Minecraft "Horror Mods" are Missing the Point

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#minecraft #minecrafthorror #cavedweller

[@Daggz]

Subscribe to dargz :) youtube.com/@Dargz117?si=mRKrKBJEaE1ni6HY

[@timedeathe]

I think some people like these mods you should just leave it at that no point in trying to force someone into it. Unless if someone is being exposed for liking kids then well that should get out there

[@Daggz]

​@@timedeatheeveryone's entitled to like the mods if they want!! That's not the point of the video, the title and thumbnail are hyperbolic, but all I do in the video itself is just lay out criticisms of things I think they should do better

[@samuelrivet1854]

try from the fog

[@timedeathe]

@@Daggz I think a mod that made childhood Minecraft KZbinrs being tormented twisted and corrupted by a mysterious flesh that turns everything into these twisted fleshy creatures as you're world gets converted into flesh

[@wrath4452]

@@timedeathe What mod is that?

[@TarynBeeswax]

The original cave dweller worked because it was avoidable. It appeared, walked away, and didn't overstay its welcome. The mods based on it, however, overstayed their welcome and never walked away.

[@thesaul9484]

@@Gog426 it sucks dick

[@Bestow3000]

It went from being a nightmare fueled demon to an annoying nuisance that hinders your gameplay experience.

[@autisticbraindamagedmoron]

​@@Gog426nightmare is just a reskin of Cave Dweller Evolved, bruh

[@autisticbraindamagedmoron]

@@Gog426 he copies Cave Dweller's AI. He spawns in the same area as Cave Dweller, although more frequently. He isn't really any better or worse, it is just slightly changed Cave Dweller Evolved.

[@cisestar]

@@Gog426 that "tho" at the end make \s it lesser convincing. L

[@stegaflores0618]

I think the main problem with it is that they tend to base these new mods too heavily on the Cave Dweller. The Cave Dweller was a genius concept for the time, but once it came out, everyone had to throw their hats into the ring. Dweller this, dweller that, night dweller, day dweller, skinwalker dweller, it's practically transformed into a parody

[@Jason-zg4sd]

Wouldn’t even be surprised if Basement Dweller was a mod at this point

[@saturn21207]

Ong...and here I am still waiting for the vault dweller mod

[@jjiffalb]

I await for the day someone makes a bathroom dweller mod

[@ashuraomega1000]

They might as well make an ocean dweller at this point

[@JRB2105]

@@jjiffalbthat’s me bro IBS is no joke 😔

[@Lunarcreeper]

classic minecraft was a horror game, literally went back and i was genuinely afraid of mining, and immediately remembered why herobrine was such a popular thing

[@gukutto]

Minecraft beta was superior horror game

[@goldenstarmusic1689]

As a Beta Minecraft player this is so true. It is survival horror.

[@diorsse]

i was so scared of mobs and night time, like that was the most horrifying thing about Minecraft when i was younger so i would only play on peaceful mode lmao

[@beashemmad.sayson545]

@@diorssereal, always hid in dirt spaces and dirt towers

[@spektree8448]

Ok obv it's scary as a little kid

[@xhana_]

you know what would be scarier that all those mods combined? A simple knocking on your base door with no explanation from time to time

[@cumcumcum148]

Shockingly interesting. Or something like sound of door opening when you go to sleep in your base

[@TristinMiller-n5w]

Thanks I hate that

[@DatGuy12345]

Sounds of something moving around your house while you sleep. Or even having the chance to get to see that something looking at you while you sleep, it doesn't kill you or attack you.

[@sheepythegamer]

I would like more mods where it's not some entity attacking u but more like that

[@Silverwind87]

The last person in the world sits alone in a room. Then, a knock on the door is heard.

[@offten6747]

It's very hard to make minecraft scary, because while playing you know you play horror mod. Hearing cave noises in vanilla minecraft feels supernatural, that's why they are terrifying.

[@ГотаБГ]

You know, it would be a cool idea to create some QoL mod (like another one backpack mod, or something like a new mining instrument), and secretly add here something like a Cave Dweller. That would be unexpected and really scary, at least for the first clash with this thing as well.

[@pixels_per_minute]

​​@@ГотаБГJust have a mod that swaps around some sound files, but secretly hase a tone of hidden ones that screw with the player. Footsteps, knocking, the sound of someone mining in the distance. Make it sound like you're being followed, but no actual mob is in the game Maybe you could have a system like the Dead Space remake, which dynamically changes how difficult/scary the game is based off player performance. Oh, you could even have light blocks turn off at random points as well.

[@jjrivera747]

​@@pixels_per_minute that's exactly what I thought, the ominous feeling of not being alone is so fecking unsettling, maybe even some glimpses of a entity but not the entirety of it would work

[@mysticspace3369]

...the same.logic applies to playing a horror game, though you know you're playing a horror game, yet they still can scare you.

[@BlueDumbDude]

wouldn't the solution be to look like a normal mod with psychological elements? Imagine making a house with several new items from the mod and you see silhouettes that you have to pay close attention to notice. it would be like the mod added new items and new missions, but added something else.

[@InternetFanatic]

Why Minecraft was scary sometimes was simply just the fear of the unknown combined with the endless isolation of the player so hearing or seeing something unusual for must a second like seeing a Herobrine screenshot would usually be enough to be terrifying, not knowing what’s going on but feeling like something is off Daggz’s conclusion said it all Subtly is key

[@molluscumlore]

Yep. Personally the most scared I was playing minecraft (and tbh any game, though I don't play many horror games it was still quite scary) was when I was exploring far away from my base and suddenly heard a soundtrack I'd never heard before. If anyone knows what it is, please lmk because I know it's a normal track but doesn't come up much. It was just very rhythmic and drum heavy with extra instrumentals coming in but never overpowering the drum track. The fact it coincided with me finding my first coral forest/underwater city ever, the track continuing much longer than I thought any tracks did, and that despite exploring for an extended time period I hadn't found any villages all made me freak out bad enough to exit the game. I know it was mostly just my weird response to that kind of music doing it, but I think an ideal minecraft horror mod would capture that feeling. Like I think a truly terrifying mod would just be a large collection of unsettling assets/events/environments/osts/creatures/etc that are applied on a dice roll to each new seed. Specifically ones that don't just pop up at you immediately, ones that you only notice gradually after you've progressed in the world a little. That way it's always a surprise when something happens and you can't just get used to it immediately

[@Samsung-1.9Cu.Ft.Microwave]

The minute you can hurt what is "scary", it stops being scary but if you just make the scary thing invincible then it becomes annoying. You need to be able to hide somehow

[@VessleOfVoid]

The power of analogue horror

[@Bofrab]

I think another big part of Minecraft’s horror back then was the fear of something invading your world. The whole point is that you are supposed to be by yourself, only to later see things like strip-mine tunnels, structures that don’t spawn naturally, stuff like that. That’s why I think Herobrine did so well.

[@DrownedWick8]

I would even wait to do anything actually scary in the world for a long time because that builds up a feeling of isolation and loneliness in the world. If you do it right, you can really break a player.

[@purp6973]

I think the simpler the Minecraft “horror” mod is, the scarier it is.. as goofy as the og model is, the more and more these mods look like they don’t belong in minecraft the more the atmosphere is completely broken and no longer scary.

[@purp6973]

+ the real scare is dying deep in a cave with barely a way to fight back honestly. The run up to you and look stupid part never scared me

[@Daralexen]

I do not know why people find them so scary. The models and textures look so bad/goofy. I even played with the Insanity Shaders that fans of these mods say are a requirement to get the full experience. They still looked like shite with Insanity, PS1, and Xbox 360 shaders.@@purp6973

[@itagamineko]

i like the retexture that someone did that was inspired by newer minecraft mobs. i think it fits in perfectly

[@lasercraft32]

To be fair, the Cave Dweller actually was pretty good, as it was the first of its kind, and was actually pretty well designed (conceptually at least)... The problem came when everyone started copying it to try and leech off of its success. The worst part of these copycat mods is that they make the mobs invincible. They don't give it a ton of HP like the Warden, they just straight up make it an unstoppable unkillable threat. And there's no way to avoid them really other than just straight up hiding in a box. Also, the pngs aren't very scary and the loud noises are startling, but ultimately are just really painful for your ears.

[@allozabd]

Yeah pretty much. The problem I this is because you can't kill a majority of these dwellers. I like the original cave dweller because it is still pretty close to vanilla. It's not impossible to escape it. The chases aren't long and drawn out, you can kill it, and it isn't constantly appearing.

[@sideways_chip_eater6420]

​@@allozabdplus the Dweller is actually more advanced cause he'll sometimes run away

[@Kevinblue035]

the idea of "a scary, strong mob that chases you" is good! i like the idea of a mini-boss similar to the Warden but more aggressive, the problem with a lot of these cave dweller clones is that they spawn waaaaay too often, just zoom at you super fast and insta-kill you, it's not a scary thing where you have to run away or stand and fight, it's just an annoying jumpscare you can't react to

[@Daralexen]

Man From The Fog has 300 HP which is the same as the Wither, a boss summoned by choice of the player while the Man spawns every 10 minutes. Others like Modnight Lurker and One Who Watches are nigh-unkillable. Their only weakness is that they have no AI to fight back against Iron Golems or Zoglins. They all feel like DeivantART OC Mary Sues instead of horror characters. The unoriginal designs and bad textures do not help as well.

[@Kevinblue035]

@@Daralexen yeah i dont normally like to diss people's art work, but you can tell a lot of these "dweller" characters are just made to look similar because that's what's trending, so they all just look kind of like The Peeker

[@BLIZZARD1999]

this gave me a monster idea : a "living world" monster, a monster that is the world itself the world is normal at first, but in rare occasions you will sometimes hear rumbling and see tentacles on the distance that quickly retract once you look at it, and once you start mining you will find gaping wounds on the bedrock layer where the bedrock is broken, instead of the void its just a mass of flesh blocks, the more you dig down, the more weird and dangerous it gets. i feel like it would be more scary than those "in-the face" cave dweller mods, just imagine just mining and realizing that your world is a living being and you were living on its shell the entire time.

[@phenom...]

Dang, I wish I was a modder this sounds amazing ы

[@supercelllover7695]

@@phenom...ы?

[@Gravity_studioss]

​@@supercelllover7695 Ы!!!

[@GoldenTree2010]

and if you mine too much into its flesh it will start making crying noises or something

[@a-bird-lover]

ah, mystery flesh pit national park!

[@m.2039]

My issue with all of these mods is that their concept of horror always revolves around the entities being inherently hostile and hands on murdering. Any degree of intelligence given to them is mostly negated by the fact that their behaviours are limited to stalking and trying to kill you with their own hands. It would be far scarier if an entity treated you like a toy, sabotaging your efforts to watch you dance with death. An entity you know is there, but can never see. Things like blighting crops or animals, burning away coal, slowly picking away at your durability, or even changing how other mobs behave. Just to see you fight for your life. You'll live in vigilance.

[@justseffstuff3308]

You... you really get it. Best take I've seen on this.

[@juniuwu]

​@@justseffstuff3308 There's a quote that I'm a big fan of: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." I think this also applies to intelligence. A kind of valley of uncertainty, between intelligence and animal instinct. An intelligent, rational being may be scary in that it can deceive and outwit you , but you can reason with it. An animal may be scary in that you can't reason with it, but you can deceive and outwit it. Both are predictable and knowable in their own ways. But in-between, there's that unknown area where you don't know, nor can you predict what's going on in its head, and I think that's scarier than either of those.

