeper's unofficial catchphrase derived from the mob's tendency to sneak up on the player and hiss before detonating.

"That'sssss a very nice ___________ (everything, house, etc.) you've got there... It'd be a (ssss)shame if anything were to happen to it..."

Appearances
TV Series
 * Several creepers have appeared on TV during episodes of the TV show Mad (Criminal Minecraft and ThunderLolcats ) In ThunderLolcats they use the catchphrase, saying "That'ssss a very nice wall you've got there."

Youtube Videos
 * Youtube hosts many videos that feature creepers. Review videos, "Let's Play"'s, cartoons and cameos on many other videos. When searching for the query "Minecraft creeper", Youtube brings up about 90,000 videos.

Flash Games
 * In Stealing the Diamond, when Henry sneaks up to the museum's outer wall with a pickaxe, a creeper comes up behind him and explodes, destroying part of the wall instead.
 * At the far end of the map in Stick RPG2, a smiling creeper can be seen in a hole at ground level.

Other Games
 * In a game called Quube Twodee made by Universal Chicken in Adelaide, Australia, one of the levels has a Creeper face.
 * PixelJunk Shooter 2 for the PS3 shows a small creeper in the title screen hidden among other enemies native to Shooter 2.
 * In a custom level for VVVVVV, "Pyramid Escape", to the far left of the pyramid, a creeper's face can be seen carved into the background.
 * Then again, this level was made by Notch himself.

Uses
Creepers are the easiest obtainable source of gunpowder when killed (the more challenging alternatives being defeating ghasts and conquering dungeons), and are therefore critical to the production of TNT. Each creeper can drop 0 - 2 units of gunpowder upon death.

Music Discs
Creepers are the only mob that drops Music Discs, and can only do so if killed by a skeleton. How the creeper is damaged beforehand doesn't matter as long as the final blow which kills it is made by a skeleton's arrow. The easiest way to arrange this is to significantly hurt the creeper, then put it between you and a skeleton. Come close enough for both mobs to chase you, then keep moving backwards. The skeleton will shoot its arrows into the creeper until it dies. A music disc must be put into a jukebox to be used. Charged creepers can also drop music discs.

Behavior
Creepers will chase after any player they see within a 16 block radius. Creepers will climb steps, navigate mazes, and traverse other complex obstacles in order to get as close as possible to the player. They will cease pursuit if the player moves more than 16 blocks away. A Creeper will also stalk the player, making it very hard to escape when the player is busy doing something else.

When within one block of a player, a Creeper will hiss loudly, start flashing and inflating, and violently explode after 1.5 seconds. Killing a Creeper before the countdown finishes will prevent it from detonating. A Creeper's detonation can be halted if the player moves out of the blast radius (about 3 - 4 blocks).

If a Creeper is attacked by another mob, they will chase that mob and explode when close enough, just as they do with players. This can happen when a Creeper gets caught in the crossfire between the player and a skeleton. However, they do not do this in 1.2.5 unless you're in creative mode and the creeper isn't aggressive. If the skeleton shoots the creeper it will explode at close range. If you try to do this in survival mode the creeper will get shot but that will push it forward to you.

Creepers make no sound, except for common mob sounds like footsteps, splashing in water, etc. Their only unique sounds are the sharp hissing and clicking noises they make when they get hurt.

If the player manages to block a creeper behind a soul sand one-way entrance, they can approach up to two blocks without triggering the countdown, but if they suddenly go into a sneaking position, the creeper will hiss and initialize the countdown. This demonstrates that creepers count down farther away if the player is at a lower elevation, and will only count down if much closer to a player are at a higher elevation - probably because players can outrun explosions at a higher altitude and are more shielded from the blast there.

Creepers are afraid of cats and will flee from a cat or ocelot if one is too close, even if the player is within their range of sight. A creeper which sees a cat will run directly away from the cat as best as possible, and come to a stop after a "safe" distance has been reached. This distance is smaller than the creeper's range of sight, and this results in a possible endless cycle of approach an fleeing if a player is standing near a cat. Creepers still will detonate in their fleeing mode and thus are still a danger if the player gets too close.

