September has arrived, proving all the naysayers wrong once again. They said the ninth month of the year didn't have the grit, the mettle, or the raw physical strength required to follow a powerhouse like August. But once again, September made fools of them all. 

And that means there's a sparkling new line-up of add-ons, texture packs, mini games, skin packs, and more available for Marketplace Pass and Realms Plus subscribers. Thanks September! I always believed in you!

ADD-ONS

I'm not scared of much in this life (just heights, liquids, and anything that involves travelling faster than a brisk walking pace), but even my legendary resolve was tested by The Bloop add-on by Mythicus. This sopping-wet DLC introduces ocean villages, a new deep ocean biome, and a host of new nautical equipment. But the star of the waterlogged show is the Bloop itself, a ravenous leviathan that stalks the watery depths for prey to consume. And once it has you in its massive jaws, you'll have to fight your way out of The Bloop's flotsam-filled belly. 

If you want a taste of what the villagers might do if they just had an ounce more self-belief, look no further than Village Cities add-on 1.2 by Float Studios. Suddenly, masons and nitwits and librarians are strolling around vast cities complete with skyscrapers, factories, banks, and more. Even that leatherworker I dislike is there, living their best city life alongside 19 new villagers that you can trade with. It's an incredible reinvention of the humble village, and goes to show that we mustn't ever let villagers get too big for their boots, lest they take over entirely. 

It doesn't seem to matter how many monocles I own or how much crushing debt I take on, I never quite seem to be accepted as a member of the international super-rich. Thankfully, Millionaire Mansions add-on by Noxcrew looks set to change all that, with a host of lavish, blueprinted mansions that you can build in a matter of seconds. All it takes is the touch of a button to construct your very own chic apartment complex or sprawling country estate. Maybe some of those CEOs will start returning my emails now.

They call shopping 'retail therapy', and it really works! How else would you explain the fact that I'm constantly buying things and never feel the need to speak about my feelings to anyone? Cute Shops by KiwiStars offers yet more opportunities to browse, skim, and peruse a host of adorable stores. There's heaps of boutique shops on offer - from furniture stores and bookshops to bakeries and wafflehouses - each with their own unique items for sale. This is a real victory for folks like me who have been unjustly barred from their closest IRL wafflehouse. Take that, Wafflemania.

Details are important. Heck, if it weren't for a few trifling details such as 'forged qualifications', I'd still be a high court judge. Props and Stuff by WildPhire takes this philosophy and applies it to interior design, offering a whole host of tasteful details that might just be the finishing touch for your builds. And with more than 350 delightfully decorative blocks to choose from, you can be sure there's an ornamental flourish in there that's just right for your project. I wonder if they do framed law degrees?

Now imagine for a moment that I was fast, agile, and had joints that were not, in the words of my doctor "mostly just nasty old dust at this point". If any of that were the case, I'd be the perfect spokesperson for Parkour Mechanics by Skilendarz, which introduces enough ziplines, wallrun blocks, and jump pads to satisfy even the most thrill-seeking among us. You can use these raw materials to construct your own parkour courses, making this the ideal add-on for anyone who enjoys humiliating their slowpoke friends. 

Nothing makes a home feel more classy than a piece of sculpture. That's why my own living room is dominated by an elegant, lifesize stone likeness of Christopher Lloyd in his role as Uncle Fester from the 1993 movie Addams Family Values. Now that's sophistication. More Blocks Statues add-on by MrAniman2 offers oodles of opportunities to fancy up your builds, thanks to the inclusion of a host of tasteful stone statues and refined lighting blocks to illuminate them. 

TEXTURE PACKS

If there's one thing I learned from my summer internship at the fireworks factory, it's that no celebration is complete without an ostentatious pop of color. Rainbow Eclipse PvP Pack by CubeCraft Games understands that, offering PvP enthusiasts an arsenal of animated swords and armor that pulse and fizz in all the colors of the rainbow. This pack also adds low fire and short swords to ensure your view is unimpeded by roaring flames and screen-filling blades in the midst of battle. 

Now if, like me, you go gaga at the sight of goggles, cogs, and zeppelins, Steampunk - Original Textures by The Craft Stars is the stuff of your wildest, coal-fired dreams. This retrofuturistic pack introduces a burst of steampowered flair to Minecraft's textures, and the result is the kind of top-hat-and-pistons vibe that would have had Jules Verne shrieking like a multi-tubular boiler. Probably.

I'll say the same thing to you that I always scream at my waiter: if it's not pastel-colored, I'm not interested. Pastel Adventures by Pathway Studios delivers more than just a pleasing color palette - it also features a custom UI, extra-cute mobs, and 12 unique pastel skins. 

Biff. Wam. Kapow. These are three options that I think my parents should have seriously considered rather than giving me a yawnsome name like James. They're also the words I found myself bellowing once I'd applied Cube Chaos by Pathway Studios, a texture pack that evokes the look of classic comic books. Throw on a cape, lace up some sensible footwear, and strike your most heroic pose before playing. 