[@segismundosaulalex3065]

Maybe do the same as the Cave Dweller and not use loud.mp3 files but the same sounds of the game. Imagine hearing a creeper tss, you look back and there is nothing there.

[@mofumyon]

I've always been really fond of how the OG Herobrine mod would spam random structures in your world, make you drop all of your items, turning animals hostile, etc.

[@OHHHHUSBANT]

This comment section have an IQ of 20 holy shit

[@Slaking_]

My one gripe with the Cave Dweller is that after a certain point he entirely stops being scary and just becomes a nuisance. I do like that he actually does scale to Vanilla Minecraft and isn't some absurd abomination that'll two-tap you in full Rite, but at the same time that makes him insane annoying when I'm doing something like mining a perimeter or building underground at lategame. Like damn, you got me bro that screaming sure is scary, now please go away I'm trying to dig a perimeter for this Witch Farm. It feels like he's only designed for quick survival worlds that are done as soon as the dragon is dead.

[@chainsawplayin]

Just treat it like a basic zombie you can't walk away from, once you have iron gear. That's like an hour of gameplay.

[@RealJoJoDragon]

This is a problem Minecraft has for all mobs, this isn't specific for mods. After X hours playing minecraft a creeper blows up your front door and the only thing you think is 'wow so cool, now I have to rebuild that instead of building my mob farm. great design.'

[@CommissarChaotic]

@@RealJoJoDragon I mean, Creepers can just exist... The Cave Dweller seems to be there for you specifically. If that makes sense.

[@RealJoJoDragon]

@@CommissarChaotic That wasn't the point OP made, "My one gripe with the Cave Dweller is that after a certain point he entirely stops being scary and just becomes a nuisance." I was saying this is not only true for mod-specific mobs but vanilla ones as well. After a certain point they cease to be 'scary' or 'threatening' and just become a nuisance you have to take care of. The Cave Dweller can 'just exist' too. As stated, it's a Cave Dweller. You will never run into one unless you're going into a cave. When you're up in your house in the overworld, going through the nether, fighting a dragon in the end? Cave Dweller is just chilling in the caves beneath the overworld. Creepers on the other hand you can encounter both deep underground, or on the overworld, and when they see you their only goal is to follow you and cause an explosion.

[@ZyrusEclipse]

The CD was never scary. It’s just stupid

[@NightNinja]

I honestly quite like the first iteration of the cave dweller, because it seems to be the one that understands the most about what makes minecraft creepy. It’s not just adding a le spooki tall monster to run at you screaming in a random location, it’s playing off of the already existing feature of the cave noises. I think it’s the one that gets the closest to what works with minecraft horror. I think the thing that could really elevate the cave dweller is making it way more subtle. What if it wandered around breaking light sources or even quietly hunting and killing other mobs around its cave system, only leaving the loot behind as a sign that it’s there. Isolating you from everying, including the other hostile mobs in the game. Plunging the cave system into complete silence and darkness. By the time you notice just how close by it actually is, it would already be too late as it has trapped you entirely alone with it, in the dark, in it's territory. I think the pay off needs some work and the model could be improved, but I don’t think the ‘better cave dweller’ approach of making it bigger really works, mainly due to it just making the problem regarding the clunky animations all the more noticeable.

[@justseffstuff3308]

Breaking light sources, yes! I actually love that. The Parasites mod has some that do that too, although Parasites isn't exactly subtle, haha.

[@They0ungTravler]

The cave dweller is a great idea for mob, as it does things NO OTHER MOB CAN DO, like crawling through 1 block holes, that would terrify me. But your ideas would literally make it the perfect horror mob in my opinion. One that toys with you and uses the cave sounds to increasingly make you more paranoid before getting after you

[@KingNedya]

​@@They0ungTravler I watched Tomato stream a horror modpack that had the cave dweller in it and everything in the modpack wasn't really scary, except the cave dweller which actually made me jump while watching. Tomato was getting chased and jumped into a 1x1 tunnel, acted triumphant, turned around while still in the tunnel, and the cave dweller was just right there crawling through the tunnel. Actually startling. I'd share a link to the clip but KZbin has a tendency to delete comments containing links.

[@EmperorBrettavius]

In a game where a major tip for not getting lost in caves is keeping torches in one direction, seeking out and breaking light sources is a really good way for a monster to create the feeling of trapping the player in the caves!

[@xxfalconarasxx5659]

It doesn't help that the "Reimagined" version just rips sounds straight from SOMA, which feels extremely out of place in Minecraft.

[@Snakehead-fy4sb]

What was it with all the monsters just randomly appearing outside your window, getting sad that they didnt scare you, and then running away?

[@ToasWower494]

You know what would be cool? Having one of the songs in minecraft, like any random song, for example Sweden, have a copy of itself as a mod, and it's literally the same song, but over time, all notes are like, lower pitch or unevenly spaced out, slowly turning into Static, and it only happening if you're out in the dark with no lights around you for too long.

[@Star_Mans_Legacy]

That's actually a good idea.

[@fnaf1983-RWQFSFASXC]

I think there is a mod that plays a distorted version of Sweden, but it happens all the time, not just in the dark.

[@darkeviljaxson]

Is this an Amnesia Sanity + Astroneer low oxygen reference

[@thetacoman9657]

was chatting with some friends and came up with a similar idea same concept, some familiar song like Sweden, maybe some pitch changes and reverb if you wanna get fancy but the real kicker is that the song doesn't finish. at a random point it just trails off on an incomplete chord actually now that I think about it this idea would probably work better if the rest of the song was completely unchanged. no way to tell that it's the spooky version until the music suddenly disappears into silence

[@ASnowWhiteAvali2006]

Running from Evil...?

[@nurreven1]

I believe the original Herobrine is still the upper echelon of Minecraft horror for two reasons. 1) It maintains a strict connection to the vanilla experience with only a minor adjustment to Steve's eyes which enhances the unnerving element of the entity. 2) It plays on a more psychological and "slow burn" unknown angle. This approach puts constant pressure on the player. Abrupt jump scare horror and custom models don't do it beyond the fight or flight response but true horror is more than that. Its the constant psychological pressure and fear of the unknown that can make a Minecraft mod truly frightening. To date, I believe the modpack in Forge Labs, "How I Survived HEROBRINE in Hardcore Minecraft" is probably one of the best forms of this approach. Though, I would tone down the extra mobs and stick more closely to the Herobrine experience, that gameplay had all the earmarks of a truly unsettling atmosphere and experience. Perhaps, someday mod makes will aim for the psychological approach and make something truly eerie for Minecraft.

[@slidersides]

0:03 honestly, this was my reaction when I saw an enderman as a kid because I didn’t know back then Minecraft added new mobs so it was basically a horror, for me at least

[@LeonardoAldana43]

I had other reasons

[@lordmarshmal_0643]

Honestly, honorable mention to the Dimensional Doors mod for being a pretty neat blend of actual utility/exploration content, and spooky stuff The mod's "front-facing" side focuses on pocket dimensions and dungeons found within these pocket dimensions, but there's also a "limbo" dimension that you get dropped into if you fall out of the world, typically from exploring those pocket dungeons, and it is surprisingly eerie in there There's other factors as well that just, compound upon the mod's horror aspect, but probably the best contributor is the lack of in-game instructions on how you're supposed to resolve the situations that come about from these horror components BlueSomething did a good video talking about the mod overall, would recommend

[@TETANUS.]

You just gave me massive flashbacks to one of the scariest things that ever happened to me in Minecraft.

[@taxcollector9543]

GOD I LOVE BIG BLACK SQUARED-EYE!

[@user666crazyman]

I literally came here to say this. Truly astonishing how they manage to set the mood with this mod.

[@onyxcam6ion55]

Love that mod, a main stay in my mod pack

[@thesatelliteslickers907]

wandering the massive dimentional labyrinths never failed to spook me

[@idk_someguy]

I brought back the Cave Dweller trend after Gargin's initial trend died down. I do regret doing so. In those months, the entities that I presented and played with were actually scary because I didn't know about them. But as time moved on, they just became plain. There's a reason I quit the Dweller niche; it's becoming cringe-worthy, left-to-right copies, each having the same base AI used by the Cave Dweller. People are actively promoting new dweller copies, which aren't close to scary at all, lots of fake reactions, and scripted videos. All for what? Money. Something I brought back to popularity out of passion is now a hub for money-grinding; viewers are non-stop misled and click baited. Yeah, it does annoy me, but I'm glad I moved away from it.

[@futureofgeography]

The OG Cave Dweller was not necessarily scary in a way, eerie for sure, but it actually worked as a mod that you could enjoy because there isn't an entity in your face every 5 seconds and you could reasonably get away from the Dweller, other mods just stick entities in your face and kill you every 5-10 minutes while it could actually take a bit of time to find the Dweller, and it doesn't stick around long, and it might not even attack you. It builds uncertainty in what it'll do, so you try to ease off tensing because it might leave you be, but the tension comes in on if it runs at you. But it doesn't leave any scars, which is what horror mods should do in my opinion, they should be in the moment, not long-lasting.

[@bayjammer2748]

I think one of the things missed that makes the horror of it that much more understated of the cave dweller is how it'll move *as you're mining*, letting the sound of breaking blocks cover up the noise of it getting closer to you. While it's still just... a very basic 'spoowky' simulator, little things like that to sow paranoia are what really count.

[@harrietr.5073]

I feel like it's an economic thing. Say Minecraft isn't scary as it get's clicks, the community has heard from people how lonely it us and the cave noises are uncomfortable, with the Cave Dweller using that against the playerbase with unexplained mechanics like literal out of sight, out of mind or out of sight, despawn. But... since it's so popular that people have made monsters similar... saying it isn't scary is a bit of a hottake. That Minecraft Dweller mods aren't scary. That Kinecraft itself is unable to scary extending to its mods, whether people show you examples or you just cherrypikc them. Soon, you got a ton of people watching you for KZbin money as others copy you for their own KZbin monetisation. Cynical... I know, but I saw a few videos claiming Minecraft cannot be scary and showing some... odd mods as more examples of "bad Minecraft horror", or as he sold it as, "Minecraft horror". With people (mostly impressionable kids sadly) repeating that as opinion. If you aren't scared by the Dweller, that's fine. Just me being cynical that all these commentary videos on the Cave Dweller or Minecraft in all its forms are popping up when the CD have been popular for a while.

[@bayjammer2748]

@@harrietr.5073 I get where you're coming from, even if it's a bit messy and over the place, but it's generally just not good horror. Most 'horror' Minecraft mods aren't regardless of any tactic you could use otherwise. Unless it's flush with the game, follows horror principles, and isn't an overdone "SPOOKY SIMILAR MAN WITH LOUD NOISE!" it could at least be considered proper horror, because there certainly is some untapped potential in the bag of cheap tag-along horror here.

[@harrietr.5073]

@@bayjammer2748 You consider jumpscares as non-horror? Really?? Not all horror needs milsim tactics, many horror games has you run away from the threat like Clocktower or Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion. I mean base minecraft has bad pfe since it's TBOI ass contact damage for enemy melee. If you wanna make Minecraft horror that's tactical, you have to "fix" the base, no zombies doing contact damage. Windup for player attacks. Modding combat into horror combat aside, some people do find Dwellers scary. If it doesn't scare you (except jumpscares), that's fine. Other people (outside of KZbinrs who fake it for money as usual) still find it scary. You don't find it scary? You don't find it scary. That's it.

