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Sparkane

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September Update: New challenges, new goals, and more!

14 new challenges, five new goals and more for your next Minecraft session: discover every change, the shared backpack and new features for friends and parties.

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By The Sparkane team
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  1. Crumbling Spheres
  2. Bedrock Wall
  3. One Line
  4. Chest Skyblock
  5. Floor Is Lava
  6. Nine more new challenges
  7. Five new goals: what will you beat?
  8. New settings for your group
  9. Changes to challenges you already know
  10. Save places and look up discoveries
  11. Play together: friends and parties
  12. New in the lobby and on your server
Learn how to play for free
A floating forest biome sphere with stone bridges and a neighboring sphere beneath a bright cloudy sky
Stone bridges connect green and snowy spheres above the void.

The floor turns to lava, your wolf needs protecting and a bedrock wall grows behind you. Which challenge can you beat together? Here is everything in our big update, including new features for your party and your own server.

Crumbling Spheres

Bridges connect floating spheres with different biomes. When one of you steps onto a regular sphere, the clock starts: after two minutes of active play, it crumbles from the bottom up.

Grab what you need and move on in time. The rare spheres with Nether or End portals stay in place.

Bedrock Wall

Ten seconds after you walk somewhere, tall bedrock pillars appear there. They stay in place. Anyone trapped inside takes damage.

Keep moving! Your way back might already be blocked.

A tall vertical bedrock pillar rises above a forested hill
A tall bedrock pillar grows where you walked.

One Line

The Overworld is just one block wide. Watch your step!

Hidden chests contain End Portal Frames. Collect twelve, build your portal and craft the Eyes of Ender yourself. The Nether and End stay normal worlds.

A one-block-wide line of grass, dirt, and stone with trees stretches to the horizon
Trees grow on the narrow line, with exposed ores visible along its open side.

Chest Skyblock

You start on a small island above the void. Use your supplies, build bridges and set up farms. Explore more themed islands to find new materials.

Find the empty portal altar and build your way to the End.

A grassy starting island with a tree and two chests; more themed islands float above the void in the background
The starting island with two chests sits among small themed islands.

Floor Is Lava

The block beneath you turns to magma after two seconds. Two seconds later, it turns to lava!

Keep moving and find your next safe block fast.

A thin orange lava trail cuts through a grassy hillside, with fire burning at the far end
Your footsteps leave lava in the grass. Keep moving!

Nine more new challenges

Would you rather protect a wolf or run from TNT? These challenges are new too:

  • Only Strongholds: Start in an underground stronghold in the Overworld. Dig through a world of stone to find more strongholds.
  • Protect Your Wolf: Everyone gets a wolf. If even one wolf dies, you lose the challenge.
  • Biome = Effect: Each biome gets a random effect that stays the same for that biome. Find out which effect is waiting for you!
  • Damage Scrambles Inventory: Taking damage shuffles your inventory. Where did your sword go?
  • TNT Follows You: TNT appears at your location every ten seconds. You have three seconds to escape!
  • Only Down: Your lowest height becomes your limit. Going even one block up is deadly. Plan every step down!
  • Damage Launch: Taking damage launches you into the air. Watch out for the landing!
  • Damage Teleport: Taking damage teleports you to a random location.
  • Running = Damage: After a 45-second grace period, every fifth block you travel deals one health point of damage. That is half a heart.

Five new goals: what will you beat?

You do not always have to beat the Ender Dragon. Pick one of these goals for your run:

  • Elder Guardian Slayer: Defeat an Elder Guardian.
  • Reach an XP Level: Choose a level from 1 to 100 and reach it.
  • Obtain an Elytra: An active player must get an Elytra.
  • Activate a Beacon at Tier 3+: Build and activate a beacon with at least three pyramid layers. Select an effect and keep its beam clear.
  • Stronghold Relics: Play Only Strongholds and ring three relic bells in three different strongholds.

New settings for your group

  • Shared Backpack: Open 27 shared storage slots with /backpack to keep your supplies together. The contents stay safe through deaths and server restarts.
  • No Phantoms: Turn off phantoms for quieter nights.
  • No Fall Damage: Turn off damage from falling.
  • Always Night: Play in permanent night.
  • Increasing Difficulty: TNT Follows You and Red Light, Green Light speed up after ten and twenty minutes of active play.

Changes to challenges you already know

  • Level = Border: Your shared XP makes your border permanently bigger in small steps. You can see your progress as you go.
  • Chunk = Mob: There are custom borders, waypoints to guardians and a tree in your starting chunk. Enemies get tougher as you play.
  • Randomizers: Block drops are better balanced. If you go a long time without Ender Pearls or Blaze Rods, your chances of getting them increase.
  • Crafting = Mob: Every craft counts, even when you craft lots of items at once. Mobs appear one after another.
  • Red Light, Green Light: Green phases last a random ten to 120 seconds. There is no visible countdown to the next change.
  • XP Clears Inventory: This challenge has been removed.

Save places and look up discoveries

  • Positions: Use /pos to manage shared locations and save important places for your group.
  • Discoveries Journal: Use /discoveries to look up drops, recipes and biome effects you have already discovered. Search the entries and save your favourites.

Play together: friends and parties

Friends and parties now have shared menus.

  • Invitations: Invite friends to your party and play together.
  • Party chat: Talk to your group in your own party chat.
  • Private messages across servers: Send friends private messages even when they are playing on another Sparkane server.
  • Privacy settings: Adjust your settings for friends, parties and messages.

New in the lobby and on your server

  • Your rank on Discord: Link your account to get your in-game rank on Discord too. The link is at the end of this section.
  • Clearer menus: Challenge selection and server setup explain rules, settings and rank benefits more clearly.
  • Help in the game: Use /help to open guides right inside Minecraft.
  • A fresh look: The lobby has new icons, plus rank badges and more consistent chat messages.
  • Your personal server: The queue takes your rank and waiting time into account. You can see startup progress and get a notification.
  • Minecraft versions: At the time of the September 2026 update, Sparkane supports Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.11 through 26.3. For Bedrock Edition, use the latest version.
  • Fewer bugs: We have improved performance and stability and fixed lots of bugs.

Start a free private server

Create your own challenge server for free. Once it is ready, you can start playing with your friends.

Learn how to play for free
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