You've never heard of these Minecraft versions. Why not? 

I just realized This is the most elaborate mod showcase ever.

i love how this arg just destroys the common trope of herobrine-esque creepypasta by inserting a spooooooky shadowy figure from the beginning and then swiftly explaining that they're just the devs trolling

I love how there is no scary monsters or any actual threat and it's just some devs screwing around and trying to scare players, I actually felt more intrigued than scared.

What I really like about this ARG is how believable it is. Usually ARG's go off the rails with alternate dimensions, God's or creators or sentience in the game, but this is downright realistic. With all the weird ideas Notch and Mojang we're throwing around at the time, a hub world connected by random doors seems like the kind of thing they would try. The random boss and chunk names also seem like something, esspecially if they took Minecraft down a slightly more rpg route than they did. It being developed by a separate team, whether within or outside of Mojang also seems reasonable, esspecially with the forked versions and admins recruiting. Such a compelling yet grounded base, sprinkled with a little bit of mystery, even if there is very little "game" or it is already complete, the idea itself is just really intriguing, especially to a nerd like me.

I love how much this feels like an actual version of old Minecraft. Old Minecraft has always felt kind of "off" to me, and I've always liked the vibes its given.

Of all the ARGs I've ever seen, this one is actually kinda interesting to me considering the authors are willing to go the lengths of making complete "old" alpha versions of the game just for people to dig around

The multiplayer version is the most insane to me because the camera being actively blocked proves, at least in my mind, that there was truly another player on the other end there, probably the ARG runner who had access to the server somehow. Really, really cool.

25:49 RGN:"We hear a door open and close several times, although there is no door nearby" Player: *opens door*

I think this is the most ominous and creepy way to pull off a video game ARG or anything meant to be scary. It isn't just gore on the screen, it's a demo that seems like lost game play that's JUST off. It's truly like entering another universe and it had me on edge the whole time, I love it

The first version where a shadow player was seen was Alpha 1.0.16_02, which is the same version where Herobrine was seen. That could mean the version unintentionally went public and the Herobrine was just another shadow player. I know this is just an ARG and Herobrine was just a creepypasta, but it´s so cool to see these stories overlap and give us somewhat of a backstory to Herobrine

Several times during this ARG I was wondering if I missed the memo and this was an actual version. That's how realistic it is. That's the sign of a fantastic ARG.

This feels like a temporal leakage from an alternate universe where RubyDung was more developed before it became Minecraft.

This has to be the most high effort Minecraft ARG I have seen in a very long time, if not ever. Huge props to the guy or people who run the ARG and channel.

these minecraft versions look like something i would see in a dream, like the textures look so weird but familiar and the new features are so random, like the crystals in the air and giant boss battles

How well this ARG story tells and how this channel explains without emphasizing that the fact this is just work of fiction did really take my attention. At first i wasn't believe this was just an ARG or Creepypasta. The experience while watching the whole video took me back the good old days where i still believe that Creepypasta stories were real. Thank you for the presentation RGN! You really did a great job in this video.

This ARG stands out to me for one reason and that's "change" when you keep watching these videos the developers make the game unrecognizable meaning that the more features they add the less Minecraft is recognizable like it's slowly changing into something else

That scene where the guy walks out behind his house and finds the "window" blocks had me so fucked up; a complete subversion of expectation and suspense, i've never been so had in my life. Top quality horror scene, this whole thing's nuts

I really like how the versions slowly “mutate” in a way, looking less and less like Minecraft as the updates continue

Part 2 has been released! Watch it here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HYPf4ukXYlw.html

I... Actually loved those tracks,they have a weird style that appeals me somehow. Especially the drums in lemuria sounds like someone is hitting some random objects with the stick,and it doesnt keep going in set Intervals,it felt pretty random,kinda creepy but also exciting.

I like that the versions in this series are JUST off enough to feel eerie. They seem normal, but uncanniness is off the charts. It's scary without using horror/arg tropes.