[@Vexx2006]

​@@harrietr.5073That's like...not the point at all? Like jumpscares are kinda like the cheapest trick in the book, now I am not saying that they can be bad since I've played some games where it actually works, but with the Dweller's case it's not inmersive, it's just an incredibly basic case there, and yes, I am aware games like Spooky's and Outlast have chase sequences as part of their gimmicks, but like, they work so well because they keep you inmersed in the game with a sense of anxiety induced by it, as well that it's not constantly spamming loud noises 24/7. If people don't find the Dwellers scary it's because jumspcares are pretty cliche nowadays, and it's very rare seeing them being well executed in that case. That's the problem I have with the Dwellers here.

[@Missingno_Miner]

​@@harrietr.5073 Jumpscares are horror, sure, but they're super cheap and should be used sparingly and strategically. Especially given how they can straight-up bad for the health of certain demographics(the elderly, people with heart problems, people with PTSD). Jumpscares are scary for one moment and get old and predictable quickly, the equivalent of throwing a flashbang at someone or sneaking up and blasting an airhorn behind their back. It relies on pure reflex and shock value.

[@enkeksinimea4399]

In my opinion, the best way to make the cave dweller truly scary would be to make it's appearances much more random, much more subtle and much more RARE. I think that the biggest problem with nearly all of the current dwellers is that they spawn and attack you basically all the time (like every 15 minutes or so), and they usually appear or at least start making their noises almost immediately after you have entered a cave. In some mods they are literally so numerous that you can sometimes even be attacked by multiple dwellers at once. This makes their attacks quite predictable and over time wery repeative, which causes them to be far less scary than they could be. The ideal cave dweller in my opinion would appear at almost completely random intervals and rarely enough that sometimes you would have almost forgotten that you even had the cave dweller mod on, until it jumps at you when you least expected it. Like sometimes you could still be attacked by it after only 15 minutes in the caves, but on the other hand sometimes you could spend for example an entire 2 hours of caving or even multiple days/sessions of playing the game without even seeing or hearing it. This would create a much greater element of surprise to the dweller's eventual attacks or appearances, and bring an incredibly tense atmosphere and a feeling of "you never know" to the game. This would also be much more "practical" and fit better with your regular survival minecraft worlds and playthroughs, as your mining and other progress in the game would not be inhibited that much by being constantly attacked and killed by the dweller, as it would be a relatively rare event. Also the dweller's first spawning sound should be just a regular cave sound, and it should be made so that every time you heard a cave sound when mining, there would be like an 80 or 90% change that it was just a regular cave sound with no origin, but around a 10 or 20% change that it meant that somewhere in the deepest and most distant labyrinths of the cavern you are exploring a dweller has spawned and it is slowly starting to make its way towards you... The screaming sounds in the Evolved cave dweller mod are amazing and absolutely horrifying, but they are way too over the top for the FIRST sounds you hear from the dweller. The horrific screaming should be reserved for the moment the dweller finally attacks and starts chasing you, and the first sounds you hear should be much more subtle, like regular cave sounds when it spawns and maybe footsteps as it slowly approaches... It would also be great if the dweller's possible behaviours were more diverse. For example, it would add amazingly to the scary and tense atmosphere if when exploring the caves, you could sometimes just make random sightings of the dweller without it attacking you immediately. Sometimes you would just briefly see a pair of bright glowing eyes in some distant dark tunnel, but it would disappear (go away and despawn) in a few seconds, and you would just hear an eerie cave sound. Like 70% or so of the dwellers that spawned could be the type that doesn't attack you right away, and the remaining 30% would immediately attack you. After this "non-aggressive" dweller sighting there would be an increased possibility of another dweller (this time actually aggressive) spawning near you shortly after. However, that would not always happen. Even more cool would be if once you made a sighting of a dweller, it had a change of triggering an event where the dweller would respawn close to you multiple times in a row in very short intervals of 1-3 minutes. First 1-5 of those rapidly respawning dwellers would be "non-aggressive" ones that would just lurk in the shadows and disappear and despawn quicky after you looked at them, but the final one would eventually attack you. That would simulate the feeling of the player being stalked by the dweller and slowly followed by it through the tunnels... The hunting dweller (or in reality the multiple dwellers) would approach from completely random directions, which would make escape much harder and cause much greater feeling of panic. However, it would need to be coded in a way that only one dweller at the time could exist near the player, and the previous one would have to despawn before the next one could appear, as otherwise it would ruin the immersion of the player being followed by a single stalking dweller. On the contrast, it should also be possible that sometimes the dweller could just attack you randomly without ANY warning whatsoever. No sound of it spawning, no sounds of it approaching you, no sightings, no nothing. You would just enter some random small tunnel where the dweller waits you and then all of a sudden it would jump on your face. It would be one perfect jumpscare.

[@britishtransformersfan]

Bro just made an entire page about scary minecraft mods💀

[@ganyu_literally]

id pay to play with this

[@enkeksinimea4399]

​​@@britishtransformersfan I actually partially wrote that to practice for my upcoming English essays in high school :D English is not my native tongue.

[@ShadowWolf2023-yp5zg]

Chance*

[@Axiian19]

​@@enkeksinimea4399 Your English is super good! I'm procrastinating and not writing my English project that's due tomorrow. I'm trying to learn a few different languages and the more I learn about other languages the more I realize that English is bs and makes no sense whatsoever

[@AlexDayz]

This reminds me a lot of the backrooms where people just add entities just cause. IMO the horror of Minecraft comes from the fact you’re all alone. It’s the fear of not knowing what’s out there. Stuff like the Warden work not just because it’s powerful but because it feels like a genuine threat. It only spawns if you’re the one who makes too much noise and it’s a consequence of your actions

[@bungiecrimes7247]

Bats: allow us to introduce ourselves.

[@Purplesome_]

Dude I hate how destroyed the backrooms as a concept is nowadays. It used to actually be scary but now it's just "LOOK GUYS BACKROOMS LEVEL 3578 IS A LEVEL FULL OF CREEEEPY MONSTERS THAT WILL KILL YOU!!!!!!!!"

[@jjiffalb]

​@@Purplesome_ fr. Its getting stale atp

[@holyroman6541]

@@bungiecrimes7247 I thought Sculk doesn't spawn Wardens off of any noises that aren't the player's doing?

[@Sillimant_]

it was terrifying in the original 4chan post, not because it relied on gore or the like, but because it tapped into fear of the unknown and the uncanny valley it fell victim to the scp effect where children and chronically online tumblr users tried to constantly one up each other and kill the concept

[@Bofrab]

Probably the only mod like this that I actually thought looked pretty interesting and scary was Shade. Instead of these mobs that just make loud noises and chase after you over and over again, Shade mainly focused on stalking you. You hear a cave noise and then turn to see it peeking at you, then it would slink behind a wall. It would also focus on hallucinations. Stuff like hearing mobs that aren’t there, seeing white eyed mutated mobs that aren’t there, stuff like that. It would eventually rush and attack you, but it’s main goal was mainly to just make you paranoid. I also like it because it’s concept and design are based off of a scrapped idea for The Warden. Also good lord I completely forgot about John. Kinda happy to see them again.

[@sideways_chip_eater6420]

Is there a link to the mod? I kinda wanna see this

[@thewitheredstriker]

Yeah, ngl, you've caught my interest here. Can't find that mod anywhere, though. So I second the question for a link.

[@Ericaglan]

For those 2 people ^^ and maybe other people. I checked YT and there’s a video talking about something similar? It’s not a play-trough or anything, it’s a “I’m making _____ in Minecraft!” Type of vid. I’m gonna (try to) post a link in this reply section.

[@Ericaglan]

The comment got deleted... so it’s from a YT channel called “JoshBlueMoon”, Titled: “Mojang removed this scary mob... so i recreated it”

[@Bofrab]

@@thewitheredstriker I don’t know if it’s a real mod or if it was just made for that video. That’s actually a trend I’m getting really sick of recently. People making awesome mods on their channel, then learning that the stuff they made isn’t downloadable. Either way I hope it’s downloadable because I love when unused concepts get added into games.

[@trentonloomis9565]

I saw this youtuber called Calvin, and he has a series where he uses a lot of these mods as a modpack, but he makes sure to test them, and makes it so that they arent absurd, pointless, or excessive. He also edits his videos so well, and he is so good at creating suspense it feels like an actual horror movie, yes he does sometimes scream at cheesy jumpscares, but other times there are moments of pure unadulterated panic and fear.

[@puddlel1ama327]

Calvin's From The Fog is pretty much the only horror Minecraft series I enjoy. the tweaked spawn rates and his editing make it genuinely pretty scary, and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

[@eternallyconfusedneveraware]

Yea, the problem with Horror Mods are that most are less 'horror' and more just jumpscare mobs that pop up for KZbinrs to scream at and shake the camera around. Like you said, they're very formulaic. Almost all these CaveDweller clones are pretty interchangeable with one another.

[@loowick4074]

Yep they are amazing for content mill youtubers. Which is why they have many downloads because they are linked in the youtubers mod pack. Jump scares are the simplest way to get a quick fright especially with the exaggeration of a youtuber. And are easy to make compared to something that has a behaviour engine

[@Wato-1876]

*If I wanted to make a unsettling mod, it would be mostly world generation, and subtle things.* - Random patches of no trees (like 2 chunks) - Random times when cave sounds play outside of caves - Music can cut out at random points albeit rare - Torches have a chance to break when not in the same chunk - Mobs not spawning at points randomly (even at night) - Mob AI would be broken for a few seconds at random (rare) - Bedrock fog again - Ambient white dots in caves that despawn - Night and Day may last longer at random - New cave sounds - Far height drops into water trigger old water sound - Random dirt patches - All mobs do slightly less damage (your goal is not to die, just more unsettling) - Some textures get reverted - Entering nether and end will send a chat message like how Pocket Edition did with nether reactor core "Entering Nether..." "Entering End..." - The sun stays out longer - Twighlight lasts longer - Zombies will target you from further in caves - Enderman rarely target you at random - Some nights there is only like 3-15 stars - Mobs run away from exploding creepers - Mobs very rarely try running from you - Thunderstorm darkness randomly on some days To me, this would be a creepy, eerie mod without adding a mob. There is a lot more, but I do not know how to mod... yet.

[@Mudkipf4n]

that kinda seems more like tweaks to the base game rather than it being creepy

[@Daralexen]

The Creeper mechanic was in older versions of the game, but it was removed due to causing too much lag.

[@Wato-1876]

@@Daralexen yeah, it was poorly made mechanic

[@Wato-1876]

@@Mudkipf4n tweaks that make it creepier, it isn’t scary, just it emphasizes the base games eeriness

[@joemama2737]

Yeah this is pretty close to how I feel a scary Minecraft mod should be made. Stuff that players will pick up on as being wrong and in turn it will make them more paranoid that something’s after them

[@whaleborne1308]

They should make it so that a creature doesn't attack for a couple of nights, but it will stroll behind objects and just walk around out of sight, making subtle background noises that are clearly out of place. After a couple more nights, it would start to peak around objects and look at you for extended periods from a distance, and if spotted it would quickly retreat. Then after a few more days again, it would have a chance to start trying to hunt you. I say a chance, because imagine how much more terrifying it'd be if it was random and not an exact schedule. The scariest monster is sometimes the one you never see once. I think giving a monster curiousity is actually more terrifying, because early on you're aware that it exists but it isn't trying to do anything. It just observes you from the shadows. I agree that if you rip the band aid off to fast, it doesn't have any impact at all.

