Balloon Head
- By
A horror mod inspired by Junji Ito's manga "Hanging Balloons" (人頭氣球).
About
A giant human-head balloon drifts through the sky, its face ripped from a random online player's skin. It moves with an eerie, unpredictable trajectory — not walking, not flying, but floating like a real lighter-than-air object. When it gets close, it lassoes you with a rope and drags you skyward, strangling you every second. You can't escape alone. If a teammate shoots the balloon down, the explosion blows your head off too, dropping your player head as a trophy.
Only one balloon exists at a time. Kill it or outrun it, and a new one spawns within seconds. You can never truly escape.
Gameplay
| Mechanic | Detail |
|---|---|
| Spawning | Overworld, any light level, day or night |
| Limit | 1 balloon per world |
| Movement | Custom impulse-based physics — not vanilla AI |
| Capture | Triggered at ≤ 3.5 blocks; spring-force drag with velocity inheritance |
| Damage | 2 HP/sec strangling while captured; instant kill on balloon death (head explodes) |
| Drops | Player head with UUID and player name on every victim death |
| Invulnerability | Immune to fire, lava, mobs, arrows — only players can damage it |
Audio & Effects
- Custom ambient screams (uses Phantom audio, subtitle says "Balloon Head screeches")
- Heartbeat while captured — tempo increases as your health drops, simulating oxygen deprivation
- Nausea effect when health falls below 30%
Render
- Spherical head mesh (7×7 segments) with real-time player-skin UV mapping
- Double-layer: base skin (inner) + hat/hair overlay (outer), translucent blending
- Pale blue-grey corpse tint, self-illuminating in darkness, occasional head tilting and micro-jitter
- 3D tube-mesh rope with Catmull-Rom sag curve and wind animation
Requirements
| Version | |
|---|---|
| Minecraft | 1.20.1 |
| Mod Loader | Forge |
| Forge | 47.4.20+ |
Source & Issues
The mod is open-source (MIT). Source code, issue tracker, and build instructions are on GitHub.
Localization
| English | ✓ Built-in |
| 简体中文 | ✓ 内置 |
/summon balloonhead:balloon_head ~ ~5 ~
The Balloon Head Team