Explosive Properties
A creeper's explosion is 25% less powerful than that of TNT, with an explosive power of 3. Charged creeper explosions are 50% more powerful than TNT and twice that of a normal creeper's.

As with TNT and Ghast fireballs, all dropped items in the explosion radius will be destroyed. A certain percentage of blocks destroyed by the creeper will survive the blast and can be picked up. In terms of environmental damage, the harder the material caught in an explosion, the less damaging the explosion will be to anything behind the material.

Charged Creepers
A charged creeper is a dangerous type of creeper created when lightning strikes within 3 - 4 blocks of a normal creeper (a rare occurrence). Charged creepers do not otherwise spawn naturally and can be distinguished from normal creepers by the blue aura surrounding them (this blue aura is the power.png in the armor folder in your minecraft.jar file). Many players refer to charged creepers as "Lightning creepers", due to the fact that they are created by lightning striking the creeper.

Charged creepers take damage from the initial lightning strike, so it takes fewer attacks to kill them than an ordinary creeper. Their countdown timers act the same as uncharged creepers, both range-wise and time-wise. However, an explosion caused by a charged creeper is much more powerful, than an explosion caused by a regular creeper (as shown in the image above). This blast is both more powerful and of greater radius.

Charged creepers have the same entity IDs as normal creepers but they have a powered tag set to 1.

Combat
The safest way to engage a creeper is from a distance by shooting two fully charged arrows at it with a bow so it cannot explode near the player. You can also risk trying to kill it with a sword. Players can take advantage of the creeper's countdown system by hitting it, retreating a few blocks away, and repeating this until it dies.

Swimming creepers can be easily dealt with using melee attacks while the player is underwater. Alternatively, the player can find sufficiently high ground to strike a creeper from above with a melee weapon without the detonation sequence being activated. However, the player should keep in mind that creepers move forwards and to the right (your left) when in pursuit.

Another method to kill a creeper is by doing a critical attack (implemented in the 1.8 update) by jumping in the air and, while falling, quickly hit the creeper. Then attack the creeper again normally. This allows a player to slowly work down a creeper's health while remaining out of the explosion radius.

A diamond sword can quickly dispatch a creeper with three successive hits, one right after the other. This is not a recommended tactic around multiple creepers, though it can be a lifesaver when exploring underground should a creeper suddenly fall down behind the player in dim, tight areas.

If a creeper is below the player, the player can suffocate a creeper (and many other mobs) by placing a block of sand or gravel above the creeper as long as the block they are placing is on a wall or a block in front of the player and above the target mob. It will usually take one to two blocks to cover the creeper and when it is covered, the creeper will slowly suffocate to death. This is a slow way of eliminating a creeper but it will keep the player out of harm's way and preserve the durability of their weapon.

If caught in a difficult place without a weapon, the player can run away if he or she is outdoors or tunnel down towards bedrock and wait for the creeper to de-spawn before surfacing. A failsafe is to set the difficulty to peaceful, removing all hostile mobs, although this is considered cheating by many players.

A sword enchanted with Knockback is efficient at fighting creepers as you can repeatedly strike them without them getting close enough to you for a length of time sufficient for them to explode.

Another method is to sprint, attack as to knock it back and prevent explosion, and retreat as to gain more distance. Then repeat.

Defensive Measures
Due to creepers' natural stealth and potential hazards to the player and his/her structures, the player must remain vigilant at all times, especially in caverns and heavily wooded areas. Players are advised to keep a sword in their inventory to switch to at a moment's notice, even if they have a cat in tow. To keep creeper populations down on the surface, a player in SSP can sleep in a sheltered bed at dusk since creepers spawn regularly if given the chance to do so at night. Players on an SMP server with other players must coordinate to sleep, as all players must be in a bed after dusk to cycle the map to dawn.

