Chance

                   Chance  a mod by lilias hatterscheidt

Chance [Hell Arena & Dreams]

In Hardcore, there's no second chance. With this mod, there's exactly one.

I've always liked the idea of Hardcore, but I never liked how it ends. You put hours into a world, one bad fall into lava or one creeper you didn't hear, and it's just over. Not because you were bad at the game, but because of one moment. At the same time, I didn't want a mod that simply gives you your life back, because then it's not Hardcore anymore. So I asked myself: what if dying wasn't the end, but a trial? What if you had to earn your way back?

That's what Chance is.

When you die, your soul falls into Hell.

Instead of the death screen, you sink to the ground, the floor cracks open, and you fall through a tunnel of fire until you crash into a stadium floating above an endless sea of lava. Hundreds of monsters sit in the stands. They watch you, they cheer when you get hit, and they boo when their fighters fall.

You bring nothing but your own sword. If you had a weapon, you get an exact, fully repaired copy of it. If you had none, Hell gives you an iron sword. You also get a shield. That's it. No inventory, no food, no potions except some healing pods u can gain.

Then you fight. Five rounds of random vanilla mobs. The more often you've died, the more enemies you face. Every two rounds, Hell throws you a random piece of gear or a weapon, never the same type twice. From round 4, you get a bow and 8 arrows for the rest of the fight. A few healing pots appear on the floor each round, but they only heal one heart each, and running to them means lowering your shield and taking your eyes off the enemies.

Your hearts don't come back between rounds. Anything you pick up during a round disappears at the end of it. If you camp at the walls, Hell pulls you back into the middle and takes half a heart. The arena itself is real: if a creeper blows a hole into the floor, that hole stays for the rest of the fight, and below it is lava.

If you die in Hell, it's final. The screen goes black, everything goes silent, you are dead. for ever.

If you survive, time turns back.

A golden clock spins backwards, and you wake up where you were up to 120 seconds before you died, with the inventory you had back then. Not at the spot where you died, but a little earlier, like a vision. You're standing in front of the cave again, and this time you know what's waiting inside.

Every enemy that never touched you counts as a bonus. Bonus turns into extra hearts, golden hearts and regeneration when you come back. With enough bonus, you can even choose how far time turns back: 10, 30, 60, 90 or 120 seconds. Shorter means you keep more progress, but you land closer to whatever killed you.

The Increaser.

Hell remembers. Every time you die again, there's a chance it gets harder, with more enemies per round and better (but also more dangerous) rewards. It never goes down by itself. The only way to calm it is through your dreams.

Dreams.

When you sleep at night, there's a chance you'll dream. Dreams are echoes of the arena, with their own halls, rules, crowds and twists. There are fourteen of them now: undead waves that grow each round, echoes of yourself wearing your own armor, a fever dream where the floor erupts in flames, invisible hunters, giant titans with boss bars, a dance of death where you only have three hearts, a floor that crumbles after you step on a block three times, and more.

Dreams can get completely absurd. You might face bosses from L_Ender's Cataclysm, sometimes two at once. But it's only a dream. If you die, you wake up with a gasp and nothing is lost. If you win, you bring back a gift that lasts a whole day, like strength, fire resistance, extra hearts or even a one time-usable (not stackable) extra Chance at hell. Thats when you die in hell you will be revived once to continue fighting. With enough bonus, you can calm death and lower your Increaser by one.

Dreams are a bit kinder than Hell: you bring your sword, your bow and your arrows, your shield has Unbreaking I, and if you have no sword at all, you get a diamond one. They're also how you learn the arena. By the time you die for real, Hell won't be new to you. You'll know the rounds, the pots and the walls. You just won't have the safety net anymore.

Naps during the day are possible too, but you only sleep for a few hours and dreams are much rarer.

The Nightmare Horn.

In every dream, you get a horn. Blow it, and the whole stadium falls silent and stares at you. After that round, you're pulled into the True Nightmare: darker, harder, with a crowd that doesn't cheer or boo, it just watches. Survive it, and every gift is doubled, and you bring back real treasure. The later you blow the horn, the more treasure, but you have to survive until then.

Lucid dreams.