Listening to the music from this version, I am very glad at the music C418 produced, if it had been slightly different minecraft could’ve been very eerie, even scary, compared to the relaxing and soothing music C418 produced

Man the mystery I want solved is who the composer for all this is, I’d unironically listen to a fair amount of these tracks. Have some time stamps 20:55 Hidden Den 21:05 Lemuria 21:35 moon2 / fjord 21:51 Norway 22:11 Sadway 28:08 Ballroom Pianist 28:23 Nordic Sanctuary 32:13 R.O.S.T.R.U.M 32:26 Pattern Ponder 32:38 Faux Divinity

I love how this doesn’t really have any jump scares, something args have a hard time staying away from

The people who worked on this ARG deserve more respect. THEY MADE A LITERAL SOUNDTRACK

god damn this is so epic. people making what's essentially a series of mods of alpha Minecraft with multiplayer, new mechanics, and even an OST, for an ARG? this is legitimately incredible, hats off to the people behind this whole thing, whoever they are. and, of course, hats off to you, RetroGamingNow. your content is amazing and your coverage of this mystery is no exception. with such high quality, you deserve way more popularity than what you have now.

I think the notion of the hub world area is actually a really cool concept. Probably impossible to realize, but it'd be so awesome to be able to just slap a lever down next to a door and be able to hop into your friend's world, or even a complete stranger's world. People would have so many cool memories of making friends in the hub and building up each other's worlds. God, can you imagine?

I love the idea that this is all building up to the release of a full version of this alternate MInecraft for people to enjoy. It feels less creepy and more just plain interesting, and I'm here for it.

Another interesting Minecraft mystery. These recent Minecraft mystery explanation videos have been very interesting lately

Honestly, the effort put into this is literal fire, imagine making a Minecraft ARG but then just to also make a standalone modded version of a Minecraft version for that ARG. Literal dedication

This ARG must have taken a lot of effort to make. The amount of programming and worldbuilding required.

32:37 faux divinity Is fire 💀💀🔥🔥💯💯

Interesting fact: The title was changed from "The Story of AlphaVer: A Minecraft Mystery" to "What are the Minecraft Lilypad versions?" and then to "You've never heard of these Minecraft versions. Why not?".

The idea of taking something so long lost and forgotten like RubyDung and implementing it into an ARG of it's successor is a truly amazing concept to me

you never expect this level of creativity from minecraft args but i am genuinely impressed with how in depth this is

I like how this is just Notch being a bit more edgy with making Minecraft

The early versions are so similar to Minecraft at the time they’re almost indistinguishable, but then over time it just gets more and more modified until it’s just a fever dream of random features. I wonder what the motivation is supposed to be for implementing these features

I like to think this is an alternate Minecraft timeline, where at one point, the timeline diverges. I wonder what would 1.16.5 look like?

I actually enjoy the concept of doors to other worlds, it reminds me of how in terraria you can bring items from a world to another world

That fact that they had to make a minecraft clone for an arg is truly incredible.

This explains the original herobrine image. And i honestly find it 1000 times more creepy to know that the devs were working on joining peoples private worlds and screwing around. This makes the initial tale of herobrine far more believable and a gazillion times more terrifying.

I thought "oh great, another shadowy figure scary story" and then it got really good, like, i legit could've believed all of this some years ago, all the detail to make it credible amd realistic is amazing

Really goes to show how much sound and formatting affects the tone of a video. Inherently this isn’t a very creepy ARG, it’s really just like a hypothetical story if RubyDung continued in production. Jesus christ it’s polished as fuck though

This is incredible dedication for an ARG A whole server, ties to Rubydung, anomalies happening to said server, new versions... I don't think I've seen a more immersive ARG outside of IRL ones (Bill Cypher Statue, Cicada or whatever)

"The developer builds several upside-down Ts in the world" Oh, RetroGamingNow, you're so innocent!

At first, this honestly felt like a re-imagining of the story of Herobrine, with the initial video even resembling the Herobrine sighting screenshot. Things soon spiraled into something much greater and far more intriguing and I couldn't be happier for it.

I believe the strange undulating thing that DJP uncovers is a cube-shaped item drop that is colliding with the slab he's standing on top of. The rotation of the item drop causes the effect as one corner rotates around and disappears into the slab, the opposing corner is revealed. The darkness of the item seems to back up this theory too.

i dont know if im right,but i have the feeling that this minecraft (or rubydung) arg is based on norse mythology. from the almost nordic names of giants and chunks,the ost and the fact that most of the gameplay videos happen in snowy areas. hell even the wierd hub world tower,wich could be a reference to yggdrasil,which connects the realms (hubs) together. call me crazy but thats just the vibe it all gives me.

There's just something so creepy about the alpha days of Minecraft

My favorite Minecraft ARG was the Mark101 ARG. Creepy, yet interesting. I think it could be a good movie.

Ngl, an extremely good ARG and it actually makes sense and connects to each other. Not like other ARG’s where the game is like, sentient or alive. The developers of the versions CHANGING the game itself makes actual sense.

