Ace Pixel Artist Jasper Boerstra explained how kelp isn't just a new underwater plant in Minecraft, but new ground for the visual design of the game too. “Kelp is the first plant to utilise a new kind of visual feature: Animation.”

“Before, the only things that [were] animated were either particles or the lava/water and some other solid blocks. But we never animated a plant that used transparency.

“This was a new challenge for the style of Minecraft - as it has never been done before, we had no frame of reference to adapt the animation style to - so we had to find it.”