Creeper

Creepers are common hostile mobs that use a suicide-style attack: They approach players and then explode, causing massive damage to players, entities, and blocks within a short radius.

Creepers spawn in the overworld at night, and in locations with a light level of 7 or less, just like most other hostile mobs. However, unlike Zombies and Skeletons, Creepers will not catch fire in sunlight, and those spawned in darkness will continue to roam in daylight until they perform an attack, are killed, or despawn.

Creepers are especially dangerous due to their near-silent approach, save for light footsteps and an occasional rustling noise. A Creeper will warn the player with an infamous fuse burning noise mere seconds before it explodes. If the player can manage to move far enough away within about one second of this noise, the explosion will be canceled, and the creeper will attempt to approach again.

Creepers run from cats and ocelots, and will ignore the player to run away when a feline is too close. As cats can be acquired and controlled by the player, this provides an important avenue of defense from Creeper attacks.

Creepers have become notorious and infamous among Minecraft players for their infuriating habit of sneaking up on the Player to inflict devastating damage following an all-too-short warning sound. They have arguably become the most recognizable image from Minecraft, as well as the game's unofficial mascot.

Appearance
The creeper is a handless humanoid creature with four short legs hanging off the bottom edges of its rectangular body. It has large, empty eye sockets, a mouth twisted into a signature sad expression, and a greenish, grass-like camouflage skin. When asked to describe the physical texture of a Creeper, Notch said they would feel "crunchy, like dry leaves".

Spawning
A creeper will spawn naturally in the Overworld with a light level of seven or less.

Uses
Creepers represent the most readily available source of gunpowder (the more challenging alternatives being defeating Ghasts, conquering dungeons or hunting witches), and are therefore critical to the production of TNT, Fire Charges, Splash Potions, Firework Stars and Firework Rockets.

Music Discs
Creepers are the only mobs that drop Music Discs, but will only do so if killed by a Skeleton. How the Creeper is damaged beforehand doesn't matter, so long as the killing blow is made by a skeleton's arrow.

The easiest way to arrange this is to significantly hurt the Creeper (for example, shooting it twice with a full-charge, unenchanted bow), then attempt to position it between you and a skeleton and get both mobs to chase you. 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.

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, or knocks the Creeper back sufficiently to do the same via an attack (about 3 - 5 blocks, depending on the difficulty setting).

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

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 entering a sneaking position will cause the Creeper to hiss and initiate the countdown.

Explosive properties
A Creeper's explosion is dependent on the difficulty level. In hard mode, in full diamond armor, and in close range, it can knock a player down to only 2 hearts. Charged Creeper explosions are 50% more powerful than TNT and twice that of a normal Creeper.

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. Harder blocks caught in an explosion will shield blocks behind them to some degree. If a creeper detonates in water, it does no damage to the environment.

Mobs in the vincity will run away from a creeper that is about to explode (removed in 1.8.1-pre1).

Charged Creepers


A charged Creeper is created when lightning strikes within 3–4 blocks of a normal Creeper, which significantly increases its explosive power. This is a rare occurrence, though third-party software can be used to create them. Charged Creepers are distinguished from normal Creepers by the blue aura surrounding them (can be found in power.png in the armor folder). Many players refer to charged Creepers as "Electric" or "Lightning" Creepers. Creepers never spawn initially charged.

Charged Creepers take damage from the initial lightning strike, so it takes fewer attacks to kill them than ordinary Creepers. Their countdown timers act the same as uncharged Creepers, both in terms of range and time. An explosion caused by a charged creeper is more powerful than the explosion caused by a regular creeper (see image) or from a single block of TNT, both in force and radius.

It is possible for lightning-struck Creepers to catch fire from adjacent struck ground and burn to death.

Charged creepers have the same entity ID as normal creepers. The only difference is that the value of the boolean "powered" tag is set to "1" (true) rather than "0" (false).

Charged creeper explosions will cause a zombie, skeleton, wither skeleton, or other creeper to drop the corresponding mob head, one per explosion.

