Updated September 3, 2024

Minecraft "Better Than Adventure" Mod - Brief Overview + World Tour

Minecraft in an Alternate Universe
Videogames September 5, 2023

Before I describe my initial experience with this mod, I'm going to explain what this mod is.

Better than Adventure (BTA) is a mod for Minecraft beta 1.7.3, which is a version that was released way back on July 8, 2011. Beta 1.7.3 is an update that's pretty well known in the Minecraft community as the last version that felt like "traditional" minecraft. More specifically, it was the last version before major game-changing additions would be added which fundamentally changed the way the game was played. Beta 1.8, known as the "adventure" update, introduced sprint, the hunger bar, new food types, stackable foods, revised world generation, and more.

Even though the more "classical" alpha & beta period (2009-2011) only lasted for a small fraction of Minecraft's total existence, there is still a fairly sizeable subsect of Minecraft players that regularly play or visit beta 1.7.3. While nostalgia certainly plays a part, many who play beta 1.7.3 today do so because they prefer the style of gameplay that was present before the adventure update.

BTA aims to sort of act as a fork of beta 1.7.3. BTA is what Minecraft could have looked like in an alternate universe if development continued down the path it was going. The mod features some quality of life changes and fixes that would be introduced in future versions of the game; such as being able to place upside-down stairs and shapeless crafting. Despite bringing many new features and convenient changes to the game, the mod still expertly maintains that classic playstyle that older versions of Minecraft possess. Most foods do not stack (if they do it's very limited), your health will not regenerate unless you consume food, and the lack of sprint makes it more of a challenge to escape a crowd of enemies and to travel long distances.

Many features that have been added were cut features that were once planned by Mojang during the alpha & beta stages, such as quivers. Some additions, such as labels or flags, are reimaginings of nametags and banners.

Labels prevent despawning and give entities names, but the name is always displayed regardless of if you're looking at the entity or not. To me this makes the entities appear more like an NPC in an MMO, which feels fitting for the more fantasy-style design philosophy of the classic era. The labels are also cheap, craftable items; unlike nametags which have to be found in chests or traded for.

Featuring Ducky, the weird duck that spawned in my yard.

Both banners and flags are player-customizable decor. Flags, however, have a much more in-depth customization. Instead of spending dye on overlaying preset patterns with banners, dyes are used to choose the color of your paintbrush, which is used for drawing directly on flags (sort of like paintings in Rust). A dynamic wind feature is present as well, which blows the flags and clouds in different directions. As you can see, I've made great use of this cool feature:

Pictured: the cool flag on my roof

Signs have also been given a cool twist. There are some built-in commonly used symbols or large words that you can choose to put onto a sign. For example, you can choose for the sign to be a large arrow pointing in a direction (instead of making an ascii arrow), the words "mine" or "farm", or specific mob faces.

Yes, path blocks have also been added.

Using the sign symbol feature to mark my mine entrance.

An ancient indev feature that makes a return is isometric screenshots, which is a really cool way to photograph your world.

Isometric screenshot showing the front of my house.
Isometric screenshot showing the backside of my house.

I don't want to go too into detail on every feature of the mod (read the forum post for more details), as it's honestly a really pleasant experience discovering and learning the new features for yourself. This is especially the case if you've played the game for years, and want to re-experience the game in a new light. However, there are some things that you might want to consult the mod's wiki for. It might be fun for you to guess what else is in the mod based on what you see in my screenshots.

Here are some more pics of the outside of my house:

A "boots on the ground" shot of my front entrance.
Chimney-side of the house (right of front entrance).
Another view of the house's left and backside.

I don't plan for this base to be my permanent residence, but it's a decent area close to spawn that's served me well as a starter area. Plenty of trees and animals, with decent mines below. I plan to make a ranch of sorts, probably with a cherry tree orchard that I can harvest in the spring and summer. Here are some screenshots of the house interior:

Entering the living room from the front door.
Putting on a record.
Second story lobby. Ceiling chests above trapdoors, for storing valuables.
Current contents of the main valuables chest.
My bedroom, featuring a walk-in closet (stores armor and tools).
Returning downstairs, here is my storage room, which has a door leading into the sideyard.
Entering the sideyard from the storage room. The door on the cliff-side is my vegetation cellar.
The inside of the vegetation cellar.
The chest in the vegetation cellar room, if you're curious.

Useful tip: leather boots prevent crop-trampling in this mod. In vanilla beta 1.7.3, you would normally place fences beneath the soil to prevent trampling of the crops. There was an unintended feature where fence hitboxes would go slightly above the tilled crop-tile hitbox. You could walk on the soil without trampling it, and you could still plant seeds. In BTA, fence hitboxes are much closer to the modern game's fence hitboxes, so that old beta bug can't be exploited anymore.

Something else that's good to know and isn't really explained anywhere, is that you need to break tall-grass with a hoe in order to gather seeds.

BTA introduces seasons as well, which I believe affects crop cycles. I think that plants either grow slowly or not at all during the winter. Cherry trees begin to bear cherries in the spring and I believe that they continue to do so into the summer.


Beyond my base, here are some things that I've stumbled across in the surrounding region while mapping:

A pit in a labyrinth. Be careful; these can lead places, but can also just be full of very deadly spike traps.
The ruined halls of a labyrinth.
All kinds of books in here. If only I knew how to read :(
Yet another dangerous trap which can be found within labyrinths.

I believe that the BTA terrain generation is the same as it was in beta 1.7.3, but with new biomes. If you don't like it, there are different world types you can do (similar to indev). You can generate floating island worlds, eternal winter worlds, alpha-generation worlds, and more.

Trudging through some marshland.
A cow that was brutally slaughtered shortly after this photo was taken.
Natural sponge!
Some islands closeby to my continent.
A limestone overhang.

There is surely much more to explore in this world, and I'm sure that there are many things that I have yet to discover in this mod. I'll be sure to continute playing on this world until I'm bored of it. It is likely that I will make more posts in the future documenting my continued misadventures.

Here is my world seed, for anyone who is interested: 3982651240944974991.


I've been playing Minecraft since the adventure update, back in September of 2011. While I've been following and playing damn near every update since then, I've also delved backwards to the old alpha and beta builds on occassion.

Old lets plays from that era, like from Noobsniper and the Yogscast (check out their Shadow of Israphel series, god damn that shit slapped), is what lead me to discover Minecraft. Playing those older versions feels right at home. While nostalgia is definitely a factor in my enjoyment of old beta, I find that the simpler gameplay style and the darker, lonelier vibe is beautiful. I'm just trying to survive and build cool shit.

Playing the BTA mod has been a very refreshing Minecraft experience. It retains what I like about playing beta 1.7.3, while also adding some new twists and quality of life changes which enhances the experience. It's been fun discovering the mod's various additions. I feel like I'm experiencing a true successor update to beta 1.7.3.

There are also some multiplayer servers around for BTA which I am certainly going to hit up at some point.

I can't recommend BTA enough. If you're looking for a refreshing Minecraft experience, this mod will provide your fix. If you've tried this mod out, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on it. Check out my contact page and send me an email!