The locked chest was an April Fools block.
Obtaining
When introduced, this block was indestructible except for explosions, allowing it to drop.
Natural generation
Every chunk generated between April 1 and April 5, 2011 had a small chance of having a locked chest in it.[1]
Usage
Message displayed upon attempting to open the chest.
Clicking use button on the chest would bring up a screen, and clicking on the "Go to Store" button would forward you to the "Minecraft Store". It linked to "https://minecraft.net/store/loot.jsp"[2], but now the original page was removed and an error is shown. Various items were "sold" in the Minecraft Store (see below). Clicking on the proceed to checkout button triggered a screamer in which a Velociraptor from the movie Jurassic Park growled loudly and flew across the screen.
Entering items totaling over $10,000 into the cart caused a window pop-up asking if you are prone to seizures. Entering OK made the screen start flashing. When first released, there was no seizure warning label; Notch later implemented it to avoid lawsuits and posts on the forum.
On April 2 (the day following April Fools), the store had the addition of a multicolored banner which read "♥ April Fools'! ♥"[3], accompanied by a midi instrumental of Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up'. Tobias Möllstam stated that this was "the best script he's written to date.[4]"
The store page used the font tf2build.ttf from Team Fortress 2 which is downloadable from here.
Items "sold"
The "Minecraft Store"
Twelve "items" were "available":
- Steve Co. supply crate key ($3)
- Steve Co. supply crate key 5-pack ($18)
- Miner's helmet ($21)
- Name change ($99)
- Creeper saddle ($42)
- Secret griefer identity ($155)
- Enlargement pill ($2)
- Response from support ($494)
- Three "coming soon" items (priced at $75, $7, and $1499)
- Regular padlock ($8)
- Used the same image as the "coming soon" items.
Light source
Locked chests emitted a light level of 15.
Fuel
Locked chests could be used as fuel, lasting 15 seconds (or 1.5 items).
History
| beta | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.4 | Added locked chests. | ||||
| 1.4_01 | Notch planned to remove them at midnight April 2, but didn't due to illness.[5] Instead they were removed in the Beta 1.4_01 patch on April 5. They were not removed from the game entirely; instead code was added for locked chests in the world to disappear, causing them to decay in a fashion similar to leaves. If locked chests are stored in the inventory, they remain until they are placed in the world. | ||||
| release | |||||
| 1.3.1 | 12w21a | The original chest texture was removed, causing the locked chest's texture to change from File:Locked Chest.png to File:Locked Chest 12w21a.png | |||
| 12w22a | Texture changed from File:Locked Chest 12w21a.png to File:LockedChest12w22.png with the addition of the block of emerald. | ||||
| 1.5 | 13w01a | Texture changed from File:LockedChest12w22.png to File:LockedChest13w01a.png with the addition of the block of redstone. | |||
| 13w02a | When the textures were put into individual files the locked chest had nothing to use, causing the game to crash if a world containing one was loaded. | ||||
| 13w03a | The crash above was fixed by introducing a placeholder texture; texture changed from File:LockedChest13w01a.png to File:LockedChest13w03a.png. | ||||
| 1.6.1 | 13w18a | The locked chest texture was changed from File:LockedChest13w03a.png to File:Lockedchest13w18b.png following a placeholder texture/model change. | |||
| 1.7.2 | 13w37a | Removed locked chest as an item. It can only placed with /setblock. | |||
| 13w41a | Added stained glass, replacing the ID of locked chest (95). | ||||
Changed alphanumeric ID for block 95 from chest_locked_aprilfools_super_old_legacy_we_should_not_even_have_this to stained_glass | |||||
Trivia
- Locked chests are a reference to the Mann Co. Supply Crates[6] from Team Fortress 2, where a key must be purchased for $2.49 in the in-game shop called Mann Co. Store in order to open the crate.[7]
- This may have been what Notch was talking about in his Twitter post about a "silly secret project".[8]
- Locked chests could generate in mid air or in the tops of trees.
- Locked chests could be placed next to each other to form a 2 block long chest like normal chests do. These two chests are still however "locked".
- The server console outputted "added a chest!" each time a chest was generated.
- The 5-key pack is actually $3 more than 5 single keys.
- The archived page is available in reduced functionality here.
- Locked chests made lava particles when broken.
- The locked chest's ID was named
minecraft:chest_locked_aprilfools_super_old_legacy_we_should_not_even_have_this, and it is the longest named ID in Minecraft history. - Although locked chests were removed in the 13w41a, there are still translation strings for it in the en_US.lang file.
- The Bedrock Edition, Legacy Console Edition and Minecraft website each have their own "Minecraft Store". However, they are actual in-game stores used to get downloadable content, purchase Java Edition as well as Minecraft merchandise, and are completely unrelated to the April fool's joke.
Gallery
- Locked Chest.png
The texture prior to 12w21a.
- Locked Chest 12w21b.png
In 12w21a, locked chests have the blank magenta texture and the emerald block texture.
- Locked Chest In 13w01a.png
In 13w01a, locked chests have the blank magenta texture, emerald block texture, and redstone block textures.
- Lockedchest.png
In 1.5, locked chests use a generic 'missing texture' texture. It was the only block that by default used a texture with a resolution greater than 16×16.
- Lockedchest in 13w18b.png
The locked chest texture in 13w18a, following a placeholder texture/model change.
References
- ↑ wordofnotch:4279964053
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110401175108/http://www.minecraft.net/store/loot.jsp
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20110402233948/http://www.minecraft.net:80/store/loot.jsp
- ↑ https://twitter.com/mollstam/status/54171754385514496
- ↑ https://twitter.com/notch/status/53746813626355712
- ↑ Mann Co. Supply Crate on TF2 Wiki
- ↑ Mann Co. Supply Crate Key on TF2 Wiki
- ↑ https://twitter.com/notch/status/45973254095126528





