A custom Cobblemon "Cannon" NPC that players can push, aim, and launch themselves out of. Server owners customize each cannon's appearance and behaviour, so the same NPC fits a Pokémon gym puzzle, a hub-transport launcher, or just a piece of arena dressing.
What it does
Right-clicking a cannon pushes it one tile in the direction the player is facing on the world grid, and can be configured to move multiple blocks at a time. Shift+right-click opens a menu instead:
- Rotate — turn the barrel to the next snapped angle. The rotation increment is configurable per cannon, so a server owner can pick whatever step fits the puzzle.
- Launch — fire the player out along the barrel's current aim.
- Reset — return the cannon to its home position and teleport the player back to a saved spot. Both positions are set by the server owner.
Push, rotate, and launch can each be disabled or gated behind a permission per cannon so the same NPC can act as a decorative prop in one place and a permission-gated fast-travel launcher in another.
What you can build with it
Because each instance is highly customizable, the cannon NPC can take on a lot of different roles:
- Gym puzzles — the type-themed variants exist mostly so a cannon can drop straight into a Pokémon gym whose puzzle is built around aiming and launching the player.
- Movable puzzles — push and rotate together let players solve room-scale puzzles by lining the cannon up and firing themselves through gaps or onto otherwise-unreachable platforms.
- Hub transport — a cannon at spawn that launches players toward a distant area replaces a long walk with a satisfying arc.
- Decoration — the type-themed reskins make it easy to match a cannon to a gym, biome, or themed build without commissioning new art.
Type variants by Croix
The cannon ships with one base "circus" form and 18 beautiful Pokémon-type repaints, all made by Croix. The variants exist primarily so the cannon can be dropped into a Pokémon gym puzzle and immediately read as part of that gym's type. The base model only had to be unwrapped once; every type variant slots into the same atlas.
The trajectory math
The trickiest part of the project turned out to be the physics. Computing the right launch velocity for a given barrel angle is ordinary 2D projectile motion, until you remember that Minecraft's coordinate system is right-handed, meaning Z increases as you go south rather than north. I had to apply the cannon's current rotation to the player, and then derive the correct forward vector inside that convention rather than the one a high-school trig class assumes. It was a nice excuse to actually reach for a bit of geometry and linear algebra in a creative project.
Tech
- Built on top of Cobblemon, the Pokémon mod for Minecraft, using its built-in NPC, behaviour, and dialogue systems (all configured in JSON).
- Core push / rotate / launch logic written in Molang, Bedrock's lightweight scripting language.
- Model and animations built in Blockbench as a Bedrock geometry, with idle / fuse / shoot animations driven by Cobblemon's poser system.
- Requires the Journey mod, which supplies the functions to launch the player, as well as apply the fall-damage-immunity buff so the player survives the landing.
Built for the Callisto and Cobblewilds Cobblemon servers, but available for commission.