[noobie]

The Minecraft modding scene is amazing! The Japanese have been doing wonders. You'd be amazed not only by the content but also by the visual effects of some of the mods.

Some examples (Not Japanese):

ComputerCraft: adds programmable computers in Lua. With in game applications; programmable robots called turtles.

Botania and Thaumcraft are two magical mods with stunning visuals.

Buildcraft and AE2 are logistics-oriented mods.

All in all, vanilla Minecraft is definitely unplayable once you try it with mods.

Edit: Probably worth mentioning that Mojang hired the guy who created the modding API. (See SquareWheel's comment below for correction/details)

Edit: Just finished reading the article (I check the comments first). They mentioned the Redstone logic. Probably worth mentioning as well that a 16-year-old built a scientific calculator using Redstone. https://youtu.be/wgJfVRhotlQ

[SquareWheel]

Just a quick correction. Mojang hasn't hired the guy that created Forge. They hired Dinnerbone and grum, two guys from Bukkit (a server plugin API). They also hired developers from MCP (Searge and Professor Mobius), which enables Forge to do what it does.

Forge's early contributors have mostly moved on from the modding scene, but the current maintainers are cpw and LexManos. They've worked with Mojang on a few issues, such as the block model format, but haven't been hired by them.

Additionally, I'm not sure if you meant it this way, but the mods you mentioned aren't by Japanese developers. There is a significant modding scene in Japan, but there's little overlap with the more common mods such as you listed above. Some notable mods from that community are StarMiner[1], RealTrainMod[2], and Helicopter Mod[3].

[1] http://forum.minecraftuser.jp/viewtopic.php?t=17975

[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yAsWJZxkLFrogH1Rfa8EA/vid...

[3] http://forum.minecraftuser.jp/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=14837

[noobie]

By "modding API" in my first edit I was actually referring to MCP. I couldn't think of a better description.

The mods I mentioned aren't indeed by Japanese developers but I can now see how my wording is wrong. I meant to say that the Japanese modding community is also active and doing wonders. Thank you.

[jameshart]

The minecraft modding scene is horrific. Forum posts as homepages, adfly for file hosting, closed source mods whose maintainers are hostile to feedback, compatibility issues between everything...

... and yet somehow it WORKS, and probably provides kids with a better introduction to having to hack with computer technology than anything most kids have had to deal with since having to edit HIMEM in your autoexec.bat to get a soundblaster to work with Doom was a thing.

[asiekierka]

Actually, most mods are not closed source anymore and most modders moved to CurseForge over adf.ly (which is not perfect, I admit, but much better). This is not 2012.

[Filligree]

You should definitely look at Electrical Age as well.

I mean... I'm biased, because I'm one of the (non-core) devs, but it's a reasonably accurate DC electrical simulator, in Minecraft! What's not to love?

[noobie]

Sold! I haven't played around in a while but I definitely will. Thanks!

[Filligree]

If you feel like playing beta-tester, there's also my dev server at https://madoka.brage.info/

[beachy]

Watching that helps explain why MS paid $2.5b for Minecraft. Maybe the most incredible visual computing artefact I've ever seen. Having a channel to that young man's brain... Priceless

[bostonvaulter2]

I wish it was easier to find and install mods.