What are Minecraft PE Mods, Maps, Skins, Seeds, and Textures? – Unleash the Full Minecraft Potential

Whether you’re playing the game on your PC or on a mobile device, Minecraft will have something for you to enjoy. However, there are times when the vanilla Minecraft experience simply isn’t enough to sate your appetite for adventure. So what are your options if you hit this figurative wall when playing the game? Should you just go look for another game to play? What if I told you that much like its PC iteration, Minecraft PE can be modded to play the way you want it to be played? Yes, you read that right! There are numerous mods, maps, skins, seeds, and textures that you definitely need to try out before giving up on Minecraft.

What are Minecraft Add-ons?

Mods and Textures

One of the most common misconceptions about mods is its difference/relation to textures or texture packs. Mods are basically add-ons that substantially modify a game/app/program’s content (like adding or subtracting features) through changes in its source code. Texture packs on the other hand are add-ons for a game that changes how it looks without changing any of its code. These definitions aren’t mutually exclusive though since most independent MCPE developers choose to package textures together with their mods.

If you’re still not sure you understand what mods and textures are, then think of Minecraft as something similar to a PC. Mods can then be likened to upgrades/downgrades of its CPU or graphics card since these will generally affect how it functions. Textures on the other hand, is similar to changing the PC’s casing/chassis.

Skins

Skins are also similar to textures. However, unlike textures which change how the in-game environment looks, skins modifies the player’s in-game character instead. If you’re bored with playing like an ordinary blocky bloke in MCPE, then you can just download and install one of the numerous skins made by members of the ever-growing Minecraft PE community.

Maps and Seeds

One of the reasons why Minecraft is such a great game is the fact that it can be used to tell stories as well as the worlds/settings where these stories take place. By default, a player starts his/her Minecraft story on a map that the game randomly generates. A player can then opt to skip these randomly generated instances in favor of custom maps and seeds. Minecraft PE seeds serve as templates that are used to generate specific instances or maps. Custom maps on the other hand are completely different in contrast to seeds (and the maps generated from these). For one, these custom maps are user-generated content and do not rely on Minecraft PE’s random number generator. Additionally, the process of installing these custom maps is much more complicated (similar to texture and skins installation) than generating worlds/maps through seeds.

So to sum it up, custom maps need to be patched into the game in a similar manner to mods. And like mods, custom maps have a number of features that you won’t see in maps generated by seeds (also, they’re generally crazier, chaotic, and fun!). Seeds on the other hand are a feature of Minecraft PE that can be used to create specific maps. As this definition implies, no matter how many times you use a seed, it will always result in you being placed/spawning in the same map (which in the long run might become boring and stale).

Will these make Minecraft PE more enjoyable?

Of course it will! There’s no doubt that you’ll get to enjoy playing Minecraft PE more if you install Blocklauncher and start downloading the numerous mods, texture packs, skins, and custom maps available from various Minecraft PE community forums. In my experience, Minecraft PE was already a pretty good game even without these add-ons installed. There will come a time though that you’ll want more from the game. In these instances modding is a breath of fresh air since it allows players to be more creative with how they play the game and craft their own stories.

Now that you’ve figured what Minecraft PE Mods, Maps, Skins, and Textures are about, the next logical thing for you to do would be to make these add-ons work on your phone/tablet. Below is a guide to help you install these add-ons for Minecraft PE on both iOS and Android devices.

Before You Install Add-ons…

Whether you’re using iOS or Android, you’ll want to make sure that your mobile device is either Jailbroken (iOS) or Rooted (Android). Unfortunately, you’ll have to look elsewhere for instructions regarding the various jailbreaking and rooting methods available for your specific mobile device. The good thing is that there are numerous resources that you can find online for this. Another pre-requisite is of course internet access on your mobile device so that you can download the necessary files and apps needed to install these addons on Minecraft PE.

There is a huge difference with regard to mod (or any other addon) installation for the iOS and Android versions of MCPE. This is due to the fact that although they are essentially the same game, the programming language used to code them and the environment/platform they are on are as different as night and day. I generally found it easier to install add-ons on MCPE Android but the iOS version was still more stable in terms of gameplay.

Resources for getting Minecraft PE Mods, Texture Packs, Skins, and Custom Maps

There are numerous sites that are devoted to aggregating the plethora of user-generated add-ons. Personally, I’m pretty partial to MCPEHub (mcpehubs.com) and MCPEDL (mcpedl.com). You can also check out a lot of the Youtube channels and personalities that regularly come up with Minecraft PE Let’s Plays (JackFrostMiner and Herobrineskull come to mind).

Mod, Textures, and Skins Installation for Android Using Blocklauncher

1. Rooted Android users will need to downloaded Blockloader and X-Plore from the Google Play Store first. Blockloader is what we’re going to use “inject” the mod scripts to our already installed copy of Minecraft PE (regardless if it’s a cracked copy or not).

2. On your Android device’s browser, go to either MCPEHub or MCPEDL and download the addon that you’re looking for.

3. Now, navigate to where the addon was downloaded using the X-Plore app. These files are usually zipped so depending on the type of addon you want to install (this applies specifically to mods), you might need to extract them to a new folder. To extract, just press on the filename and then choose extract among the options you’ll be given.

* To make things easier for you, make sure that you have a dedicated folder to extract these addons in.

4. To install the files, you’ll need to open up Blocklauncher and then press on the wrench-like icon found above the title.

5. Press on launcher options and make sure that Texture Pack and Enable skin override options are ON. Then, under Addons and Patches, make sure that everything is ON except Safe Mode. After this, you’ll need to restart Blocklauncher to make sure the settings stick.

Now, here are the instructions to installing specific addons.

