How To Play MCA

Here you will find an in-depth guide for playing Minecraft Comes Alive.

Recipes

Recipes can be found on their on page here.

Configuration
MCA is extensively configurable to your liking. Each configuration option is fairly self-explanatory, and if not, a tooltip is provided by hovering over the configuration option. You can configure MCA in-game.

To get to the configuration screen, go to Minecraft's main menu, select Mods, then scroll through and locate Minecraft Comes Alive. Click it, then at the bottom of the mods list, click Config.

Getting Started

First, of course, grab a village seed before playing, unless you'd like to find a village naturally. When you're ready, start a new world and see what happens!

Choose Your Destiny

Right-click the enchantment table and answer the setup questions. At the end, you can choose how you want to start the game.

Destiny Choices

You'll have quite a few choices at the end of the setup process.
  • I Have a Family - You'll spawn in a small house with a spouse and from 0 - 2 children at random.
  • I Live Alone - You'll spawn in a tall yet quaint home.
  • I Live in a Village - You'll spawn in a small home within a village populated with several other villagers.
  • None of these - You'll remain at your current location with no changes to the world.
Note: These options spawn structures at your current location in the world, overwriting whatever is there! You have been warned. 

Interaction

Actions

When you choose something from the Interact menu, it may succeed or fail depending on the villager's mood, personality, and your relationship.

If you begin using too many interactions in a row, they will become less effective and prone to failing.

For those who want a little extra guidance when interacting with villagers, press CTRL in the interaction screen to show your chance of success!

Mentalities and Moods

Villagers' moods can change at any time depending on previous interactions, what has occurred in their village recently, and their personality. 

Moods influence how successful your interactions with that villager may be. Some negative moods can often boost your chance of success using some interactions!

There are only three villager mentalities that can be assigned by a personality. These affect the villager's mood types. These are playful, serious, and standard.

In addition to factoring into the villager's moods, their mentality will determine which interactions are more effective.

Playful villagers prefer more jokes, flirts, etc., while serious villagers prefer chatting and stories. Standard villagers have no real preference as to which interaction you use on them.


You'll also find that playful villagers are either bored, or entertained. Serious villagers may show interest, or become angry or annoyed. Villagers with the standard mentality will either be happy, or sad.
To interact with a villager, simply right-click them to see all of the different things you can do. If you are familiar with previous versions of MCA, this screen is going to look a lot different! It has been expanded to be cleaner and display information in a more RPG-like format.

Interaction screen

Color-coded above are the different sections of the interaction screen.
  • In cyan - This is the villager's mood, personality, and (on children), age. 
  • In green - The villager's marital information, parental information, and any available gifts for you are displayed here.  In the example above, the villager is married.
  • In red - This is your relationship level. At 5 red hearts, they will begin turning gold. At 5 gold hearts, you can marry the villager. Hearts will be black if the villager does not like you.
  • In blue - This is the villager's name and job.
  • In orange - This is your interaction menu. Depending on your relationship with this villager, your set of options may be different.

Personalities

Personalities cannot change. They establish a villager mentality, which influences what types of moods the villager will be in and which interactions will have a higher chance of working on them.

Each personality also assigns its own special ability to that particular villager.
Personality
Athletic
Confident
Strong
Friendly
Curious
Peaceful
Flirty
Witty
Sensitive
Greedy
Stubborn
Odd
Mentality
Playful
Serious
Serious
Standard
Serious
Standard
Playful
Playful
Standard
Serious
Serious
Playful
Ability
Runs 15% faster.
Deals more attack damage.
Deals double attack damage.
Bonus 15% to all interactions.
Finds more on chores.
Will not fight.
Bonus 25% to all interactions.
None.
5% chance of losing 35 points each interaction.
Finds less when doing chores.
Each interaction loses 15% of its effectiveness.
None.

Marriage and Children

Hint: When marrying a villager, give an engagement ring first, then, after getting married all villagers nearby will give you gifts!
Hint: If you hover over your baby in the inventory, you can see how old it is.
In order to really delve into MCA, you must first get married. You have two different options when doing so:
  1. Marry a villager. You must have 5 gold hearts with the villager. Gift them any wedding ring.
  2. Marry a player. You must have a wedding ring and they must agree.
Once you're married, you'll have a new button in your interaction menu - Procreate. By clicking it, you'll receive your very own baby boy or girl whom you can name immediately.
At 10 minutes old, by default, you can right-click the ground and the baby will grow into a child.

Hint: You can also begin having children before getting married if you go to a priest and select Special->Adopt Baby.

If, for some reason, you have lost your baby - you must find a priest. Interact with them, choose Special->Reset Baby. You will then be able to have another child.

Chores

Choose the Work button when interacting with your child to see a list of chores they can do for you!

Farming
The child can either harvest all grown crops in an area or create a new farm from the seeds you give them.

Woodcutting
The child can cut down a particular type of tree and replant it, if you desire.
Mining
The child can alert you when a specified ore is nearby (damages pick), or create a small  mine and continually work until told to stop.

Hunting
The child can either tame or kill animals. Once told to hunt, they will walk to a nearby grassy area and wait for animals to appear.

Growing Up

Once your child grows up, they will no longer perform chores for you. But now, you have the option of helping them get married and having children of their own!

The below works with all villagers, not just your children.

In order for your child to get married, you must first craft two matchmaker's rings. Make your child stand beside the villager you'd like them to marry, and gift a matchmaker's ring to one of them. They will then be married on-the-spot.

Now, you can either wait until the couple has a child on their own, or you can speed up the process by gifting cake to either villager while they stand beside each other. Note that gifting cake will not always work!

Once the couple has a baby, it will grow into a child and eventually get married and have children of its own. The cycle can continue indefinitely.

Death (and how to cure it)

Of course, a loved one may one day find themselves pinned down by a skeleton or blown to pieces by a creeper - it's Minecraft, it happens. Luckily, should you lose someone such as a spouse or child, they will drop a special item in a chest near their death point. If you find and take this item, you can later use it to revive them!
To revive a villager, you'll need the Staff of Life. It is a special magic item dropped by a newly added boss, the Grim Reaper.
Before summoning the Grim Reaper, prepare for a very difficult boss fight. The Reaper can fly, is immune to potions and arrows, and can block your attacks. He also hits very hard, dealing 7.5 hearts of damage if you're not wearing armor.
Summoning the Grim Reaper requires an altar created with 6 obsidian at minimum (3 columns that are two blocks high) and 1 emerald block. The emerald block must be placed in the middle of the obsidian columns.

Your obsidian columns may be as tall as you'd like, as long as there's an obsidian block on the same level of the emerald block and also one above it.

When you summon the Grim Reaper, the emerald block will be consumed.
Picture
The simplest altar for the Grim Reaper.
Picture
This also works - pretty it up however you like!
Once your altar is created, grab your nearest flint and steel and wait until night time. The Grim Reaper can only be summoned at night.

When it's night, and you're all geared up, begin to light  the top of each obsidian column. When all three columns are lit, light the top of the emerald block and run! The emerald block must be lit last.

After a short light show, the Grim Reaper will spawn above your altar. Defeat him, and he will drop the Staff of Life.
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