[@OsnoloVrach]

I know right? Having something visible enough to not spot in the first few seconds watching you from the forestline while you're building a house is much creepier than having an instanteneous jumpscare without even having the time to register the monster

[@ninetails8471]

It's certainly one way to go forward with a horror creature, minecraft or not, and yeah, this would be very scary. Personally, I feel like it's the idea that this thing might not even know what you are at first, and so it just watches, and learns. And then, eventually, after watching enough, it decides that you're prey. Spooky shit, I tell ya

[@greenguyinpfp6565]

what your looking for is a mod called The Bear. It’s a creature that stalks the player for days and days, hiding from far distances. It was created by “idk some guy” and it’s genuinely the best minecraft horror mod out there.

[@U_niquey]

yeah, just let me call my friend that made java to code this.

[@Kombox1]

there is a mod similar to what u said. The anomaly

[@chrisvisser-fee2631]

I love the idea of an invisible thing that just observes you. It uses all sorts of sounds, sure, cave sounds, but also mob noises and stuff to try and lure you towards it. The more time you spend near it the more bold it'll get. Like... at low levels it tramples crops and breaks torches, at higher ones it'll take items from chests. If it gets high enough I love the idea of the thing finally revealing itself as your character starts sleeping, then kidnapping you while you're asleep and like... you wake up in some sort of custom structure or dungeon or something.

[@Tigery760]

This sounds actually not too hard to implement. Well, it *is* hard to implement but not as bad as it sounds. You can get iron on the first might pretty easily sometimes, so I'd imagine once you get DIA armor it taking you into the structure would make it feel scarier. Trampling crops could just start once you've obtained the plant achievement. I don't think it should steal items from your chests, maybe instead it'll change blocks near the player spawnpoint. Wood to another block, etc. And only common blocks, no Dia blocks to dirt or vice versa. The watching part could easily be done like in from the fog, probably my favorite part of the mod honestly. And if I ever need to share my laptop to a younger cousin for then to play minecraft, I'll probably put from the fog as a mod/datapack prior to giving it to them.

[@moshymosh]

That's the from the fog mod featuring Herobrine.

[@ShadowWolf2023-yp5zg]

That to me doesn't sound horrifying"Oh no! How do I get back!?" Type thing. It is more of "Oh no...how do I get back...? More of a nuisance than horrifying. Don't really get that and I hate griefing. If anything that would make me want to Uninstall the mod, then and there.

[@Nolan15692]

That sounds like it would just be annoying as hell

[@chrisvisser-fee2631]

@@Nolan15692 skill issue

[@mrdollyman5675]

A big factor contributing to the natural horror of Minecraft was the loneliness element that older versions nailed very well. Unfortunately the modern game is far less mysterious and lonely, which doesn’t lend it as well to horror.

[@HoloTheDrunk]

I think it's very funny that some of the Slenderman mods from years back were far better executed than most of the mods showcased

[@spoopydraws8362]

I feel like the same thing happened to the backrooms The whole reason it was scary in the first place was the unknown, the fear of something that you haven't seen but could imagine all sorts of things in your mind hunting you down, and I feel the same goes for Minecraft and how some of its early creepypastas and story's were so good, because it wasnt about the creatures it was about entities which you barely see or hear, things interacting with your builds or the world without your knowledge or consent

[@pedrocastromachadogribel3106]

that's what made the first creepypasta (ted the caver) so good

[@elliotwintersdemanagabei9437]

yes, big trends to exploit tend to ruin everything remotely interesting

[@a-wild-goose]

_Thank you_ I’ve been saying this forever. A lot of “horror” in video games just means a big, scary, unkillable monster harasses you as often as possible and I wish that wasn’t the case. Especially with The Backrooms, and with Minecraft. [TANGENT- I’m way too passionate about these games, fair warning I have a degree in yapology] In both games there are entities, yes, but they’re diverse- not even hostile, sometimes- and they play well in their environment; they’re not yet another tall guy with a scary face, they use what’s around them and they use it to _hunt_ you. Also on environment, I feel like the potential for horror in the player’s surroundings is scarcely utilized. In The Backrooms there are liminal spaces that create a nostalgic but at the same time uncanny feeling, it’s not quite right, and you’re alone which is scary enough but it also forces you to focus on your environment, pay attention to subtle changes that could alert danger. It evokes paranoia which I _love._ And Minecraft has this infinite yet lonely world for you to experience, rich with its own mysteries and lore you can only scratch the surface of in-game. It really lets you feel like an outsider. Old abandoned structures capitalize on that by showing not only the life, but the destruction you’re privvy to but will never get to be a part of. Massive, strange things passing by erecting monuments, ancient civilizations settling in far-off places, villagers dying in abandoned towns. It’s a different flavor of fear, but one I think is so, so powerful. There’s so much interesting horror inherent to these games, I just wish someone brought that horror out of the games for people to feel rather than forcing it in where it doesn’t need to be. Rant over.

[@spoopydraws8362]

@@a-wild-goose yeah I completely agree with you, you've managed to explain a thing I feel is very hard to put into words because it's all based on feelings, with contradicting nice or places you recognise with areas unfamiliar or are slightly off. And I do also wish these themes would be used to their full potential as they get so easily warped were they forget what made it scary in he first place

[@triadfox6851]

I forget the name of the mod, but its a kinda cool take on the dweller. Its like a giant 5 block tall creature that spawns anywhere and will slowly make its way to you. Sometimes it stops to watch, other times it just marches towards you. If you let it get too close then it attacks, and its a damn hard fight. It really feels like an impending doom. My only issue is sometimes you'll go weeks without seeing it, and other times it just never despawns and will always exist, chasing you down. Which may be cool to some, but it sorta teleports so that its never out of render range. Making it kinda pointless to sprint away.

[@kidkap4]

I think Herobrine was genuinely a bit scary because it was early enough that misinformation was easy to spread and the creator actually ran with it and kept adding those updates with “Herobrine removed” on them. A game like this, where you’re essentially all alone, can only really be made scary if you add another being. An unexpected second party who the player doesn’t expect. In-your-face horror has its place, but that place isn’t in Minecraft.

[@halinaqi2194]

Yup, its your own paranoia that really freaks you out. Old minecraft felt desolate and empty, like you are alone. If you had a shit laptop, the fog was really close to you, and things just looked more lifeless. Basic lighting, no partical effects, lack of clouds, etc. It makes the game feel dead, add on top the herobribe rumors and patch notes, and how large the world is, I thought that he was somewhere in the world and I was afraid of alerting him to my presence, so I never built flashy houses in survival and usually just played creative. Now I'm not scared cuz I know it doesn't exist but yeah, it's your mind that scares you the most, more so than anything the game actually throws at you. The cave sounds are unsettling and startling but thats because I didn't know they were a thing when I came back to the game years later.

[@5aiv.]

been saying this to myself for ages since these mods popped up. it just needs to be more subtle, like the stalking parts are perfect but then they just make them just run towards you and scream at you which just ruins it in the long run

[@cara-seyun]

yeah, all the old minecraft fears were never about some screaming monster, they were about being watched and stalked yes, but having there be something actually doing the watching and stalking breaks the tension. It's no longer herobrine or some other entity that Notch can't seem to program out of the game, it's just something more annoying than a baby zombie

[@giftednucleus3017]

​@@cara-seyunme when herobrine appears in my game for 0.2 seconds half behind a tree: (its scary)

[@Bofrab]

Honestly I feel like there is another big issue with these mods aside from fear of the unknown. In my opinion one of the scariest things Minecraft horror does (and why I think Herobrine got so popular) was that you were seeing another “player” in your world. Seeing things strip mined caves, random structures, or written signs or books. I don’t know how well this could be made into a mod, but this is what I personally want from a horror Minecraft mod. The feeling like you aren’t alone, and that something or someone has invaded your personal world.

[@KysEcstacy]

From the fog does alot of that

[@Bofrab]

@@KysEcstacy…Is that so? I like this.

[@Daralexen]

From the Fog and Distant Friends do all of that. Although, From the Fog did become more annoying than scary to me over time.

[@bungiecrimes7247]

​@@KysEcstacy yeah... but you'd immediately know it's just the mod doing it. How is that scary?

[@IamFish_2009]

This gives me an idea, not necessarily horror, but the stripped mine caves etc could for evidence of a past player. There will be books he wrote, chests with his loot, abandoned houses. For horror, i think decayed cave miners could do. These miners died in the caves, you stumble upon a body, it has scar marks on its jaw to the chest, but you pass it for a chest. While checking, you hear steps and turn around. The body has risen but its not undead, some "thing" has taken control over the decayed corpse, moving like a sick and twisted marionette but the strings dont come from above but from within, the tendons. It lunges and a mouth, the chest and jaw scars, opens up and takes a chunk from while not letting you go. You lose too much hearts. Another player has fallen.

[@raynbow3000]

I don't remember the name of the mod, but there was a mod that I think did this concept pretty well, before the cave dweller took off. It was an enderman expansion mod, adding little enderman villages and stuff. Unbeknownst to me, it added a stalker type enderman. It would play whispering sounds every so often and would watch you from just out of your FOV. It attacked very rarely but could watch you for multiple in-game days. It was really fun and kept you on your toes, not knowing when it would attack or if you could even fight it. Especially because it was "hidden" (it wasn't talked about much on the mod page) in a seemingly normal mod.

[@Yurik-the-marksman]

That’s nice where is the link

[@leowlbx]

​@@Yurik-the-marksman They said they dont remember the mod's name so how can they have the link

[@CactusBreadmill]

Could it be Enderman Overhaul or Farlanders?

[@atmmachine11]

@@CactusBreadmillit’s definitely farlanders since enderman overhaul doesent add structures. Farlanders adds enderman village things.

[@GameOnWithLucas]

First encounter 7:06 First death to cave dweller 7:20 Fake encounter 7:40 Reimagined Second encounter 11:28 Second death 11:34 Third encounter 11:52 Cave dweller death 12:07 First encounter The one who watches 14:30 First encounter the man from the fog 16:17 Death from the man from the fog 16:27 First encounter with starve stalker 17:48 Second encounter with the one who watches 18:08 Second encounter with the man from the fog 18:23 Second death from the man from the fog 18:27 Third encounter from the *Cave dweller* 18:59 Killed the *Cave dweller* without lava 19:02 Chat said slain from night stalker 19:44 That’s all I think tell me if I missed any deaths or encounters

[@hot_soup4319]

Gargin's Cave Dweller is actually good, as it was pretty much 100% unique at release. However, as you mentioned, much like Gargin's Nextbot Gargitron the Dweller got watered down because of how many people copied it. Dweller got popular, a bunch of people ripped the code, made a "scarier" model, and made it one shot you. Dweller will stalk you, chase you, or run away, whereas 99% of the copy cats spawn, destroy your ears with loud noises, and instakill you.

[@sinfulpuritan3430]

I just want to see a mod that makes the caves completely empty and silent, and only spawns one silent mob somewhere in the cave system. Imagine mining, with only the sound of your footsteps, knowing that there's a creature in there with you that you cannot hear approach at all. Whether or not it's hostile doesn't really matter imo. Just knowing it's there would be eerie to me.