I have no idea why, but the most unsettling part of this whole thing is the sand texturing. It feels so cursed.

I love the texture changes! They look eerie and uncanny! It kinda tickles a specific part of the brain, since you are so used to the original textures. Especially the furnace and the creeper. Those really make me feel something weird.

What a ride. The way that the "new" versions are just off enough to be unsettling at the beginning, and it all flowing so well. I hope you make a follow up on this once we know more. I need to know more

29:53 The second text message I believe is latin. I do not speak fluent latin, but using google translate (which isn't very reliable) can give some answers. Having the text run through google translate, the original latin (lorem ipsum dolor sit amet) loosely translates to "the internet itself is a pain". (of course, this may mean nothing, as latin is sometimes used as fluff)

One thing of note: The ammount of shadow players that joined the server that the Discord users set up... It's a LOT of people, many more than the original 7 devs.

This ARG actually made good music, and is acually pretty realistic. They even went out of their way to make a full on game.

29:47 *Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet is Latin for “the customer is very happy,” which is often used for example text, or filler text.*

I was browsing through Mincraft Alpha 0.1.16’s community tab and then I saw a download link for a file called “OST_2”, I downloaded it and it was password protected. It was made on 6:31 AM at 8th July 2022 in Europe (where I live). Where in Europe you may ask… …I don’t know.

I love how this ARG sort of revives the feeling of old minecraft, and not knowing what is lurking in the games code, or what to expect.

I really like how this story develops. The very beginning closely resembles the Herobrine myth with a creepy player hiding in the old versions of the game, but then it develops into this intricate and very elaborate ARG with actual game files where people got to interact with the people who made it. It's a great concept paired with excellent execution, and it's an interesting twist since stories like this tend to slowly embrace paranormal behavior as more information on the story is revealed. Flipping that sort of trope on its head by slowly becoming more and more believable (while still remaining unexplainable and mysterious) isn't easy, but it does so, and I love it.

13:17 “the developer builds several upside down T ‘s in the world” that line made me laugh so hard💀

My Favourite ARG. It's Something I Always Thought Of - What If There Is A Cut Version Of Minecraft Which Is Way Different Than What We Got? I Remember Being Young And Making Up Stories About Lost Versions Of The Game

The custom blocks made for this ARG actually look pretty cool. I'd actually like it if that window block from when we see the "obstruction" guy and the hub world blocks were added to the official game.

We love them minecraft ARG! Why are they so good? I don't know but your coverage off them is equally comprehensive and fun.

Hands down the most interesting Minecraft ARG i’ve ever seen, goes to show you don’t need to go paranormal with your story to make it scary

this ARG is honestly so creative and unique, the storyline of the behind the scenes aspect of it, the developers, and the secretiveness of the footage, makes it so spooky.

I think part of the mystery lies in the fact that these were alpha versions, where how the textures (and the game itself even) was different than what we are used to today. Thanks so much and I look forward to your uploads Retro!!!

39:26 I'm thinking that maybe instead of just having random iron doors in the world that go to the hub, they wanted to spice it up by making it an actual structure so it was more recognizable so people would just be like "oh yeah that goes to the hub." it also probably be easier to find at that point. Overall this is a really cool ARG tho

100% was expecting that "don't run unsafe JAR files" comment to transition into a sponsor

i love how authentic this all feels, esp the new textures. it has the style of og mods like twilight zone, which makes the whole thing so much more believeable and a little nostalgic

I have a theory in why the updates were broke off: Minecraft was sold, so Mojang wanted their own version of Minecraft that they could sell off for money, and still have a version different enough for them to own it

Its always a good day when retro uploads

There was a post I saw appreciating how with every Minecraft update, it becomes more lively, like it was evolving and healing from some quiet, unknown tragedy.

Something I remembered just now that way back when on one of my first server experiences on a german server (am german) something similar to this arg has happened to me. Yes, this wasnt single player. But the fact it happened feels so creepy in hindsight. It was a generic server. A spawn world in which you could grab ressources and a town world in which you could build on your own plot of land. One day I log on, play a bit and come back home and suddenly I see a player just breaking all restrictions and perms as they walk into my home, go into my small dug out basement and started to spam blazes. I called them out in chat, even killed a blaze and had the rod to prove it and soon after was kicked for spam. As I logged back in, there was no more player but the blaze rod was still there. But the strangest thing was the player itself. Could have been an admin but I doubt it. More than likely a hacker. Why? Cause the player flashed in and out of existance as if it was a weird glitch almost. Least that is what it felt like tbh.

