How to use allow and deny blocks in Minecraft: Education Edition

Exclusive to Minecraft: Education, Pocket, and Bedrock Editions, allow and deny blocks are used to allow or deny building within a certain area as their name implies.

For Minecraft players familiar with blocks such as claim blocks on multiplayer servers, allow and deny blocks should provide a similar feeling in how they function. When they are placed within the world, players in a world can place or remove blocks in the area above an 'allow' block.

Conversely, players will not be unable to build atop the area of a 'deny' block. Players without world builder privileges must abide by the effects of the blocks, while players with those privileges can still build freely.

---

Minecraft: Obtaining and using allow/deny blocks

Allow/deny blocks are a great asset for controlled construction within Minecraft: Education Edition (Image via Mojang)

Within Minecraft's Pocket or Bedrock Editions, allow/deny blocks can be obtained via commands such as /setblock to place them in the world or /give to place them in a player's inventory.

For example, "/give @s deny 1 0" would give a Bedrock/Pocket player one deny block. The same command would work for an allow block and simply requires changing the "deny" argument to "allow" within the code syntax.

Typically, cheats are required to be enabled in order to use the command console to obtain these blocks, so ensure that they're active before trying out commands.

Once acquired, placing an allow/deny block will activate its effect in an infinite area above the block going straight up, meaning players will need many allow/deny blocks placed in close proximity to each other in order to allow or prevent building above their surface.

Placing only one of these blocks will still allow for normal building around it as only the space above the block is affected.

Don't worry about allow/deny blocks being broken easily either, as they are sturdy and highly resistant to explosions. The only real way to damage them to the point of breaking is via a massive amount of explosive blocks such as TNT or by being attacked by the Ender Dragon.

This means those who set the blocks should be able to guide the building in a given world, keeping a Minecraft world contained and allowing creators (especially educators) to guide their players to certain areas where they can unleash their creativity without creating a chaotic mess of things.