[@Daralexen]

This is what Metroid Revival does with the Phazon Mines cave biome. Nothing spawns there, not even bats. I had both Metroid Revival and Buffed Cabe Dweller in the same hardcore world, and the Metroid Prime ambience that plays in the biomes from the mod made me more uncomfortable than Cave Dweller ever did. Sure, Cave Dweller was scary for the first two encounters, but he quickly become a joke once I figured out how to break its AI.

[@iamahiphopfan3759]

I not sure how feasible this is but it would be cool to have less and less mobs spawn the longer you spend in a cave before the creature attacked

[@potatoesstarch2376]

@@iamahiphopfan3759 That's a solid idea.

[@ichimiustin8390]

And maybe make the creature move only when you don't see it, similar to scp 173

[@aerilon-studios]

Hey, Maker of the John Mod Reborn here. At 13:58, we did not revive the John Mod because of this trend. We revived it because we loved the mod when we was younger. Leave our mod out of this lol. But yeah, It's kind of hard to find something spooky, if you don't find it spooky. Like the John. The mod was made in 2012, MC Beta 1.8, around this creature who looked like some dude who had a stroke and who bleached himself white lol. But you were afraid of the John cause you was told to be afraid. But after awhile it's just some loud creature that had 40 health... a more powerful zombie. Jump scares are a cheap. Especially if you're on your toes already. That's how FNAF got so "scary". It's not true horror if not done right. We want to add some horror elements into the new John Mod. but it's not gonna be truly scary, unless we make a whole new world around it. And that's where adventure maps get it right. Minecraft at least nowadays is a lot different from what it was. You can't just slap a scary creature in the middle of it and tell the player to be scared. But if you can transform the world around the player you can really make an immersive environment for them to enjoy.

[@-o-1695]

I think there are a lot of subtlety in making a good horror that you just can't make up in your head. It would certainly require a lot more research and the idea you have right now just doesn't seem to be good enough

[@mayhaps3915]

​@@-o-1695what on earth are you talking about? What idea did they pitch?

[@-o-1695]

@@mayhaps3915 They said they were gonna make an adventure map. I just told them to do more research into horror before they ended up making some bloober team slop

[@aerilon-studios]

@@-o-1695 I never said we're going to make a adventure map. Sorry if it came off that way to you. I can edit it tho to make more sense. There probably is more "research" to be done but, I don't think it's that deep lol

[@Daralexen]

Not to mention, your mod released 2 whole months before Gargin made the Cave Dweller. I am pretty sure that 95% of the people who downloaded your mod are not even scared of John, and instead see him as early 2010s nostalgia.

[@plant3341]

I think the fundamental problem is that they're all just more powerful zombies. In a game where you can just respawn and run back to your stuff, a thing that just punches you isn't that scary. If you want it to make an impact, make it do something no other mob can do, make it dig 2x2 Herobrine tunnels, make structures spawn that look like poor imitations of your house, make it so your door is open even though youre sure you closed it, and was your furnace always in that place..?

[@BuffCrystal]

i love how you can just break the midnight lurker's spine, it just makes u able to run, but sometimes you cannot break his spine

[@kateparsons4283]

18:09 mans really just came up to your window and hit the "MR BEAAAAAST" pose

[@sirllamaiii9708]

Mr breast jumpscare

[@BaconNuke]

What's funny is I have seen scarier maps than actual mods, like adding a random entity doesn't automatically make the game a "horror game" but limiting your options and making a story out of it can get you closer

[@AlysIThink101]

What I would like is more Minecraft horror mods taking inspiration from cosmic horror, Mojang has already tried it with everything to do with the Skulk, the Warden and Ancient cities so we know that it works (And yes they have confirmed that they based those things off of the works of Lovecraft and cosmic horror in general, if you want me to give the link to a video where they talk about that then feel free to ask.)

[@anotherchaos]

Hey, shulks being inspired by cosmic horror stuff is actually very interesting, can you send the video please ?

[@marltxt]

From the Fog and the True Herobrine mods are probably the only mods that make my ass genuinely scream even after 80 hours of playing with them (although this only accounts for From the Fog as I played the Fear Nightfall modpack, but I did play a little with the True Herobrine mod for a few hours.) My biggest gripe with the 'Dweller' mods is that they're not scary because they're horrifying, they're scary because of the inconvenience of being unfortunate enough to come across them. In the Fear Nightfall modpack, the cave dweller mod is there and it was the main reason why most people on the server I hosted barely touched the caves, because more often than not we would just instantly die after it spawned in, to the point that we all just decided on disabling the mod. Fear quickly dwindles when the monster I'm supposed to be afraid of becomes more annoying than anything.

[@potatoesstarch2376]

Yeah I've only put so much time into Fear Nightfall, but it feels more like a horror themed challenge/difficulty mod than a horror mod. It's not about scaring you, it's about being hard, and some of the ways it does it have a spooky aesthetic. Like it's got some creepy stuff, definitely. First night I ever played I woke up to what I'm pretty sure was a herobrine skin just watching me on a hill. It like, crouched at me and waved like a player would, which was creepy cause from the fog couldn't do that last time I played with it on without fear nightfall. Watched me try to deal with the 10 creepers outside my walls. Was definitely spooky, but at the same time the main feature was the 10 goddamn creepers. And that sort of thing remains the case. I find it hard to focus on being scared when I'm mostly just worried that I'm going to have to repair things.

[@Mossyoakwendigo4.6]

I have three dweller mods, cave dweller, man from the fog and midnight lurker. I also have the “from the fog” mod, which in my opinion more funny than scary. Those dweller mods though, they genuinely make me paranoid when I play my modded survival.

[@marltxt]

Oh definitely, the creepers were the worst part by a long shot, especially so when they were smart enough to blow up the walls/ground to get to the bunker I had set up. After you get over the initial fear factor, the challenge is a lot more apparent, but a part from the occasional rage moment, I've really been enjoying myself! More so with friends, because its just neat to have that little extra help and to walk around to see how everybody else was doing. We haven't reached turrets yet, but bamboo spike pits are by far my favourite way to deal with the abundance of mobs.@@potatoesstarch2376

[@marltxt]

From the Fog still gets the occasional scare from me, and I definitely agree on it being funny sometimes (my friends and I have reached a point where we just call him Brine/Brian now because he's like a pesty little neighbour just trying to check in.)@@Mossyoakwendigo4.6

[@Dice-Z]

Golden rule of horror creature design, if it's too powerful and aggressive, it will lose its scare factor. One of the best horror games of all times is the perfect example of it: Alien isolation. In normal difficulty, the Alien is actually terrifying. It's unpredictable, and once it stayed half an hour in a vent right above my locker making it really difficult to tell if he was here or not, with occasional creepy noises. I KNEW the fucker was there, that's not normal behaviour for him, but i knew he was there the entire time. I got out of the locker and instantly went back in without skipping a beat. Bastard dropped right in front of the locker instantly. Pure gold moment. This is what horror is. This moment felt real, like a real creature was truly after my real life. I knew it was there, IT knew I was here. Then if you try to play on the hardest difficulty, the AI is made to just be constantly on your ass at the slightest noise and always 5m away from you, looking for you 24/7. It loses so much of its scariness as a result. This is what all those dwellers mods are missing. That and the sound design not being ambiguous enough, too loud, too screechy, etc... What terrifies players is being stalked and constantly made to doubt if they are or not. Eventually confirming they are and making them paranoid, but it's not time to go on the chase sequence that will be greatly enhanced yet... you have to try to keep the player being stalked as much as possible in a way where it's really hard for them to notice, and when they do, the creature tries to hide as fast as possible to make them doubt if they really saw anything. It's all about the doubt. And the creepiness of having your fear confirmed where after staring at something you don't trust for a long time... peekaboo. It needs to slowly close in on you, and when it catches you off guard, you can start a chase sequence. And you need to have a decent but not too high chance of escaping, for escaping to be terrifying. In which case you could have the creature play hide and seek if the player manages to hide. You need to be able to lose a creature for it to be scary. It's another problem with the dwellers. And it's all chase. Chase chase chase chase. You know what's really terrifying? Ambushes. Make the monster lie in wait for you. Give you some clues it's there but if you miss them, you're in for a rough time.

[@DangerDurians]

My main issue with a lot of the horror mods is that they stem from the thought “the cave noises SHOULD have a source” and that not having one is bad. It’s like someone saying why doesn’t Mice on Venus had a diegetic source? It’s mood setting ambience. (Although, on that note, the backpack mods can get unnerving when you start hearing a jukebox playing without an apparent source, or in some place you thought was safe/lit)

[@richardfromhotline130]

Cave noises are probably player character hallucinating from being in caves for too long. They're either caused by oxygen deprivation or simply represent paranoia through audio.

[@MrGamerDoesVids]

Someone should make a mod that isn’t physical scary with white eyes and large teeth, but mentally scary. It could be called “Minecraft_version.7”, and everything should be normal until you find a new structure called the “letmeoutletmeoutletmeout”, which is just a nether portal but with the pink and black checkerboard texture instead of obsidian, and also the sound of walking on netherrack is repeated over and over when near it. You light it with a new item that you start off with called “thekey”. When you ignite the letmeoutletmeoutletmeout, it makes a really loud bloodcurdling scream and then your game crashes (I don’t know if that’s possible for a mod but if Undertale did it then so can the modern probably). When you reload it and rejoin the world, all the textures are replaced with the pink and black texture, literally every texture. However, a new biome is added with a black and red texture, but it’s quite small it just has a village so it’s not really a biome. There are villagers but they’re pink and black and they just stand still. When you open a door, however, you fall down and then you stop falling and suffocate a few dozen blocks down, but when you suffocate, muffled screams play. When you die, you hear a purge alarm and everything looks very red. Then a new mob called “7” spawns and it comes after you. It has a player model but the texture is a mix of a few blocks and items textures. It floats, is the same speed as a horse when it’s running and has no animations, and when it gets right above you, you can’t do anything and then it falls down. When it touches you a gif of a highly saturated face screaming plays, and after a few seconds flashes of many things like robots, plants and mirrors flash on screen before the game crashes AGAIN. When you rejoin the world everything is normal and there are no letmeoutletmeoutletmeouts or thekeys. It could be creepy because it makes you feel like it’s really not meant to be there and the mod and game are broken

[@Aaa-vp6ug]

The payoff is hilarious lol

[@fungames300]

Tldr: A mob that gets increasingly rare and there are sounds to add to the paranoia of the mob not showing up. My idea for a mob would be something that makes noises similar to the regular cave sounds but slightly altered. Also faint footsteps and noises would occasionally play. The difference would be that once you encounter and interact with the mob the chance of it appearing decreases. Everytime you encounter it the odds decrease more until its like a 0.1 percent chance for it to spawn when conditions are met. The altered sounds would still occasionally play even if he is not there. The goal would be to have the sounds become like the vanilla cave sounds and just shruged off. There is still a chance he spawns and it will truly be unexpected. Hope you liked my sleep deprived ramblings.

[@wachter_hd]

Sounds like a good idea

[@catbatrat1760]

"noises similar to the regular cave sounds but slightly altered" Ooooh, I like that!

[@fcsj28]

Noted too.

