What you can ask for

Say it out loud. Cog goes and does it.

There is nothing to memorise. You talk to Cog the way you would talk to a mate who happens to be very good at Minecraft, and they go and do it. Here is the kind of thing people ask them for.

One sentence — "a treehouse village up a giant oak" — and this is what came back. Take hold of it and have a look round. One sentence — "a treehouse village up a giant oak" — and this is what came back.

Real requests

Things people actually ask for

"Cut a canyon through here."

Cog carves the ravine, steps the walls back in shelves so they read like real rock, and sends a waterfall over the rim into a plunge pool at the bottom. Ask for a village down there and they will put one down there.

"I want to get across the lake."

Cog picks the spot, lifts the deck up clear of the water on piers instead of dumping a wall of dirt across it, rails both sides, and walks the whole thing end to end to prove it holds up.

"Build me a house shaped like SpongeBob."

Not a cottage with a face painted on the front. Cog works the whole thing out themselves and builds a hollow yellow sponge you can walk into — round eyes, buck teeth, freckles, holes right through him, a white shirt and brown trousers, and a bed and a table waiting inside. Twenty-three thousand blocks of him, and you can go in the front door.

"A treehouse village up a giant oak."

Three timber huts in the branches with pitched roofs and lit windows, walkways between them and ladders down to the ground, under a canopy you could hide a house in. Thirty-five thousand blocks. Nobody built a treehouse in advance for them to find — they design it from the words you said, the same way they would design a dragon, a lighthouse or your dog.

"Make me a blaster, and a game to use it in."

A cartoon blaster with a glowing muzzle, in your hand, that fires. Cog draws the picture, wraps it into a resource pack, and sends it to everybody in the world while they are standing there, with no restart. A player who says no to the pack carries on playing. Then they write the arena around it: stand on the pad and you are handed one, everybody can see everybody else's health under their name, kills count up the side, first to five wins. The blaster and the rules are two different kinds of file, and Cog makes both.

"Build us a whole village."

Not one house repeated. Cog lays out a plot with streets running through it and a square in the middle, puts the houses along the streets, and lights the lot. No house sitting inside another one, and every front door reachable from a street you can walk down — because a village where you cannot get to half the doors is a model of a village.

"A proper castle, with walls we can stand on."

Curtain walls with a rampart walk along the top, a tower on each corner, a hall in the courtyard and a gatehouse you walk straight through. Then Cog goes round the outside looking for a way in that is not the gate, and tells you what they found: one castle came back sealed, with 1,721 places you can stand inside it and no way out with the gate shut.

"A pyramid I can actually walk inside."

Not a pile of blocks with a point on it. Stepped stone with the courses banded so it catches the light, a lit passage in from one face, and a chamber at the heart of it tall enough to stand up in.

"Put a lake in, with a beach round it."

Cog digs the basin, shelves the edges so it shallows out instead of dropping away, lays a sand shore round it and fills it to one flat level. Then they go back and count the water, because water is the one thing that leaves if you let it — and it is still all in the basin, with none of it out on the grass.

"Flatten this bit so we can build on it."

Cog cuts the mounds and fills the hollows until the whole plot sits at one height, ready to put something on. Ask for a hill instead and they raise one with a proper shoulder on it, rather than a cone.

"A pirate ship out on the sea."

Ninety-six blocks of galleon sitting down in the water with white foam breaking at the bow. Two gun decks with the cannons run out, a raised stern castle with windows in it, three masts, rigging, a bowsprit and the skull and crossbones at the masthead. Cog’s first go was a model boat in a bathtub, and they said so themselves before fixing it.

"A rocket on its launch pad."

A nose cone that tapers properly, fins standing off the hull with daylight between them, an engine bell underneath with the glow inside it, and a gantry tower alongside with walkways and floodlights. Twenty-two thousand blocks, up in five seconds.

"Make us a soccer game at the park."

Not a field — a game. Cog lays the pitch with its markings and goal frames, then writes the rules: stand on your team pad and it hands you snowballs, put one through the goal mouth and the score goes up and the whistle goes, first to five and the fireworks fire. It goes live on the server while everyone is still standing in it. Nobody installs anything.

"Can we have another one of those lighthouses over by the lake?"

Not one like it — the same one. Cog keeps every design they have ever drawn, so a second copy goes up in about eight seconds instead of the six minutes the first one took to work out. And because they remember where they put things, asking for something on a spot that is already taken gets you "there is already a SpongeBob house there, want me to build beside it?" rather than a house on a roof.

"That statue is in the way, get rid of it."

Gone in half a second, and then they go back and check the space really is empty rather than telling you it is. The design stays in the library, so you can have it again somewhere better whenever you like. Cog can only take down things they built themselves — they work from their own record of what they put where, so nothing anyone else made is ever at risk.

"That game is too long — make it first to three."

Cog does not build you a second game. Cog finds the one you mean, changes the winning score, puts it back into the running server and then tries every rule again — not just the one you asked about, because the rule nobody mentions is the one that breaks. Twenty-two seconds, and the pitch, the pads and the other eight rules are exactly where they were.

