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 ~

Balloon Head