[@Dice-Z]

At 0.1%, make the monster different, change its ai, maybe it stalks you more, and perhaps mutates into a more horrifying looking creature that is more relentless once it decides to aggro, then after that it resets to the normal spawn rate/AI/appearance.

[@izurukamukura9095]

I think one of my favourite mods in this category is probably Beware The Rain. You've got your standard fare of spooky fellows, but they all appear when it starts to rain. You've got Vapor, probably the second most common monster in the mod, the skull spiders, the most common enemies in the mod, Valon, the typical slenderman of the mod, and Rosemary, an armless monster that I believe only spawns in caves? Dont quote me in that though.

[@rafalst]

There was a mod that added "eyes" to the darkness that kept watching you. I dont remember if it did something else, i think it did, but just the eyes in the darkness, following you around is more scary than 99% of the "horror" mods

[@lordshennington2756]

The eyes jumpscare and deal damage if you touch them but simply looking at them makes the entity despawn

[@Sillimant_]

lots of somethings just standing back and watching you is chilling, it'll definitely set off the primal part of the brain

[@halinaqi2194]

One time I slept over at my neigh ours house as a kid, and their mf cat likes to walk around the house at night and just stare at you. Creeped the fuc out of me as a kid.

[@TheTrueColeye]

Be on the look out for the next cave dweller inspired mod: 'The Spooky Nooky'

[@VEGETAAAAAAAAA]

I shit my pants reading this bro why man

[@Ungoverneddrone]

Oh a goblin that drops Waxed Weathered Cut Copper Stairs

[@ripit.3457]

I’m making a new dweller: “The Dude Whomst Walks”

[@GustavoPizza]

@@ripit.3457 Me too! It's called "The Guy Who Watches You at Night (spooky)".

[@Ungoverneddrone]

Does he walk @@ripit.3457 ?

[@aki-senkinn]

One mod that did it quite well is The Betweenlands. It has some scary mobs, Stalkers are probably the best, but also Wights (which even remind me of the Cave Dweller a little). But their crimson sky event is really unsettling, the audio design is great, and it is rare enough where it always feels special, and you just don't get used to it. No loud jumpscares, no constant chasing, it's not a pure horror mod for the sake of it, it's just part of the mood, it's a great mod with great execution.

[@adrevenue726]

The betweenland is my FAVOURITE mod it's so spooky and atmospheric

[@TitleDotJpeg]

I’m pretty sure it’s much older than the cave dweller

[@tl1326]

erebus just triggers me, and alex mobs mosquito, fucking hate them

[@rustyshackleford234]

I love the stalkers, I kinda wish they were ported to vanilla and spawned below y=-32 or something lmao

[@orionbarnes1733]

1:16 I was playing Minecraft as I listened to this video in the background, and at the exact moment you said "hunting you down" my game decided to play cave ambience. I had to rewind the video to make sure you didn't edit that in, it was so creepy when I realized you didn't put that in there. Time to build some crosses in my world then, I guess.

[@JessieTheNobody]

I think some of them work. The Cave Dweller was effective at first but I would like some minor changes like him breaking torches and such to throw you off. The Man from the Fog is too common and should be tied to a mechanic, I do like him a bit cause his whistling is creepy and his ability to break doors and windows is cool but I think he shouldn't break Iron Doors as to give reason to have them. The One who Watches is good but the hallucinations (the transparent variants) just kill the buildup and get in the way of other stuff. Also changing the format from spooky entities that appear randomly to stuff more like the Deep Dark really leaning in on the alien stuff like the Depth Crawlers.

[@Daralexen]

Man From the Fog can even destroy Enhanced Iron Doors from SecurityCraft. You know, the mod that allows players to enhance blocks to be as tough as Bedrock. I guess he is just programmed to destroy any block categorised as a door regardless of hardness. I did report this bug to the developer, so I hope that it is fixed.

[@iamahiphopfan3759]

Honestly one of my biggest problems with the man from the fog is it’s name. Not can it be a bit of a mouth full but it feels like they named it that to leech of the popularity of From The Fog making it feel kinda soulless to me

[@Daralexen]

I never knew about him changing the title screen. I always play with a resource pack that uses a title screen. He is still not really worthy of the name though. He spawns way too close to the player based on my experiences. So I never see him in the fog.

[@TeleportRush]

@@Daralexen Honestly I'm thinking he should come with a custom weather effect that rolls the fog in close silent hill style

[@garebare940]

14:04 You know what, compared to the rest of the cave dweller copycats the john mod is the only one that deserves existence. Mainly because of nostalgia.

[@Daralexen]

It is also a more original idea and better balanced for general gameplay. John doesn’t overstay his welcome unlike oogeyboogey man #000978.

[@sacrificed9116]

Nah, the john mod is a crappy mcreator recreation with basic, bland mechanics. It isn't even scary when you first play with it, it just adds annoying hordes of little johns and the occasional giant sized one. Mediocre at best

[@Daralexen]

I never really saw it as scary, just nostalgic as John was the original "Scariest Minecraft mod" before the Mary Sue stick bug trend. John is not supposed to be a super complex mod like the original Cave Dweller or From the Fog, as the concept of John is from Beta Minecraft. I do agree that Baby Johns speed and default group size need to be nerfed though. Unlike the attention seeker mods like One Who Watches, Baby John CAN be avoided as he only spawns on the surface, and he can be killed by pillaring.@@sacrificed9116

[@McChad441]

​@@sacrificed9116well the original mod was pretty much the same. this new version just adds more. and some of these mechanics are done pretty well for mcreator. and I found it to be pretty fun.

[@McChad441]

​@@sacrificed9116also the mod back in the day was one of the first horror mods. It might not live up to modern day horror. but it is still great

[@shockwaveherp9823]

What I liked about the cave dweller is that unlike other horror mods at the time, the monster had a unique AI tree to help behave in a way different then other mods, and use subtle interactions to its advantage. That is something that I think a lot of other dwellers mods miss, because they more or less use the same tree as the original mod with some tweaks and therefor become redundant. That sums of the problem. Cave dweller was original. Its successor mods are not. Though I agree that the cave dweller mod could definitely use a better paint job to fully realize its horror. What the horror mod developers need to do is push out more into experimentation. I think minecraft has a lot of potential to create some scary encounters, but the potential hasn't been fully realized yet. I think playing more into subtlety and ambience would help a lot.

[@Daralexen]

Most of the copy cats tend to copy and paste 90% of the “Evolved” Cave Dweller code that removes the fleeing and staring mechanics, and instead just makes Cabe Dweller entirely aggressive like any other hostile mob. Of course, the copy cats also bloat the stats of the mob, make them extremely common, and add more gimmicks that seem scary, but become annoying past the first interaction.

[@shockwaveherp9823]

@@Daralexen exactly. Not only are they unoriginal, but they also dumb down the design. I think people also have a 'my monster is so strong' mentality. Difficulty doesn't necessarily mean horror. You could argue not being able to fight a monster adds to some terror, and it sometimes can, but because you take away an element of how you can react to it it only serves to make it boring that much faster without anything unique too it. It also takes a way from the vanilla feel too though, as minecraft is ultimately built on freedom of choice being a sandbox. So not being able to fight something doesn't really fit the environment.

[@Daralexen]

They can be immortal/unkillable but being able to escape/avoid them entirely is necessary for balance. None of these mods do that aside from Cave Dweller. The Grue is immortal, but it can be entirely avoided just by bringing some torches. The Warden can be avoided by being quiet in the Deep Dark and mining the blocks that summon it. @@shockwaveherp9823

[@WishBone-ht2mx]

I think the Man From the Fog (the dweller at 16:17) used to be easier to avoid. It was triggered by you looking at it, which was closer to it's predecessor. However, I guess an update changed that, so now it can attack without being triggered.

[@frosbeechill]

I want them to bring back the old version. It was caused by the folly and the dangerous curiosity of the player and not by some countdown to your doom. Definitely could see it as an upgraded enderman, and I really liked that.

[@bluetoothhose4119]

I've been playing with a newer version of him and it's what drew me to this video. Over time ive grown to hate him. He spawns consistently every night, torches dont stop him, he knows exactly where i am, has an extremely hard to hit hitbox and if i do damage him a bit he teleports away and respawns with full health. I did end up killing him and he spawned again the same night. It isnt creepy anymore it's just cheap and annoying as his lightning burns down my builds. Honestly considering removing it from my survival world.

[@Daralexen]

How did you manage to kill him? He has 300 HP. I have only ever killed him via taking advantage of his broken AI.

[@bluetoothhose4119]

I was playing with commands on, I was in the process of building a large wall to keep him out of my base because I hoped that he wouldn't be able to spawn inside light sources. However, even though I was in creative he still spawned, though he just stood still. From there I just shot him with my gun till he died. However it is very difficult to kill him legitly even with ranged weapons due to his shitty hitbox.@@Daralexen

[@Daralexen]

His "Stalk mode" version only has 10 HP. It is the "Chase mode" version that has 300 HP. I have only killed him in modpacks by messing with his broken AI via "doormats" (Two moss layers next to each other in front of an entrance) while I hit him with a sword or gun or having him run into powdered snow or barbed fences from another mod while being attacked by Iron Golems or Turrets.@@bluetoothhose4119

[@foodaah]

a good horror mod is a subtle horror mod, with stuff happening constantly outside your view, with your only hint being sounds, like walking, placing blocks, breaking blocks. and occasionaly getting hit by something you couldn't see and not like all of the where its just something actively screaming at you, while trying to kill you, and heck, some of there just literally one shots you if you're not prepared, its not scary, its just annoying

[@DuskEalain]

I feel like the only one that doesn't feel out of place is Rat's dimension one, which I don't even believe is public, because it preys upon that core dreariness of Minecraft. For those who don't know It's a 3-layer dimension inspired by swimming pool liminal spaces, and there isn't anything to even hurt you until the final one (giant angler-fish creatures that eat you). And I think it works because it isn't "scary monster go BRRRRFKASNFKLASD at 5000 decibels" it's more "what is this? where am I? why is it suddenly so dark? and most importantly WHAT IS _THAT?"_

[@eightcoins4401]

But even adding a monster fully defeats the original point of liminal spaces. They made people feel fear because of the idea of wandering a maze of literally nothing forever, not even death being an escape. Though the original idea doesnt work in videogame form

[@uncroppedsoop]

​@@eightcoins4401 it does exactly that for the first 2 layers of it, then the final one pulls the rug out from under you. rare case where the addition of a monster actually improved the end result

[@Daralexen]

I hope that it is public. It sounds a lot like MyHouse.wad from Doom II. One of the best modern gaming horror experiences in my opinion. I feel like many of these boogeymen should take inspiration from that as opposed to FNAF or Poppy Playtime.

[@Borapaws]

liminal spaces are scary because you dont understand them, its the fear of the unknown if you knew there was no monster there it wouldnt be scary, but if you get one too early the payoff wouldnt have any buildup value is found in absence, which rat does incredibly well

[@Scatterbrained_and_Lost]

Given how Base Minecraft's horror works, I feel the best way to improve these mods is to make it so that you rarely *ever* encounter them if ever. As Daggz said, the first dweller mod did so well, up until you actually meet it. So maybe have a png that blends in to the darkness appear on the edge of the player's screen and then disappear the second they look away/at it or right before the light level increases. Maybe the thing only spawns until the player acquires enough xp, say, a cumulative 60 levels. Maybe add a couple new underground chambers containing a book and quill and that triggers plot to spawn. The point is, play with the players mind. Make them paranoid, but never actually put them in danger. New spoopy mp3's should definitely be added though. Even after all these years the cave noises still unsettle me. Also, letting the thing break blocks, especially player placed ones is kind of dumb. "oh whoops it got in, killed me, and now I need to rebuild what the bastard broke". That's not fun; That's annoying, and it's the main reason I despise creepers. However It could work in theory, as long as it's not going to get in the way of the player's building.

