By Timothy Lickteig On 2023-09-01

No, not the kind of seeds you use to grow wheat. I'm talking about the kind that seem to magically determine how your world gets generated. It seems like witchcraft how a seemingly randomly generated world can be recreated with just a single number. As a software engineer however, it makes total sense to me, and with a little knowledge nugget you can understand also.

To make a long rant short - it's because computers to not operate on a random basis. They just do math, which is never random. To get around this, a computer will get a number from somewhere. This number is usually derived from the current reading on the computer's clock, although it can be many different things. Crucially though, this number must be constantly changing. This number is the seed, which is then plugged into a bunch of highly complex mathematical equations. These equations are the algorithm, and out pops out our random number. These algorithms are such that you can get as many random numbers as you want from a single seed. Here's where the magic happens though: if you plug the same seed twice into the same algorithm, then you will get the exact same set of random numbers. Knowing this, I think you can figure out where I'm going.

As you know, Minecraft worlds are randomly generated meaning that they rely on a random number algorithm, similar to the one discussed above. This means that giving Minecraft the seed of a world we had previously, we can replicate the same set of random numbers used to generate the world, and thus it will recreate the world itself. The only real caveat is that anything you build or mine is not random, and is not tied to the world seed, so make sure to back up your worlds folks. The same seed might also cause differences across multiple different versions of the game due to changes in the way the world is generated. Anyways, I hope this article helped give you some insight to how Minecraft works, and you can appreciate it the next time you use one to quickly find an abandoned mineshaft.

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