You can craft Lucid Healing Herbs from flowers. They give you a small speed boost for twelve hours, and if you sleep that night, you're guaranteed to dream and you get to choose which one. In the middle of the dream selection sits the lucid dream: a copy of your own world where you have creative access, can fly around, build and destroy whatever you want, and switch between Overworld, Nether and the arena. You'll even see yourself lying where you fell asleep. When you wake up, everything is exactly as it was. And no, you can't use it to scout: only what you've already explored is real. Everything else is generated fresh and won't match your actual world.

Multiplayer.

Chance works in multiplayer too. When someone dies, their soul stays visible in the world and they spectate the others. A friend can walk up to the soul and take it with them, by dying and going to Hell themselves. If they win, both come back. If they lose, now there are two souls waiting. Souls stack: every rescuer has to carry the combined Hell level of everyone they're trying to save. At some point, you'll have to decide if a rescue is still possible, or if it's time for a new world.

Multiplayer: Teaming

You don't have to face Hell alone. If a friend is already fighting for a lost soul, you can click the same soul and jump in after them. You get the same weapon as the fallen player plus a shield, and Hell gets two extra rounds to make up for it.

Your arrival isn't quiet. You drop from high above, sword first, straight into the middle of the arena, and everyone in there sees it. Anyone standing where you land, player or monster, gets thrown back about five blocks and loses 2.5 hearts, followed by an explosion of soul fire and a roaring crowd. Then Hell starts to change. There are two arenas, the stadium and a floating island high above a lava sea, and after you land, the one you're in slowly breaks apart and turns into the other, in a jagged wave from the center outward, with lava, smoke and sparks. The fight doesn't stop while it happens.

If one of you falls

Your partner doesn't simply die. They get back up as a zombie, wearing their own armor, holding their own weapon and carrying their own name. The zombie is slow, but it can't be hurt, and it hunts you. Keep your distance. The fallen player watches everything through the eyes of their zombie until you either win or die too. If you make it out, their soul stays behind in Hell and can still be rescued later.

The Revive Mate horn

When your partner falls, you get a horn, once per Hell. If someone falls again after you've used it, there's no second one. Blow it, and a fanfare sounds while the entire stadium boos. With the next round, you both fall into the Rift, a new Hell of its own: 60 × 60 blocks, lava under every tile and a lava sea all around, one extra enemy per round, and a floor that cracks with every step and breaks on the fourth. The remaining rounds carry over. The zombie disappears, and your partner stands next to you again, with 8 hearts and all their gear. Now you have to finish it together.

When you're dead

There's no death screen, no respawn and no titles. After two seconds of black, you slowly fade into the view of a friend who's still alive. You see what they see: their hotbar, hearts, hunger, armor and experience, their weapon and shield as they swing and block, and even their inventory, crafting table, furnaces and chests when they open them, but you can only watch. A and D switch between friends. There's no chat, no text and no name tags, and that stays that way even if you log out and back in, until someone brings you back. If nobody is online, you wait next to your soul.

Server operators can free a soul without a fight using /chance revive <player>.

Dreaming together

When you fall asleep, the others will know. Everyone else sees something like "Alex is dreaming … what about, I wonder?", and if it's a lucid dream: "Alex is dreaming … omg. I can't say that …"

I've played this a lot with two friends. We're currently on world number eight, so it's definitely not easy. That's intentional. Hardcore should still be Hardcore.

Why I made this.

I honestly don't play Minecraft that often. I mostly love programming, and Minecraft is just a really nice place to build something you can actually see and feel. I put a lot of work into making everything feel alive: every transition is a real camera sequence, the crowd reacts to what you do, every dream has its own atmosphere, and I tried to make sure every mechanic connects to the others instead of just being another feature.

It's hard. I tested it myself for a long time before I beat Hell even once, but I'm also not a great fighter. I'd love to hear how it goes for you.

Details

Minecraft 1.20.1, Forge 47+, Java 17. Requires L_Ender's Cataclysm for dream bosses. Optionally compatible with Epic Fight, Oculus and shaders (actually recommended to use the Sildur Vibrant Shader), Sound Physics Remastered and Distant Horizons. Almost everything is configurable: rounds, chances, rewards, rewind times, enemy blacklists and more.

see also other not minecraft related projects on my github! <https://github.com/liliassg>

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