Broken World

Just survive. But one day you will notice the trees look wrong… and something is watching you.

Broken World is a slow-burn horror mod. It starts as a completely normal survival world. Then, little by little, the world starts to break, and you realize you are not alone in it.

What happens

Day 1 – Everything is normal. Almost. Watch the first sunset.

Day 2 – The world begins to break:

• Textures go wrong. Real Minecraft textures end up on the wrong blocks: an oak trunk drawn as diamond ore, leaves as cherry blossom or gold. First the trees, then everything.
• Sounds break too. Every sound in the game starts to sound like something else, stutters, drops out or slows down.
• A black silhouette appears. Far away on the horizon. Peeking out from behind a tree. Standing on the canopy. Right behind you. It never attacks at first; it only watches. When you look at it, it disappears.

As the world falls apart:

• It follows you in caves, crawling or running on all fours like a spider.
• It hangs from the ceiling of your house.
• It presses its face and hands against your window and taps on the glass.
• Mobs lose their faces. Some animals start acting like players.
• Holes open down to the bottom of the world. Pieces of ground float in the air.
• Torches go out, doors open by themselves, you hear footsteps behind you.
• Somebody joins your world and writes in chat. If you play with friends, it pretends to be one of them.
• Your house is bigger on the inside.
• While you are away, somebody visits your house: a sign by your bed, a diary written in your name, things moved around.
• Your game "loses connection"… and when you come back, things are not where you left them.
• The game's font breaks: letters turn into other letters and runes, flicker and shake.
• The main menu remembers. Even outside the world, the logo tears, the panorama darkens, and something stands in it.
• Sometimes, for half a minute, it is Minecraft Alpha again: the old textures, Alpha's colours, none of today's blocks, plants or mobs, the old music, nothing broken. Then it isn't.

On the third night, it ends. We won't spoil how.

⚠️ Warning: by default, the world is deleted at the very end of the story. Play in a new world, or turn it off in the config (deleteWorldAtEnd = false).

ℹ️ Alpha textures: no Mojang textures are included in this mod. For the Alpha hallucinations it uses the Alpha 1.2.6 client from your launcher if you have it, otherwise it downloads it once (about 1 MB) from Mojang's official servers into brokenworld/alpha/. Turn it off with alphaTextures = false (then the game's built-in old "Programmer Art" textures are used).

Multiplayer

Works in singleplayer, LAN and on servers. Everyone goes through the ending together. The mod must be installed on the server and on every client.

Requirements

Fabric (1.20.1)

• Fabric Loader 0.15+
• Fabric API
• If you use Sodium, also install Indium (otherwise the broken textures will not show; everything else works)

Forge (1.20.1)

• Forge 47+

Config

config/brokenworld-common.toml:

• how many days until the world breaks, and how fast the stages go
• the finale on/off, deleting the world at the end on/off
• fake chat, the bigger house, jumpscares, world events, the fake disconnect, house visits, broken sounds, hallucinations, real Alpha textures, the broken font and main menu: each on/off
• how often the silhouette and events appear

Commands (for testing, need cheats / op)

• /brokenworld info – current stage and time to the next one
• /brokenworld stage <0-4> – jump to a stage
• /brokenworld summon [mode] – call the silhouette
• /brokenworld pose <peek|crawl|hang|spider|window|scream|jerky> – look at its poses up close
• /brokenworld freeze – posed silhouettes stop turning towards you
• /brokenworld screamer, /brokenworld crash, /brokenworld visit, /brokenworld alpha, /brokenworld faceless on|off
• /brokenworld finale / /brokenworld finale stop

Credits

• Screamer sound made from "Horror Hit Soundpack 1" by psychhead_ (CC0, OpenGameArt)
• Cover title font: Rubik Glitch (SIL Open Font License)
• The silhouette was modeled and animated in Blender.