Construction Safeguards

 * Since wooden slabs are a damage value of stone, They can be used to make wooden creeper-resistant houses. This no longer works as of 12w17a.
 * Glass walls around entrances can preempt the creepers' habit of hiding in ambush around corners (but this is offset by the disadvantage that glass is not very durable in an explosion).
 * Ladders should be placed carefully, as creepers are capable of climbing ladders, despite lacking arms.
 * To minimize creeper damage to shelters and structures, the surrounding, interior, and roof areas should be well-lit.
 * Buildings should be constructed out of sturdier materials like cobblestone, stone, end stone (having better resistance than stone but not totally explosion-proof), stone brick, or brick (with obsidian having the best blast resistance).
 * Players should bear in mind that while an explosion will only destroy cobblestone construction to a depth of one block, it will destroy several blocks of dirt, sand, Netherrack, and gravel and may therefore expose a vulnerability to a building's unreinforced basement should it explode against a wall made of such material.
 * Alternatively, the buildings can be built raised over the ground outside the reach of a creeper's blast radius or on a platform on the surface of a deep ocean or lake, where the surrounding water will absorb most of the explosive force from swimming creepers. ** Note that Water and lava will completely cushion explosive damage to any blocks, but not to entities (players, any floating items).
 * Placing a small glass wall 2 or 3 blocks high around the area wanted to be protected can be a very effective method. Just don't get within the area where your wall is and keep the area being enclosed well lit.


 * Although obsidian is harder to obtain, it is a great anti-creeper building material.
 * The most basic example is a 3x1x3 (length x width x height, so a total of 7 blocks required) frame around a main front entrance. With such a frame, the wooden doors may be blown off, but damage to the surrounding area should be relatively minimal.
 * Having a 4x3x3 obsidian bed/panic room can be useful as a place to run to when being chased by multiple creepers.
 * Stone slabs provide excellent defense against creeper explosions as well, and are considerably easier to obtain than obsidian. While a creeper will typically blow out the stone slab itself, the slab will prevent the explosion from damaging the underlying blocks, even if said underlying blocks are dirt or weaker material.
 * Fencing provides a great way to protect holdings, provided that the player finds fencing aesthetically compatible with a given property.
 * Surround a property with a simple cobblestone curtain with some mechanism for opening/closing the entry point.
 * Care must be taken when exiting such a fortification, as creepers that are nearby or have targeted the player and are silently tracking them through the wall will set upon the player immediately. Any damage to this curtain is generally easier to repair than a more intricate building or other construction inside it.
 * Wooden doors connected to a pressure plate on the inside, are a superb way to control access to a perimeter. The wooden door allows players to easily open and enter, and the pressure plate guarantees that the door is closed upon exiting.
 * An iron door can be used in the same manner, but must incorporate a button on the outside. This can make it difficult for new players or players with less than optimum systems/data connections to navigate easily.
 * Pressure plates should not be placed outside, as creepers can trigger them and enter the structure.
 * Trapdoors will prevent creepers from climbing upwards, and are highly recommended in any situation where they have a chance to make an appearance.
 * Soul Sand can be used to make a one-way door. By placing soul sand one block outside of an opening, the sinking effect prevents entry into a 1x2 doorway/opening.  Players can circumvent this with a diagonal jump over the Soul Sand and into the doorway itself.
 * Drawbridges made with sticky pistons can be employed to deny access to creepers. When used in conjunction with a wall or moat (see below), a drawbridge activated by a switch (not a pressure plate) will temporarily create passage for players as needed.
 * Planting some Cactus outside your house as a barricade is a good way to keep creepers out, the damage is minimal if you accidentally touch it unlike lava, and it is unlikely that creeper loot gets destroyed by the cacti, which makes it a good mob farmer as well.
 * Building a treehouse is a great way to escape creepers, you just need to use the tree on tree planting trick and lots of complex and thin paths, you can then bump the creeper off the house merely using your fists, this then kills it making it useful for getting it's loot. However the only snag is that you have to kill the creeper before it starts to detonate, or else it will deal significant damage to your treehouse.
 * Stopping a ladder two blocks before your destination stops the creeper in its path since it cant jump up that high
 * If a more 'wooden' look is preferred by the player, said player can make a 'blast-proof' wooden house. Said house to make is time-consuming and shouldn't be attempted or even started if dusk is on the way. Players should start by making an inner frame of the desired wood, shape, and size. Just 1 block thick. Then line that frame with a 1-2 block thick layer of obsidian. The obsidian acts as the 'blast-proof' part of a blast proof house. Then make your outer layer of the desired wood and put your various bits and bobs in it and BAM! Blast proof house.
 * If the player is playing Beta 1.8, Beta 1.8.1, or 1.0.0, the player can put Ladders on a wall. The player then gets on top of the ladder and jumps to a ledge or inside the building directly. This has been removed in 1.1, but has since been re-added in 1.2.1.
 * A ring of cats around a fortress will keep creepers at a safe distance at all times. While somewhat time-intensive, this is the most effective way at dealing with creepers, although other monsters can still draw close to your base at night.