[@halinaqi2194]

I think its fair to have the mob mine through naturally generated blocks, but NOT any player placed ones, or not any unnatural blocks, ex you place stone down, it can mine that, but not cobblestone. The scariest scenario is strip mining and you hear somethin I the walls mining towards you.

[@crystalflare0684]

​@@halinaqi2194a major issue with that is that there isnt really an easy way to detect man made vs natural blocks when it comes to programming mods for mc iirc, otherwise i believe a lot more mods would make use of mechanics like that

[@halinaqi2194]

@@crystalflare0684 yeah which is why I suggested an alternative, give it a pallete of blocks it will not mine through no matter what. Tough conundrum as I don't have experience coding in Java.

[@yautl1]

I do think part of the problem there is that when the player holds a monopoly over placing and breaking blocks, there's very little challenge. Prepared players will have a panic room handy to run to if something shows up, even an unprepared player can just wall themselves in a corner and wait for the thing to go away. Obviously there need to be limitations on what a monster can do, but making a player feel like there's nowhere they're truly safe from it is a very effective way to make something scary.

[@Daralexen]

Cobblestone still spawns naturally via Villages, Dungeons, and Lava.

[@leokun8523]

I want to make a horror mod so bad because there's something about Minecraft that I specifically feel. I don't know what it is, and I don't know if anyone feels the same, but I want to capture the palpable tension you have when playing Minecraft. In the older versions, I always felt on edge and everything felt off. If I was to create a monster, it would either be very tall, or player-like. It wouldn't be aggressive, but not passive either. However, I would prefer it to be more subtle like you mentioned. Maybe the noises would be edited versions of cave or normal overworld noises. For example, maybe the creature mimics a cow, but it's imperfect and drags it out for a little too long. Maybe the monster could appear like a normal creature but be deformed, and able to switch between vanilla mobs. I think that would be cool. Sorry for ranting, I just needed to get the idea out.

[@IcyHarry.]

Wow I did not expect to make an appearance in this video! Great points about the topic, One thing I don't like about the dwellers are that most of them are either unkillable or deal way too much damage

[@Bailey_is_my_dog]

Wow I watched your video

[@Daralexen]

The bloated stats or unkillable nature of the Cave Dweller clones make them feel more like DeviantART Mary Sue OCs than genuine horror characters. The bad copy-and-paste designs and barebones textures do not help as well.

[@_Tzer]

dimensional doors is honestly horrifying when it hits you

[@crow8737]

I really like THE KNOCKER mod, it’s not just the usual jump scare that comes out of nowhere that doesn’t actually scare you but shocks you. The knocker generally creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable, I’m already an extremely paranoid person, but this mod just makes the game genuinely creepy.

[@JosepiThe13th]

Bro... 5:01 is not a cave update change. There have been holes like this since caves were introduced. Also, the Man in the Fog USED to be subtle... not sure if they updated him to make him lame, or if some other mod ruined him. But in the From the Fog modpack, he's literally just an above ground Cave Dweller and he's really cool.

[@crunch.dot.73]

They were made faaar more common with the cave update however

[@Bottt08]

Yea I was *REALLY* fond of whichever Man from the Fog I had experienced before, the sounds it made were exceptionally unsettling and felt very in line with Minecraft sounds themselves and it remained subtle 24/7 unless you willingly engaged it with directly looking at it, the one in this video and others I've seen and played with from other modpacks absolutely ruins the experience by turning it into another generator loud slasher type 24/7 that spawns with no warning and is just loud all the time and it's really damn annoying lol

[@prismavoid3764]

People give Mojang a lot of shit for their design philosophies (and for good reason most of the time), but the Warden shows exactly how you make Minecraft scary. The Warden is an enormous beast that can kill you very easily, but it isn't just popping up every ten seconds to scream in your face and send you back to spawn. There are clear rules for how the Warden works and what triggers an attack. Each time you make a mistake that brings you closer to an encounter, that darkness effect and the sound design of the Shrieker creates an ominous sense that something terrible is coming, letting the fear build. And even once the Warden shows up, it doesn't just instantly kill you and flash a scary image on the screen, with skilled play you _can_ escape, it's just that the whole time you're trying to, you know one wrong move and it'll obliterate you with its sonic scream, and that fear can make you mess up since you're so tense. A lot of these mods could do with looking at the Ancient City experience to get a feel for how dread and buildup can make a monster scary, even if the design itself isn't actually that frightening (the Warden looks like a big teddy bear but he's still scarier than any of the monster designs in this video).

[@TheAmazingHerosquad]

One thing that can make developing horror mods quite difficult is the general lack of adaptive AI. Since developers can't know what render distance a player is at, when they'll place a torch or even what brightness they have their game set to, it's hard to make a good setup and payoff for horror mobs. Maybe if there were weather "events" that could influence atmosphere, kind of like the warden's darkness effect, and then capitalize on the tension that builds. Have a mob not directly attack you right away, maybe if you spot them they retreat into the darkness/fog, then disappear?

[@wander7812]

*Why was Minecraft scary:* - Liminal/Backrooms vibes. - The feeling that you're not alone, but never knew for sure. - Lack of ambience noise creating extra eeriness. - Anxiety. *What modders (and their fanbase) do:* - Big Enderman-like monster, but demented. - Chases you directly with a goofy animation. - Do a Very loud, obnoxious noise. - Just an Mob-Mod, that doesn't fit the Minecraft aesthetic (which kills immersion), thats *comically* OP.

[@Ungoverneddrone]

Weirdly enough I personally think the enderman are scarier than the mods

[@wander7812]

​@@UngoverneddroneYeah, cuz the Enderman actually looks and feels like it belongs in minecraft. While still being creepy, BUT naturally creepy. Still, its a killeable mob, so its not scary for too long. But unlike these mods at least it manages to be scary *once.*

[@Ungoverneddrone]

​@@wander7812I feel like the same goes for the horror mod but for the enderman you still have that new player stress when you first see it. I feel like that just makes it a little scarier the first time over the mods

[@wander7812]

@@Ungoverneddrone Ill be completly transparent the horror mods can only be scary if youre easily scarable or very young. The concept of big monster just chasing u is already trashed by horroe standards, so, I mean, why not Minecraft too?

[@Daralexen]

You also forgot the blood and gore on the big monsters. Scape and Run: Parasites and other "killer virus" mods are notorious for this. Sure, they look disgusting to look at, but they still look like edgy DeviantArt OCs that look out of place in Minecraft at the same time. I give applause to Sculk Horde for making their mobs look Vanilla+ and by expanding upon an already unsettling concept from Minecraft, as opposed to making Sonic.exe OCs.

[@_veloxity91]

Honestly I just want to add eyes in dark areas. Gives you the idea that something is there, but you don't know for sure. I want THAT type of horror in Minecraft.

[@gratuitouslurking8610]

There was this old halloween monster mod I recall that basically had this, vaguely based off Don't Starve. These eyes in the dark that would pop off torches and result in... worse things spawning in the dark.

[@zetten4109]

The mods need subtlety. A great example is the bracken from Lethal Company. It stalks you, it targets a specific person, it's suspenseful, it HUNTS it makes you FEEL LIKE PREY. That's what "horror" is, the unknown. The feeling of helplessness. That's horror.

[@shibainu2528]

Personally, I think that if you want your mod to be playable in a survival mode setting, there has to be some limits or a "weakness" that the player can exploit. Think back to your first enderman, you probably didn't know that you can just hide in a 2 block tall gap or avoid direct eye contact, so even though they hit like a truck even with iron armor, it's still somewhat "fair" to the player. Especially since they are a somewhat rare encounter compared to your usual zombies, skeletons, creepers, and spiders. Now, look at the Warden, something that seemingly has no weakness. How do you avoid it? Well, by staying quiet *before* it even appears, since I am pretty sure they work on a 3 strikes system with the skulk screecher. They are also blind, relying on sound and smells to determine where you are. So, if you are quick and quiet enough, you can sneak away from the area. Even when they spawn, you can clearly hear them tear themselves out of the ground, alongside their heartbeat and the "skulk" sound they make when they hear you. Want to avoid the Warden entirely? Just stay out of the deep dark! Most Minecraft horror creatures though, they seemingly have *no* weakness or limit, but that might just be me getting used to a "new" feature that not every youtuber is talking about alongside a wiki page on how to avoid them. The Cave Dweller for example can squeeze itself through 1 block tall gaps, is pretty fast, gets aggroed when you see it in general, and is only limited to an area you are constantly forced to go to, being the Underground. Or, "The One Who Watches" who literally destroys your torches, breaks leaves, disables your shield, can appear ANYWHERE even across dimensions, can jump very high / climb up walls to avoid pillars, and just is very cheap with the invisibility and jumpscares. *That* is not a fair fight as a normal Minecraft survival player who just wants some time to breathe and defeat the Ender Dragon on their own time.

[@zentavithan4689]

The cave dweller can't hit players that build up with blocks that's it weakness as well I believe.

[@Youarewhatyoueatsonic]

Then it’s a good thing it’s not in the base game? 😭 if you’re downloading an unfair mod you probably already knew all this and wanted it anyways

[@shibainu2528]

@@Youarewhatyoueatsonic Well what I was getting at, is how it seems like most if not ALL of them are unfair in a "serious casual" perspective where you plan to beat the game eventually instead of a "casual showcase" perspective where you might build a shelter and survive for a few days then leave the world entirely. Also, you can't just "Not download the mod" if a modpack had it without telling you which to be honest, is a great scenario to find one of those mods in. For example, Minecraft PSX. If you were download it on a whim, you probably wouldn't know the horror mods it contains specifically since the website mentions them, but you don't know if it has From the Fog or Cave Dweller until you actually encounter them. TL;DR - Because most of those "horror entity" mods seem unfair, whenever a modpack wants to use them without telling you, you have to deal with something killing you every other ingame day.

[@Daralexen]

A lot of the Cave Dweller copies feel more like Mary Sue DeviantART OCs than genuine horror characters. The unoriginal and poor designs do not help as well.

[@thegoldenraysoftheglorious1180]

The original cave dweller is quite nice in that regard where you can get away from it by stacking upwards and you can also just kill it if you have a shield and iron sword

[@labbit35]

The cave dweller is the best out of these, and would be even better if it would adapt and become more tricky as you progress, like intentionally causing drip stone to drop on you, using different mobs as tools to weaken you, and like someone else said trigger shreikers and summon Wardens to severely weaken you

[@SwaggyG_2102]

It feels like it when comes to horror content in regards towards genres such as analog horror, Minecraft, the Backrooms, or etc, it has all been relegated to the same old tried and true method that is some creepy elongated entity lurking in the shadows.

[@Ungoverneddrone]

Because of this comment I'm now going to poorly mod in a little gremlin that says "jumpscare" in a high pitched voice and plays stock horror sounds

[@wander7812]

Yeah its the "trendy horror" disease.

