Playing Minecraft on a multiplayer server can be an incredibly fun project compared to the smaller scale of a singleplayer world. Rather than building a single house and rushing quickly toward the prospect of beating the Ender Dragon, building in the presence of others often opens up opportunities to combine multiple projects into a sprawling, more complex city.
However, trying to build a private domicile for oneself in a place through which other players can freely traipse often tends to be a completely uphill battle. After all, what’s stopping everyone from rummaging through your chests for valuables, or griefing the palace that you’ve spent hours perfecting?
In the event that their homes aren’t private enough, some players can benefit from building a secret base extension to their already existing house structure, in which they can hide away the things they hold most dear. The key to keeping their secret bases a secret, however, is devising and employing methods of inconspicuous doorway placement among cosmetic structures and facades, such that other players wouldn’t know where to look.
Option one: Trapdoor crawl-space
This secret base build can be incorporated into just about any house, provided that its interior flooring pattern is elevated at least two blocks above the base of the structure. Other players likely wouldn’t look twice if a homeowner added a cosmetic ring of downward-facing wooden trapdoors to the outdoor ground level block of their home, allowing them to burrow out a crawl-space beneath it.
What some Minecraft players don’t know about the mechanics of moving a trapdoor is that, if the trapdoor is opened into the block that a player is standing in, it will force that player into a prone state on the ground, allowing them to squeeze through single-block gaps. Therefore, placing a trapdoor on both sides of a block toward the ground, then breaking the block in the middle can create a two-way escape hatch that can be conveniently hidden by closing both trapdoors.
This makeshift basement beneath the house can be modified to fit the player’s secrecy needs. Should the house in question be built on the ground, a Snake-Eater-length ladder can lead down into a mineshaft, far from the watchful eyes of other players.
Option two: Painting into a corner
When compared to most other blocks, paintings bear unique properties in relation to the wall space around them. When placed on a block, the painting will attempt to occupy as much space as allowed, up to a four-by-four square.
Another mechanical detail of note about these paintings is that they do not feature any collision properties with mobs, including players. This means that, should a painting be placed on another block that lacks collision, such as by shift–placing the painting on a floating sign, the player could then pass through this painting as if it were a false door.
In practice, the player could carve a two-block doorway into a wall of their home, replace those blocks with signs, and then place the painting over the hole. Visitors will appreciate the host’s taste in fine art, completely unaware of what lies on the other side of the frame.
Behind the painting, the player can begin to build a secret room whose parameters fit within their means. Ideally, this type of secret base setup works best if the false door leads directly into some sort of terrain, such as a hill or mountainside. That way, other players won’t be able to tell that a house has an extra room from outside.