Specialized Methods
Cactus Field
 * Cactus can be grown in a checkerboard or diagonal formation to provide an effective deterrent for most mobs, including creepers. A creeper walking into cactus will take damage and eventually die.  When using this strategy, it is best for the player to move in such as way as to keep cactus between themselves and the mob in question as they can weave through before taking lethal damage if their trajectory to the player is aligned properly.

Deadfall Field
 * Basically, this is an inverse of the cactus checkerboard mentioned above. Creating a checkerboard pattern of holes 1 block by 3+ blocks deep will prevent single-block mobs from approaching player buildings.  It will capture the mob and hold them in each hole.  Undead mobs will burn when the sun is overhead, and creepers will despawn at noon.  It is best to create deadfall fields at least 10 meters wide, and long enough to screen the entire property.  Potential issues include capturing livestock and other players.  Piston-based drawbridges or button activated doors can allow safe passage for players. An effective compromise is to create "S" shaped paths through the fields.  As mobs walk directly toward their active target, they will still fall into a hole while players can navigate the path safely.


 * Deadfall Variants (all potentially lethal to players, so use caution)
 * Drowner/Burner
 * By placing water or lava in deadfall field pits, a player can protect their buildings while also disposing of the creeper entirely. Lava can be placed at the surface   (1 block deep) or at the bottom of the 3+ deep pit.  While highly dangerous to any player or mob, this will quickly eliminate any creeper threat.  Any items dropped will of course be consumed by the lava.


 * Cactus Deadfall Combination
 * By widening the bottom of each deadfall hole and placing a sand block directly under the pit itself, cactus can be planted to damage anything falling into the hole. To accomplish this, the cactus must have clearance.  The builder must ensure that there is only one block of space between the lowest pit opening and the cactus itself.  This configuration requires more time, but can allow the player to access the lower area to collect loot (and cactus as they will break off when they attempt to grow upward).


 * True Deadfall
 * Though time consuming, a player can dig each pit deep enough to ensure creeper death on impact.


 * Piston Trap
 * By putting a (stone) pressure plate at the bottom of the hole, and linking it up to a piston 1 block above the pressure plate and 1 to the side, it is possible to kill creepers while keeping their items easily. However, the complicated wiring needed to keep the piston down long enough to suffocate the creeper consumes redstone.


 * Netherrack Burner
 * A deadfall can also end in netherrack that is infinitely burning. This makes an effective alternative to lava-filled pitfalls. Since a player may have plenty of netherrack on them at any given time, but lava takes up a full bucket for each distribution, players may find this variant to be more convenient to make.

Moats

As an alternative to a deadfall field, a player can simply dig a moat encompassing their property, spanning it with bridges equipped with secured entries (Doors, pistons, etc.). Moats can be dry, or filled with water/lava or lined with burning netherrack.

A 3 block deep dry moat will trap creepers, and a ladder with trap door can provide hapless players with a method to escape while preventing creepers from also doing so. Note: one caveat to simple dry moats, is the potential for a player to fall into a moat already containing creepers, resulting in explosion damage to the surrounding area.

Filling the moat with water can be more aesthetically pleasing, but the builder must ensure that the waterline is deeper than the lip of the moat to ensure creepers cannot escape once trapped. Water, as previously noted, has the side effect of mitigating block (but not entity) damage as well.

Filling a moat with lava has the same benefits and drawbacks as lava filled deadfalls, mentioned above.


 * Variants
 * Piston Crusher
 * With moats one or two meters wide, sticky pistons can be used to automatically or selectively crush mobs that fall into a trap. Depending upon the size of a given moat, this can be extremely resource and time intensive.  One option is to combine this with water to channel creepers into the crusher itself.  Another drawback is that in the event that a player somehow sets off a creeper inside or near the moat, the damage can be difficult to repair.


