Creeper (Minecraft)

A creeper is a fictional creature within the sandbox game Minecraft. Creepers are hostile mobs (a mobile non-player character) that can spawn anywhere that is dark, but can still survive in bright environments. Instead of attacking the player directly, they creep up on the player and explode, destroying blocks in the surrounding area and potentially hurting or killing the player if they are within the blast radius. Their green camouflage and generally silent behavior aid in stealth attacks, making them one of the most dangerous mobs in Minecraft. Creepers were first added to Minecraft in a pre-alpha update to the game that was released on September 1, 2009.

The creeper has become one of the most widely recognized icons of Minecraft. They have been referenced and parodied in popular culture, and they are featured prominently in Minecraft merchandising and advertising.

Conception and design
The creeper was created as a result of a coding error when creating the pig mob in the pre-alpha stages of Minecraft's development in 2009. The game's creator, Markus Persson, accidentally mixed up the dimensions of the model, swapping the length and height. Instead of deleting the result, Persson instead added a green texture believed to be based on the in-game leaves texture to the model, gave it aggressive AI, and turned it into a hostile mob. The creeper was added to the game on September 1, 2009, on a pre-alpha version designated as 0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST_03.

In Minecraft, the player exists in a large world made up of cubes. The world contains a number of enemies, of which creepers are commonly encountered. A creeper is nearly silent until it comes near the player, at which point it emits a quiet hiss and explodes after a short delay. The explosion kills the creeper, can kill or injure the player, and also destroys surrounding blocks. In later updates, the Minecraft developers decided that creepers "weren’t quite unpredictable enough", and added the ability for creepers to become "charged creepers" when struck by lightning. Charged creepers have amplified explosion power and can cause other mobs killed in the blast to drop their heads. These heads can then be worn by the player, altering their head's texture to look like another mob's head. alternatively, these mob heads can be placed on top of a note block, causing the block to play the mob's noise when hit.

Appearances
The creeper originally appeared in Minecraft in a pre-alpha update as a common hostile mob that silently approaches players, hisses, then explodes. It appeared later in Minecraft spin-off games such as Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends and Minecraft Earth.

Outside of Minecraft, it also appeared in Terraria (2011), Torchlight II (2012), Borderlands 2 (2012), Octodad: Dadliest Catch (2014), and in Nintendo's crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018), where the creeper has been featured as a Mii Brawler costume.

Promotion and reception
The creeper image has been used on a wide variety of Minecraft merchandise, including clothing, bedding and lamps. In July 2020, a joint partnership between Mojang Studios and Kellogg's led to the announcement of Minecraft Creeper Crunch, an official Minecraft branded cereal prominently featuring a creeper on the packaging. It was set to be available for release in stores in the United States in August 2020. Every packet additionally includes a unique code which can be redeemed for a Minecraft cosmetic clothing item.

The creeper is considered to be one of Minecraft's most iconic enemies and icons. The pixelated face of the creeper has been integrated into the "A" of the Minecraft logo, as well as being used in numerous Halloween costumes and cosplays. Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition listed the creeper as tenth in their list of "top 50 video game villains". The creeper has been featured in multiple Lego Minecraft sets and has been the main focus of one. In 2021, PC Gamer ranked creeper as 9th of "the 50 most iconic characters in PC gaming," stating that "The Creeper is the star of Minecraft, which is ironic considering that the Creeper's effectiveness hinges upon not being seen."

In an article for Games and Culture, Daniel Dooghan characterized the creeper as "resistance personified", using its role in the game to draw comparison to real-world terrorism and how society reacts to such. More directly drawing parallels to real world suicide bombers through the ideology of "Self-annihilation is the ultimate form of resistance", its inhuman appearance coupled with the semblance of a permanently scowling face further made it represent "otherness" in the game's world. While he acknowledged it was impossible to know the creature's actual motivations he felt it characterized the game world's rejection of the player, and impels them towards technological advancement and resource gathering due to frequent interaction and the consequences of such interaction.

Creepers have been the subject of numerous pop culture references and parodies. In the season 25 episode "Luca$" of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, Moe Szyslak appears as a creeper and explodes at the end of the theme song's "couch gag". On August 19, 2011, Jordan Maron (also known as the popular YouTuber CaptainSparklez) released the song "Revenge", a parody of "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love", depicting a Minecraft player seeking revenge against creepers. The song regained popularity as an internet meme around July 2019.