Imagine the devs that made these versions sending us a link and leading it to a rickroll

There have been splits in Minecraft's development multiple times. 1.8 came before 1.7.9 and something between 1.8.3 to 1.8.7 came before 1.7.10. (At the time, I thought "Why update 1.7 further?")

I keep coming back to this video just because of how much effort was put into both the series and this documentary. I love it

42:11 that shadow dissapeared when the shadow player left

This gives me Super Mario 64 and Zelda 64 beta vibes. They feel so similar yet so alien compared to the final versions. The Super Mario 64 Iceberg feels like these alternate Minecraft Alphas, an eerie dreamlike version of the main game. There’s nothing horrifying to explicitly point out, but the uncanny nature of unfamiliar parts of the game gives it all a creepy undertone

By “distributing the jar” meant the way to join the server. Since back then the only way to do multiplayer was to modify the jar and distribute it.

13:36 "The developer builds some upside-down Ts." We all know those are not upside-down Ts.

25:20 wait, there's a shadow thing around top right corner Wait no he says that later, i'm dumb

some of that music in the jar preview was actually really good. the ambient background ones gave me some vaporwave/hypnogogia vibes edit: faux divinity is a BANGER

Gives me creepy vibes reminding me of the time i was playing splitscreen with a friend on 360 (game set to no one else could hop in) and suddenly it said a nameless person had joined my world. We saw a thin purple tag in the distance but no name. We began running at it through the trees but it disappeared quickly after that. Like they didnt mean to be seen. Around a month or so later on a new world,we were sorting some items in a chest when our nether portal made the sound when someone would go through. We looked around and no one was there. We stopped playing for awhile after those happened

38:46 "stdout" is a term used in ZBarCam, a Windows program that can read QR codes from a webcam. In the code for ZBarCam, stdout is a variable that holds a number. From what I've seen, it tells Windows whether or not the code contains binary data or ASCII data.

as someone who speaks french, the "aurevoir" in one of the messages means "goodbye" or "farewell" faux-divinity being "fake divinity" or "false divinity"

19:43, If you're worried about a program being malicious, you could also use a virtual machine as an alternative.

9:53 11:53 Regarding the Shadow, I went on Wayback machine to see the old update logs, but instead I went to the development blog and in there was a Bug Update #3. This bug update is from November 30. 2010. In it is written : ,,* Fixed dead players logging in as invisible ghosts.” And that might be what happened in the video.

I don't know if it was intentional, but some of the retextures are just terrifying to me. The furnace, oak door, and iron door in particular just give off this sense of pure dread. They're just so.... wrong

I haven't seen anyone in comment section to notice it, but I see some sense in replacing "Wanderer" painting with "Lermontov" painting. One of Lermontov's most famous works is "Hero of our time", which main character, Pechorin, represent a trope of "superfluous man" (talanted person, who can't implement his ideas therefore he just waste his life on pointless things). And trope of "superfluous man" comes from "Byronic hero", who is supposed to be shown on "Wanderer" painting. So, if devs in this ARG "replaced" original pictures with samiliar ones, it would be logical to replace "Byronic hero" with "superfluous man" (you would ask why they choose Lermontov instead of Pechorin, but I would say it doesn't really matter since many people see parallel between Pechorin and Lermontov himself). And small fact: Lermontov's ancestor was Sweden. And Mojang is Sweden company, kek

this takes me back to my old nightmares about herobrine when i was a kid. finally something actually makes the whole idea scary

I hope that when the ARG ends, all the modified jars are released

28:01 the fact the obsidian armor and tools exist

Items of importance: Videos that have jar files: Developer Preview Closed Preview Discovered Codes: 47984-25158-78947 2259403-191299

The versions change like how dinosaurs became birds, in this scenario, the original dinosaurs are the main branch of development of Minecraft, and the birds are the 16.05 branch, everytime there is a new version of the 16.05 branch, it becomes less like the original Minecraft

In all honesty, the most eerie part of this thing are all the new textures. It's just so jarring to see these doors.

Ok but the whole door and hub idea is actually so cool.

Let's take a moment to appreciate the impressive complexity of this arg. I mean, these guys created an impressively extensive mod of early Minecraft complete with new features, an entire soundtrack, and new UI elements. On top of that, the puzzles are quite unique. Not only did they develop a mod, but one with a server file, so that it could be played in multiplayer. When this server was started, the gamemasters planned this and used the player-made server to continue the story. Mind-blowingly impressive.