 * Arrow Dispenser
 * A dry moat lined with pressure plates wired to arrow filled dispensers is an expensive but effective and interesting method of dealing with creepers. One must ensure that the dispensers are periodically refilled. This method can also be configured for manual activation, an option that is less dangerous to players and easier to recover spent arrows and loot.

History
Creepers were first introduced in Survival Test version 0.24 on August 24, 2009. They were based on a failed pig model Notch had created.

In Survival Test, the creeper's default look was a darker shade of green and flashed to a lighter green upon being hit. Before creepers spotted the player their heads would droop down. Creepers behaved much like zombies except their attacks dealt only two hearts worth of damage rather than the zombies' three (or the more recent range of 8+). After taking damage, it would flash as an indicator of impending detonation. When killed, this creeper caused a 4x4x4 spherical explosion that left a sizable crater, destroyed plenty of blocks (with the exception of stone) and hurt any players nearby. The creeper was worth 250 points when killed, but this was later decreased to 200 points.

As of Beta 1.4, the 'A' in the Minecraft logo included a Creeper's face.

Before Beta 1.6, creepers (and other mobs) could be attacked through the windows of both iron and wooden doors as long as the doors were placed from the outside of the shelter.

When the ability to sprint and hit mobs was introduced in Beta 1.8, creepers could be quickly knocked out of detonation range by an unarmed player.

Trivia

 * Like all explosions, if a Creeper detonates whilst surrounded/in water, its explosion has no effect on blocks, but will still cause damage to entities.
 * Creepers used to be the only mob that a tamed Wolf didn't attack, this was fixed in 1.2.1 but again, due to a bug, as of 1.2.2 Wolves will not attack Creepers.
 * Curiously, even with their explosive properties and the fact that they drop gunpowder when killed, Creepers will not detonate when exposed to lava or fire.
 * The Minecraft profile picture on Facebook looks like a Creeper face, but smoother. It used to look almost exactly like a Creeper face.
 * Creepers were given a new taking damage sound after the Halloween Update.
 * As a Creeper approaches a player, it tends to circle to its right (player's left). This behavior, which is also seen in skeletons, makes them slightly more challenging to kill than many other mobs, particularly if the player is using a sword or other melee distance tool rather than a bow.
 * A Creeper's fuse countdown lasts a little longer if it encounters a cobweb, buying a little time for a player to flee if they are low on health.
 * In SMP, if a Creeper is attacked by another player, and the other player runs out of sight, it will not attack any other players.
 * Creepers have a separate "armor". When they are normal Creepers, they are in their un-armored state. When hit by lightning, the charged field of electricity is their armor. This "armor" does not protect them and has infinite durability.
 * In the Minecraft files, this "armor" is found in the Armor files and is labeled as "power.png"
 * Despite having no arms, Creepers can climb up ladders and vines like any other mob.
 * Creepers are one of the mobs in 1.9 Pre-release 5's Creative mode that will not attack the player unless provoked.
 * As of Beta 1.8 Pre-release, Creepers are much more deadly and will definitely kill the player if in a radius of 4 to 5 blocks around the Creeper. This damage is also difficulty-independent.
 * As of November 12, 2011 Creeper explosions have a new sound.
 * Creepers do drop gunpowder when blown up by TNT.
 * Creepers are called Creepus Explodus on one of the T-shirts.
 * In the goodie-bags given out at Minecon 2011, Creepers were given as a foldable and tapable decoration for ones room or collection, along with diamond and grass.
 * The Creepers path finding allows for it to notice lava, and it will not attempt to chase the player if they are on the other side of the lava. This happens regardless of how close the player is(as long as they are not withtin detonation range).
 * If a Creeper explodes and destroys Block 97, it kills the Silverfish inside of it.
 * Before 1.2.3, a Creeper shot by a Skeleton would attack the skeleton, creating a crater in the process. This made music discs much harder to obtain.
 * A Creeper is featured as a "Micro Mob" in LEGO set 21102 LEGO Minecraft Micro World.