MINI GAMES

As a child, I dreamed of having a treehouse - my own little place, high off the ground, to call my own. Now, thanks to Cherry Bonsai Treehouse by CrackedCubes I have an enormous treetop base that's wreathed in beautiful cherry blossom, decorated with unique textures, and surrounded by a spectacular village. Now I know what you're thinking: did I ever get that real-life treehouse? No I didn't, and I wish you'd stop asking about it.

When I told the producers of a certain very popular, very famous makeover show that I wanted to look cute, they told me "come on mate, we're not miracle-workers". But now, thanks to Cute Cozy House by Heropixel Games, I'm almost not sad about that anymore! Featuring a dreamy home, a luxurious pool, and more cute furniture than you could shake an especially adorable stick at, Cute Cozy House has everything you need to reinvent yourself as a cute icon. No matter what anyone says. 

If you're searching for glitz, glamor, and decadence, there's only one place to look: my birthday party. This year, there's going to be two types of jelly! Failing that, Las Vegas is a good second choice, and Cityscapes Las Vegas by Octovon offers the opportunity to sample the city of lights without having to brave the Nevada sun. Explore world-famous landmarks, relax in luxurious resorts, and step inside the kind of swanky hotel that would have me ejected from the lobby in a matter of seconds. 

If it wasn't for my aforementioned fear of heights and the fact that the Empire State Building is worth an estimated $3 billion, I'd always thought I'd quite like to live in a skyscraper. City Life by Kora Studios allows me to live out that exact fantasy, all while peering out at a cityscape of sprawling apartment complexes, luxurious penthouses, and sprawling city streets filled with sleek supercars.

Escape rooms are so much fun! Sure, sometimes you might get a little overexcited, desperately rattling the handle of the door while begging the employees to let me you out, please let me you out. But that's all part of the fun! I think! Cursed Woodland Mansion by Pathway Studios is a devilishly clever escape room that takes place in the suitably spooky environment of a woodland mansion. Solve puzzles, unlock doors, and try not to make the staff too uncomfortable when you weepingly beg for them to just open the door.

If there's one thing I find more majestic even than the night sky, when the entire cosmos seems laid out before you, it's that sport where you use a stick to hit a ball into a really small hole. In Space Mini-Golf by Waypoint Studios, you'll discover 100 unique holes ranging from straightforward putts to elaborate tests of your intergalactic golfing prowess. And as if all that wasn't enough, you can even invite your friends to compete for mini-golf supremacy. 

My stance has always been this: the only thing that could improve parkour is the addition of warm-blooded reptiles from 230 million years ago. Let's all thank our lucky stars for Mega Prehistoric Parkour by Jigarbov Productions, then, which sees you tackling parkour challenges while playing as a precious little baby dinosaur. 

SKIN PACKS

Pink is far and away the cutest color there is: just look at cotton candy, bubblegum, and the tremulous flesh of a shrieking pig as it charges you, unblinking. All. So. Cute. With 10 fashionable skins to choose from, Cute in Pink! by Pixel Squared is yet more proof of the power of pink to make even the grumpiest Gus say "aww". 

Meanwhile, Sakura Bliss by Yeggs draws its inspiration from the beautiful yet fleeting cherry blossom. Is it a moving examination of the transience of all things? Or a pack offering 12 blossom-themed skins that look really cool? I just checked and it's the second thing.   

When I'm trying to make a difficult decision, I sometimes imagine an angel sitting on one of my shoulders and a devil sitting on the other. Weirdly, both of them agreed that I should rifle through my colleagues' desk drawers in search of "high-value snacks" while they were all out to lunch, so I'm not sure if my conscience is really working the way it's supposed to. Anyway, Angels vs Devils by Pixel Squared is less about the morality of eating unguarded Jaffa Cakes and more about looking heavenly or hellish in 12 stylish skins. 

Finally, it's time for a skin pack so frightening that it actually broke my Spookometer when I tried to get a reading. That's devastating news, since a properly calibrated Spookmeter can set you back thousands of dollars. Spooky Season by StudioU offers 13 seriously eerie skins for you to choose from, making it the perfect way to prepare for Halloween. 

CHARACTER CREATOR ITEMS

Capping off this bumper month of Marketplace Pass goodies is a rich assortment of Character Creator items. I say 'rich' because they're all made of gold, which is a funny coincidence since I'm currently trying to persuade my editors at Minecraft.net to pay me in 12.4 kilogram bars of bullion. At the time of writing, they remain stubbornly unconvinced.

• Dark Gold Sneakers by 57 Digital
• Dark Gold Mask by 57 Digital
• Dark Gold Armor by 57 Digital
• Dark Gold Armor Pants by The Pocalypse Studios
• Dark Gold Wings by The Pocalypse Studios
• Gold Bracelets by NovaEgg

What a line-up. I don't know about you, but the raw mental exertion of describing it all has left me so weak that I couldn't possibly do another lick of work for at least another calendar month. 

Fancy sampling some of these wares for yourself? All you've got to do is sign up to Marketplace Pass to gain access to this cavalcade of add-ons, mini games, textures packs, and more. There's also Realms Plus, which grants access to those Marketplace Pass benefits as well as an always-online server for you and your friends to shape to your liking. 

Join us next month for another volcanic eruption of Marketplace goodness, as if the add-ons and mini games and texture packs were superheated magma and ash and pumice. But in a really nice way.