Purple Patch
Part 35 ~ 6 June 2025
Posted: 7 February 2026
Did I ever mention that I like purple? Well I hope you do too, because you're gonna be seeing even more of it from now on! :D
This all started on a whim. See, I generally like to keep my game looking vanilla so that everything's good and readable for me, and also relatable for most people who might see my screenshots. Because of this, I've never explored the world of GUI resource packs. But it occurred to me: what if I could find one that's just purple, but otherwise vanilla? So I did a search for purple GUI resoure packs – and what I found was SO MUCH BETTER than I anticipated. Allow me to introduce to you: Starry GUI and Hotbar by aelianix (not sponsored!)
This pack turns the hotbar and window borders to a bold indigo, and backgrounds to a lovely pastel lavender. Which is already glorious. But then it takes you on a trip to SPACE by wrapping pieces of the GUI in gorgeous little clusters of stars! And to cap it off, it changes your hunger points to gold stars, your armour points to moons, and your hearts to... still hearts – but PURPLE. Oh, and it comes with a night sky title screen background too! I LOVE space and I can't see myself ever taking off this resource pack <3
Oh right, actual gameplay. Hey, I finally finished the back of the blacksmith building! I've been really indecisive as to whether I want more villagers in there. I'm getting by just fine with the three smiths and fletcher, so I popped in a decorative soul-fire forge and closed up the back. I also, ahem, erased the two villager houses in the vicinity. Why? To pave some roads. Tale as old as time. (Don't ever let anyone tell you video games aren't political!)
Inspired by my new GUI, I picked out a purple palette for my paths. The middle lane, where I'll place most of my footsteps, will be the oh-so-pretty amethyst blocks that chime when I walk on them. A quick excavation of the geode at Allay Bay yielded enough blocks to connect up the village like so.
But this looks a bit barren by itself among the dry savanna grass. So I decided to flank this amethyst strip with a border of purple concrete powder – reminiscent of the gravel paths of pre-1.10 villages but in vibrant colour! There's just one issue though: I'm out of sand. And me being me, I took this as an excuse to go on a whole side adventure :D
So, welcome back to the nether! If you'll recall, our desert area is 2000 blocks east. Which is why we're building another shortcut. I have a portal and part of a tunnel at the desert end from an earlier visit, which weirdly got placed in a ceiling cave at y110, so I figured I'd start by staircasing up from the soul valley floor.
A couple of diagonal tunnels and sketchy bridges later, I made the connection to the desert side. This tunnel is over 100m in a straight line! Thanks to my stone generator, I'm now well supplied with slabs to make this spawnproof. There were a couple of branching caves, which I simply blocked off with my excess of netherrack.
Off to the corner of the desert to gather some materials and... Hi, I'm Alex! Welcome to part 35 of my... wait, what? So, my internet went out and I got reverted to a default skin, lmao. Anyway, I shoveled up a metric creepton (technical term) of sand, plus some mud and mangrove wood for good measure. Weirdly though, only the more isolated mangrove trees yielded to my axe. When I hacked at a dense patch, I was met with a cryptic message. OH GOD. IS null IN THIS FOREST??? Nope. I'm out of here.
After that horror jumpscare, I took a moment to explore, starting with this acacia village that I spotted on the edge of my world map. This has got to be one of the coolest natural village spawns I've ever found! Firstly: it's HUGE, with 19 buildings. It's on a nice plot of flat land bordered by hills, ocean, and many different biomes (and wood types) close by. And if you look in the chests, you will find FOUR of the rare and non-renewable Tall Grass items! I swear I can sense a whiff of grassy smoke in the air too... I'm gonna call this place Highgrass.
After a little sweep of the nearby ocean, I called it a day and went back to base. There I crafted up my purple powder and laid it down alongside the crystal paths – taking care not to let in any water and ruin the texture! Here's the result, from almost the same angle (I tried my best lol):
I don't know about you, but I reckon this looks prettty sweet! Buuut now I'm out of *amethyst* blocks. I have to go mining deep under Elaville to excavate more geodes. So the cycle repeats XD
