Minecraft

The Creeper Mine

A giant green Creeper that swallows your gold and spits it into a chest, and yes, it is as fun as it sounds.

Brick Rated Score

3.9/5

Set 21155 · 2019

Pieces834

Minifigs3

Year2019

Set number21155

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The verdict

The Creeper statue is the whole reason this set exists, and honestly it earns it.

You pour mined gold into the top of an eight-inch Creeper tower, pull a lever, and it tumbles out into a chest at the base, which is the kind of silly mechanical trick that keeps a kid busy for an afternoon. It builds a little fiddlier than most Minecraft sets and the baseplate seams are weaker than I would like, but the play value is genuinely high. Great for a Minecraft-obsessed builder who wants functions to fiddle with, not a display piece for a shelf.

Best for: Minecraft-mad kids around 8 to 11 who want to actually play, not display

The full review

What it is

I have a soft spot for the Minecraft sets that commit to one big daft idea, and The Creeper Mine commits hard. The centerpiece is a giant green Creeper statue standing about eight inches tall, and it is not just a lump of studs, it is a functioning gold chute. You drop your mined gold ingots into the top, pull a lever, and they clatter down through the body into a chest waiting at the base. The first time it worked I actually laughed out loud, because it is such a gloriously pointless bit of engineering, and that is exactly the sort of thing an eight-year-old will replay a hundred times. Around the tower you get a proper little Minecraft world: a rail track with a minecart, a shelter kitted out with a bed, anvil, oven, chest and a tiny vegetable patch, plus three separate TNT and explosion functions to blast the rock away.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the caveats, because they are real. The baseplates are weaker where they join than I would like, and if a kid presses a section down too enthusiastically the whole join can pop apart, which means a bit of repair mid-play. Several builders flagged this, and it is the one thing that keeps the set from feeling truly solid. It also builds a fraction fiddlier than the average Minecraft set, so a younger or less patient builder may need a hand in a couple of spots. And the value math is honest rather than exciting: 834 pieces for the original 79.99 dollar price works out to roughly ten cents a piece, which is fine but not the bargain some Minecraft sets manage.

Who it's for

If you have a Minecraft kid who wants to actually do things with a set, pull levers, fire TNT, run the minecart, feed gold to a giant Creeper, this is a lovely pick and the functions hold up. If you are after something to build once and display, or you want the strongest possible pound-for-piece deal, this is not the one, and the baseplate wobble will nag at you. The set retired in February 2022 and has climbed in value since, so a sealed copy now runs well above its old shelf price, which is worth knowing before you buy.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building it feels very much like a Minecraft set, which is to say a lot of blocky, gridded construction in greens, greys and browns, with the satisfying moment near the end when the Creeper tower actually takes shape and stops looking like a random green wall. The mechanical bits are where it gets interesting to assemble: the internal gold chute and the lever mechanism take a little care to line up, and the three explosion functions each have their own small linkage. It is not a technically demanding build for an adult, but it is a genuinely engaging one for a kid, with clear cause-and-effect payoffs baked into the sequence.

There are no wild new molds here, this is a play set rather than a parts-pack, but the Minecraft figures are the real draw. You get Steve, a blacksmith and a husk as the square-headed minifigures, plus the brick-built Creeper, cow and bat that are so specific to this theme. Those blocky animal and mob builds are the pieces you will not easily find elsewhere, and they are the reason parts resellers keep an eye on the set. The rest is a healthy pile of standard plates and tiles in useful earthy colors, so even if the model itself gets dismantled, the bricks fold neatly into any Minecraft-style collection.

Fun facts

01The set packs six characters in total: three square-headed minifigures (Steve, a blacksmith and a husk) alongside brick-built Creeper, cow and bat figures.
02The assembled mine is sizeable, standing over eight inches (22cm) tall and fourteen inches (38cm) wide, with the Creeper statue as its towering centerpiece.
03It launched in August 2019 with an RRP of 79.99 dollars and retired in February 2022, and sealed copies have since climbed well past their original price.
04The Creeper statue is a working machine: gold dropped into the top travels down an internal chute and is delivered straight into a chest at the base when you pull a lever.