Mods

6.1.1 To install a mod, open up Blocklauncher again and this time press on Manage ModPE Scripts.

 

6.1.2 Press on the Import button and then press on Local storage. Now you’ll need to locate the folder where you extracted the mods and look for files that have a .js extension.

6.1.3 As soon as you’re back to the Manage ModPE scripts screen, press on the scripts you just imported to make sure they’re enabled.

6.1.4 Now, all that’s left for you to do is to open up a game in either Survival or Creative mode and then check if the mod is working or not.

Textures

6.2.1 Installing textures is similar to mods. After opening the Blocklauncher menu, press on Launcher options.

6.2.2 Press on texture pack (again, make sure that it is ON) and then press on select. Now all you have to do is to look for where you downloaded the texture packs (these are usually in .zip format so you need not extract them)  and press on one that you fancy.

6.2.3 To verify if you chose the right texture pack, make sure to go back to the Launcher Options screen and check the address under Texture Pack.

6.2.4 Restart BlockLauncher and you should see that the original Minecraft PE title screen has now changed to that of the texture pack’s.

Skins

6.3.1 Skins are quite possibly the easiest addons to install for MCPE Android. Once again, you’ll need to go to Launcher options after opening Blocklauncher.

6.3.2 Once on the Launcher options menu, look for Enable Skins override and make sure it’s ON. Pressing on this option will bring you to a page similar to 6.2.2 for Texture Packs. Just choose the select option and locate the skin that you want your character to have (these are .png files).

6.3.3 Similar to 6.2.3, check if the address and file name under Enable skins override is of the skin that you want for your character.

6.3.4 Restart BlockLauncher and then create a new game in survival or creative. Use third person view to see if the change to your skin was implemented successfully or not.

Installing Custom Maps on Minecraft PE for Android

Although Blocklauncher is an awesome tool for installing addons, it does have its own limits. Currently, it’s not possible to use it to install custom maps using the app. If you want to be able to play those Parkour or Adventure maps, then you’ll need to do the following steps:

1. Download X-Plore, Astro File Manager, or any file manager that would allow you to unzip archived files (.rar and .zip extensions) and navigate through the normally hidden root folders of your Android device.

2. Search for the map you want to install from either MCPEHub or MCPEDL and download it on your phone/tablet.

3. Using X-Plore, look for the downloaded file and extract its contents to another folder.

4. Copy the contents and then paste them to this specific file directory /storage/emulated/0/games/com.mojang/minecraftWorlds. The whole process takes a while to finish so make sure that you don’t do anything while you wait for it.

5. After this, you’ll then need to check if the custom map was installed properly. Make sure you close X-Plore and restart Minecraft PE or Blocklauncher. You’ll know that the custom map installation process was successful if you see the map’s name as one of your worlds.

Minecraft PE Add-ons Installation for iOS

Mods

1. To start things off, you will need to download iFile from Cydia and MCModLoader (as well as the 5 known working mods) from this site.

 

2. Now you’ll need to open up iFile, look for MCModLoader, and then install it. Once it’s installed, do the same thing with the 5 mods you downloaded earlier.

3. To check if the mod was successfully installed, you’ll have to open up Minecraft and it should now have a creeper icon on the title screen.

4. Press on the icon and you’ll then have the option to enable the mods that were downloaded earlier.

Watch the video here:

[youtube id=”AajzNaltY_E” align=”center” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”700″]

Texture Packs

There are many ways to install custom texture packs for Minecraft PE on iOS. The instructions below will be for those who haven’t jailbroken their iOS devices yet.

1. The first and only download that you’ll need is  CoderCraftMod texture pack for Minecraft 0.10.4 that can be found here.

2. Once the download starts you won’t be able to open or play the game so you’ll need to be patient while waiting.

3. To confirm that the installation of the texture pack was a success, you’ll just have to look at the Minecraft PE title screen.

Watch the video here:

[youtube id=”QXyw3kH3-dc” align=”center” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”700″]

Custom Maps

There are also numerous ways to install custom maps on your iOS device. For those who are wary of jailbreaking their devices, there is a way to install custom maps on non-jailbroken devices.

1. Make sure your iOS device is connected to the internet and go to this site.

2. Click on the apps tab and scroll down to look for the MCPE Maps app.

3. Prior to downloading the app, make sure that your iOS device is already on 7.1+. You’ll also need to set the date back on your device by one day.

4. Once the app is downloaded, it will overwrite your copy of Minecraft PE. Don’t worry if this happens.

5. Now download a custom map from MCPEHub or MCPEDL.

6. Once it’s saved, open the map using the MCPE Maps app.

7. This will bring you to a screen with the downloaded map in zip file format that you’ll then have to extract. Make sure to add a 1 after the extracted folder’s name.

8. Similar to what we did with Minecraft PE for Android, you’ll have to move the unzipped texture packs folder to the com.mojang file folder and paste it there.

9. Now, you’ll have to go back to the App Store and re-download Minecraft PE. Once you open up the game, you’ll then be greeted with the name of your custom map after you hit on play.

Watch the video here:

[youtube id=”bLFw8gh-wDI” align=”center” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”700″]

Skins

Like mods, skins require your iOS device to be jailbroken and it’s installation isn’t as easy as with Android.

1. Open up Cydia and then manually add this repo: http://apt.zcodemt.com/.

2. Once you have ZCodeMT on Cydia, make sure to click on it, then click on packages. Finally, you’ll then have the folder for skins which will contain the mod that would allow you to change your player’s skin.

3. All that’s left to do is to download this skin and you should be able to play with a new look to your character.

Watch the video here:

[youtube id=”rFmN3PYnLxk” align=”center” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”700″]

Think we missed something? Do you know of any other ways to install Minecraft PE add-ons for both the iOS and Android versions? If yes, then hit up the comments sections below!