Trivia



 * Notch stated on Twitter that "I imagine [creepers] as being made out of leaves or similar. I'm not sure why they explode."
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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 game files, this "armor" is labeled as "creeper_armor.png"
 * Despite having no arms, Creepers can climb up ladders and vines like any other mob.
 * In the goodie-bags given out at Minecon 2011, Creepers were given as a fold-able and tapable decoration for ones room or collection, along with diamond and grass.
 * The Creeper's 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 within detonation range).
 * While Creepers cannot be targeted by other mobs, they can be attacked by them. For example, a skeleton can hit a Creeper while aimlessly shooting randomly (usually seen in Creative) and Iron Golems can hit Creepers when attempting to kill another hostile mob, such as a zombie.
 * When retaliating against mobs, they will walk directly at them, and explode in a manner similar to attacking the player.
 * Creepers are also one of two mobs that can never be targeted by any other mob (the other being the Ghast, with the exception of Zombie Pigmen). Allied and utility mobs that can attack hostile mobs, such as Tamed wolves, Snow Golems, and Iron Golems will never purposely attack Creepers. This is because of their destructive nature upon being provoked.
 * When about to detonate, Creepers will cease movement and its head will face directly forward. (Tested in the PC edition).
 * When asked how Creepers trigger their explosive nature, Dinnerbone said "They're so nervous that they shake a lot, and then this sets them off the same way as how rubbing two sticks makes fire".
 * Creepers are the oldest mob in the game. Humans, the first mob added, used to be the oldest mob until their removal; Creepers became the oldest mob since they were the second mob added.
 * When attacking, creepers walk straight, and then once they reach detonation zone, they always strafe to the left of the target entity.
 * Creepers can be forced to detonate by pressing on them with a Flint and Steel.

Publicity
Creepers have a formidable reputation in the community because of their potential to hurt players and destroy structures. Their distinct appearance and destructive abilities have made them a widely-recognizable Minecraft icon. Creepers 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 you've got there... It'd be a ssssshame if anything were to happen to it..."

Merchandise
Creepers have been portrayed in many Minecraft products including but not limited to:
 * Stuffed toys.
 * Action figures.
 * Bracelets.
 * T-shirts
 * The Creeper Anatomy t-shirt reveals the insides of a Creeper, and also reveals its scientific name: Creepus Explodus.
 * LEGO Minecraft
 * Papercraft
 * Minecraft Facebook profile image

Appearances
Minecraft Maps
 * The Custom Map OXM Land made by Oxm Magazine on the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft has a giant Creeper head on it, known as the land's god Creepthulhu.

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 nice wall you've got there."

Youtube Videos
 * YouTube hosts many videos that feature Creepers, including review videos, "Let's Play"'s, cartoons, and cameos in many other videos. When searching for the query "Minecraft Creeper", YouTube returns over 500,000 videos.

Console/PC Games
 * In Borderlands 2, Creepers appear in a mineshaft in the most north-west part of Caustic Caverns, including Dirt, Coal Ore, Stone, Gold Ore, and a "Badass Creeper" that is twice the strength and size of a regular Creeper.
 * In Airmech, Creepers appear as a unit "skin" for the suicide bomber unit the boomer. Creepers can be either green, blue, or red, depending on the color of the team that makes them.
 * In Octodad: Dadliest Catch, a Creeper head is seen on a shelf in the grocery store along with 2 Pickaxes and some grass blocks. It is part of a collection known as "Mintcraft".
 * Seen As A Halloween Costume in a game called Terraria.

Flash Games
 * In Stealing the Diamond, when Henry Stickmin 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.
 * One of the things you can hit in Katawa Crash is a Creeper.
 * In the game Transformice, there is a creeper head that you may purchase as a hat for your mouse.

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 Notch-designed custom level for VVVVVV, "Pyramid Escape", a Creeper's face can be seen carved into the background to the far left of the pyramid.
 * In Torchlight 2 the Creeper plays an important role in an "Easter egg" mission in the cave named "Notch's cave" where the player walks in and sees a group of Creeper charging the player then exploding. Near the end of the cave you can find a minecraft skinned sword.
 * In a game called Strollin, there is a purchasable creeper item, which makes bombs throw you farther.
 * In the mobile game Geometry Dash, beating level 16 "Hexagon Force" on normal mode rewards the player a creeper face cube. This can also be colored to make it look like a normal one

Other
 * On Monday, June 18, 2012, A Creeper was sent above the clouds into space.