"A parkour course with a timer."

Same trick, different game. Start pad, finish line, a clock that runs between them and a scoreboard that remembers. Cog writes the rules, loads them into the running world, then plays every one of them themselves to check they actually fire before telling you it is ready.

"Build me a rollercoaster."

A full loop of track with a hill in it, powered rails so you keep moving, timber supports underneath and a cart waiting for you. Cog lays every rail with the right shape through the curves and the climb, then puts a cart on it and watches it go round before they tell you it is ready.

"Put a secret door in this wall."

Sticky pistons, wire and a lever, laid block by block. Flip the lever and a solid wall slides across the doorway. Flip it back and the doorway is simply there again.

"Build me a road to Ash’s house."

You did not say how wide, what out of, or which way round the creek. Cog decides. Cobblestone, three wide, bridged over the water, graded up the rise, and lit with torches so nothing spawns on it at night.

"Make a wheel that spins."

A ferris wheel built from circuits that already work, so the lever does what a lever should. Flip it on and the wheel turns. Flip it off and it stops.

"Follow me."

Cog walks with you on their own two feet, around the trees and over the hills, at the pace anyone else walks. No teleporting. Say "stop following" and they stop.

"Go and get some wood."

Cog chops until they have the amount you asked for, then tells you the number that actually made it into the bag.

"Harvest my farm."

Cog takes the crops that are ready and leaves the ones that are not, then replants every square behind them. Come back tomorrow and the farm is still a farm.

"I need iron."

Cog heads underground, cuts a staircase down and lights it as they go, checks their pickaxe is up to the ore, mines it and carries it home to you.

"Watch my back."

Cog fights with the best weapon they are carrying, and they come home before their health runs out. Coming home with less beats not coming home.

"Stash these, and bring me my pickaxe later."

Cog walks to the chest, puts in or takes out exactly what you named, and tells you the count that moved.

"A watchtower. Tall enough to see the valley."

Five floors, windows on each one, battlements around the top, and a spiral stair inside that rises one block a step. You can climb it, not just look at it.

Playing the game properly

Cog mines, crafts, farms and fights

Big builds are the showy part. The rest of the time they are a second pair of hands in your world, and every one of these has been tested on its own before it ever gets strung into a bigger errand.

“Fetch me some” chops or mines what you asked for, and keeps going until the count is met
“Use the right tool” reaches for the best one they are carrying before they swing at anything
“Make me one” crafts it in their own bag, or walks to a table when the recipe needs one
“Hand it over” gives you what you asked for, and says how much actually left their hands
“Pick that up” walks over to whatever is lying on the ground and collects it
“Stash these” walks to a chest and puts away exactly what you named
“Bring me my pickaxe” walks to a chest and comes back with exactly what you named
“Do the farm” takes the crops that are ready and replants every square behind them
“Watch my back” fights with the best weapon they are carrying, and comes home before their health runs out
“Smelt this” builds a furnace if there is not one, feeds it, and waits for what comes out rather than for a clock

Good habits

The bits that make them worth having around

Anyone can place blocks. What makes Cog good company is that they play the way a careful player plays, without being asked.

Cog lights the way down

Going underground, they cut a staircase and put torches in as they go. You can walk down after them, and walk back up again.

Cog checks their pickaxe first

A wooden pickaxe on iron ore gives you nothing at all. Cog checks the tool matches the ore before they swing, so the ore is still there when the right pickaxe turns up.

Cog builds redstone that works

Wiring is fiddly and one wrong block kills the whole circuit. So their contraptions come from a library of circuits already built and checked, which is why the lever works the first time and every time after.

Cog comes home

Drop below a certain health and they disengage and leave, mid-fight if they have to. Your loot comes back with them.

Cog leaves the green crops alone

Pulling a crop early destroys it for nothing. Cog takes what is ready, replants it, and lets the rest keep growing.

Cog tries the game before they say it is ready

A rule that installs perfectly and never fires is invisible — the scoreboard is up, the pitch is laid, and one rule in nine quietly does nothing forever. So every rule they write gets triggered on purpose, and the result read back off the server, before they tell you to go and play.

Cog looks at their own work

Before they lay a block of anything they have designed, they stand back and look at it — front, side and plan — and say out loud what is wrong with it. Then they fix it and look again. The first draft of the rocket had its fins fused into one solid skirt. By the fourth they were separate blades you could see daylight through.

Cog tells you the real number

Every job comes back with what actually happened — what went down, what is in the bag, what is in the chest. Not your own request read back to you.

Ask and forget about it

Send Cog off and go and do something else

The whole round trip runs without you watching: Cog goes, finds it, mines it, walks back and puts it in the chest. You get told when it is in there.

And Cog goes back over the job before saying it is finished, so you are not the one who finds out otherwise. How Cog checks their own work →

Have a look at the rest

Examples — the canyon, the bridge and the secret door, built in front of you.
How it works — what happens between asking and the finished thing.
Creative vs survival — instant castles, or a mate who chops the wood.

Be in the first worlds.

We are opening a small number to begin with. Put your name down and we will tell you when yours is ready.