[@wander7812]

​@@UngoverneddroneLMAO Convice a KZbinr to create a parody "100 days surviving" of this mod

[@Ungoverneddrone]

@@wander7812 I doubt someone will make a 100 days of the "5 dwellings at Gobble Goblin's" mod

[@Boss-ry7gq]

It’s really quick and easy, and works on children (the most lucrative audience of them all).

[@pedrodavid6225]

18:08 MISTER BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAST

[@ZeroTheOtter]

I think the main problems are the lack of subtlety and that you have information. Yes, most of these just have the monster thrown at you all at once, but what Kills I is you knowing it’s coming. What makes cave noises effective is that they’re unexpected in a game like Minecraft, feels almost out of place. Think if there was a mod being that advertised itself as something else and secretly have a horror element to it would be more effective.

[@someguy15721]

This is why I love dimensional doors. It pretends to be a utility mod, and then you are running through limbo being confused and scared.

[@ZeroTheOtter]

@@someguy15721 ive never had the chance to check it it out myself but ive seen some videos of that mod. its exactally what id want from a more Horror mod for minecraft

[@whact]

i think the "cursed/creepypasta" versions of minecraft are pretty good at doing horror, stuff like 1.2.3_03 or error 422, they're basically modified versions of the alpha clients but with some weird things inside

[@QuarterCC]

The man from the fog has an extremely good idea behind it imo, its just the execution that failed it so hard. I like the idea of it being a bit more subtle as its way to aggressive and is honestly just an annoyance making it literally impossible to to anything at night. But I love the idea of a thing that comes out at night and beckons you deeper into the woods with its whistling. To me that incredibly scary and its honestly ashame that the mod creator didn't capitalize on that more. That's honestly where almost every Minecraft horror mod falls short.

[@Daralexen]

He used to be subtle, but I guess that the mod maker wants him to be more KZbinr friendly. So, that means more aggressive behaviour, annoying gimmicks, and wanked stats.

[@KrazyDoggo]

I personally think minecraft has some decent horror potential but like you said most of these scary stuff is flawed. (also why is there like 74 cave stalker mods)

[@thetuerk]

1:37 Nahhhh man that freaked me out like 💀

[@TeaTime._]

The watcher's literal first impression was a 9 year old child going up to some random guy while yelling "mr beast" 18:06

[@The_Thirteenth]

The Neverend is another great horror mod. It activates once you throw a trident to a End Portal Frame, then place a Heart of the Sea (IIRC, not 100% sure if it was that) Then, replaces the End dimension for a infinite and never ending indoor pool thingy. There's no hostile mobs, only the ambience and a passive mob called the Poolfish. The objective of this mod is to scape the Neverend To do this, you'd need to find a way to go deeper, into a second floor where suddenly, the lighting changes to afternoon, and the roofed parts are dark, without a Lantern, you couldn't see well In this floor, you need to find a diving suit, just for the third floor: Thalassophobia. Dark as fuck, you barely can see, even with the lantern, and there's Giant Lightbulb Fishes out there. I think is one of the best made of the horror genre

[@equally.marketable]

Oh hell yea, I saw the original video on that mod, I think from r4t or whatever their name was, and I thought it was super cool. Horror-ish games based on a series of puzzles are also my favorite, I thought having to find the exact coordinates for the escape was an genius idea

[@cara-seyun]

minecraft pool rooms?

[@ethannot-apastafarian4123]

The furnace going out seconds before the Cave Dweller attacked was PERFECT

[@TheReal_CelestialWolfGacha]

Agree

[@alleosussquirt8041]

Can ya imagine there being one of these mods, but it's just named "The cave dude." And it literally is just a lanky dude in a cave who just gives out bread.

[@b3nzayizkoolyo]

What about a mob that follows you from a distance, destroys your light sources, turns lava to obsidian, randomly blocks caves you came from while making natural looking openings into others so you get lost, and tracks the number of times you kill it so it gets stronger each time it respawns? That would be pretty cool I think

[@ketaminepoptarts]

i think making it change caves like that would be too op and too hard to code, and having it get stronger for every death feels like punishing the player

[@user-tzzglsstle585e38]

But not scary.

[@Zooiest]

​@@ketaminepoptarts too hard (not worth the effort), probably, but definitely not impossible. If not with algorithms or heuristics, then with an AI, even.

[@rustyshackleford234]

Literally the stalker from the betweenlands lmao

[@crusadertf2807]

I love the sheer amount of satire this video achieved with its editing. Especially at 2:15 where you’d expect the video to take the same ol’, beat to death approach of “serious tone over unsettling music.” But then it just cuts to a skeleton and, just, normal speaking. It’s great!

[@Lov3lyMoon]

The only mod I can see doing this correctly is the mod the Manbear. It is by the same person who made the update cave dweller, but this time the AI is more intelligent and does more stalking

[@a_balloon]

Yes I have seen it, it perfectly does what every horror mod should do. Another good mod I know from the same guy is the Obsessed. The only problem is that the mod heavily relies on distance sightings, and considering the creator has eagle eyes most people will find it hard to see the Manbear in the distance until it decides to attack.

[@liricl6978]

A good horror game makes you uneasy, while never letting you have the release of the horror, constantly leaving you feeling uncomfortable without a way to reduce that feeling until you start to let your guard down

[@chrisonmagic0312]

I feel that helplessness is a huge part of horror. The scariest mod I played wasn't a horror mod! It was called coolest hardcore, it makes you lose health when you have over two hearts and makes hostile mobs INVINCIBLE unless you have the right enchantment to kill them. Another mod I played it with was the ecospherical expansion mod which allows you to make the world a cave. With the right shaders, you can't see shit and it is terrifying when you hear a zombie and have to look in every direction. I haven't lasted longer than a day with that and a couple of anti-quality of life mods.

[@Daralexen]

Metroid Revival is also another mod that does horror better than the dwellers. Just hearing the otherworldly ambience from Metroid Prime in the biomes introduced by the mod really feels unsettling. I had both Metroid and Buffed Cave Dweller in the same hardcore world, and the Phazon Mines and Chozo Ruins made me feel more uncomfortable than stick bug on steroids.

[@akumuplayz5301]

I saw a video essay once about horror and how the KZbinr talked about something they called Quiet Horror. The premise of said horror is that it doesn’t rely on jump scares to be “scary”. And that’s something most these mods don’t focus on. Because if you appear in front of me with a loud music sting of course I’m gonna jump. It’d be better if the mod had a creature that just watches you. Never approaches, maybe it builds a replica of your base then when you approach it, it’s gone. A few minutes later the replica base is gone too, making you question if you really saw it. That’s just my perspective though, I like suspenseful horror so I am biased.

[@tyrusing]

Imo, out of all of these new "generic whitewashed enderman that screams at you" mods, the original Cave Dweller fits into minecraft the best. It wasn't just some unbeatable deity that jumps out of the shadows for the sole purpose of scaring you, it was a mob that presented itself as an obstacle to be overcome, escaped from, or outright avoided. The other mods' monsters usually spawn wherever they want, just to chase you around and maybe yell a bit, but the Dweller only spawns in one specific area: the lower caves, where you need to go if you want to mine diamonds. It fits itself into a point of progression where you're going to be unprepared, stuck in iron armor with little to no way to kill it, and so you're forced to run away and hide. However, if you can overcome the challenge that the Dweller presents, you're rewarded with the ability to use your newly collected diamonds to fight back against it. The Dweller is an obstacle that can be bested, unlike some other mods in which the unkillable scary entity pops up for no reason to murder you. You don't even need to face the Dweller if you don't want to, its an optional challenge with legitimate risks and rewards to it. Chance the Dweller, get diamonds. Don't want to see it? Thats fine, theres more than one way to obtain loot. Compare that to The One Who Watches, which will just appear out of nowhere at any time, scream, run around, and either kill you or disappear. You can't avoid him, you can't kill him, and he spawns everywhere. The only reward to successfully escaping him is not dying. Ok rant over TL:DR original cave dweller is good because it acts like an obstacle in progression that you can either interact with or avoid, and successfully overcoming it has actual benefit unlike most other scary mob mods

[@TeleportRush]

That watcher one probably would have been more intimidating had it been more silent. The poorly cloaked invisible thing right when you spawn in might have been a bit more unnerving, especially if they made it run or disappear when you started to focus your attention on it. The fog one on the other hand probably should have been actually tied to a new, but rare, weather effect or something, and maybe needed some other things with it.

[@coltontheabsoluteweirdo2116]

1:48 at first, he’s scary, but then, his face is a vertical slab

[@Sir_Bone-Head]

I always thought the original Cave Dweller worked with the overall aesthetics of Minecraft, and the redesign just didn't fit. There were people who told me the uncanny nature of the redesign worked as well, but I don't know if I agree. Honestly, I did start to feel like there's just too many of these creatures, and they don't really add much besides an obnoxious difficulty curve. I did like when people made the Cave Dweller start actually stalking the player, it definitely made things more uncomfortable, but otherwise, it's just loud = scary horror. Though From the Fog is actually still pretty decent, not the Man From the Fog.

[@NatjoOfficial]

One thing I really want to make, tho I have no clue how, is a mod which randomly generates a new horror themed mob every time to play it. It’d have one of many different personalities, perhaps generating one based on different things it’d do. As for how the hell to do its appearance, I have no clue. I can do something similar to Spore in Unity, but in Minecraft? No clue.

[@drinkwater1917]

I'd love to see a mod with horrifying mobs you have to respect as you go about your normal business Like for example, you're walking through the overworld and a loud inferno happens off ahead of you, and you see a figure inside of it Just don't approach, unless you're fireproof Or if you're in the caves and you have food on you, expect an uptick of these creepy gnome things that aren't that difficult alone but terrifying in a group

[@Daralexen]

I actually started development of a horror mod that imports the scariest aspects of Project Zero into Minecraft. My biggest design philosophy for it is that I want it to be balanced for normal survival. No cheap jump scares, no OP mob that spawns every 10 minutes, nor loud noises. Just ambience and unsettling environments. I do plan to add mobs such as ghosts and even some of the big name ones like Ose Kurosawa, but their stats will be comparable to those of a Zombie, Enderman, or Hoglin.

[@cinnyadh]

this video is exactly how i feel and its still the same case even three months later, we have 'the silence' 'the knocker' 'the obsessed' like its always 'the ____' and its never scary because its either a lanky creature with blood on it, or a shadow figure with a white face that whispers at you, theyre not scary they never have been and i just want people to be creative..

[@Danny4bidden]

0:36 this right here, is a good scenario atmosphere.

[@ImTheGuy]

Honestly I'm surprised more of these mods don't take from The Creeper. Like a silent stalker that can kill you in a instant is already pretty scary when it's a giant green dynamite stick, now imagine if it had a scary design.

[@genericcatgirl]

Honestly, that makes me wonder why somebody hasn't added a Bracken-inspired dweller into the game considering the popularity of both horror mods and Lethal Company. It could fit pretty well, since it's nearly silent, attacks by creeping up one you, quickly snaps your neck without any fanfare, but can be kept at bay by catching it watching you. However, it's always there watching you, even if you hold it back for a little bit. Even the in-game purpose of the monster could translate pretty well, albeit for making you watch your back getting valuable ore instead of valuable scrap. Even if you get really used to it and know how it works, it's still a nice bit of tension without being overbearing, since all you need to do is stop focusing for a little bit for it to get you.