Hardscrabble

A hardcore survival overhaul for Minecraft Java 26.3 / NeoForge: slow, metal-by-metal progression, real hunger, new monsters, and a dimension under the bedrock.

Hardscrabble is inspired by MITE (Minecraft Is Too Easy) by Avernite. It is not affiliated with MITE or its author. It is a clean-room reimplementation written from specifications and MITE's public changelog: no original MITE code or assets are used (see PROVENANCE.md). Every texture and model is original.

Version 0.1.0-alpha. Feature-complete against its roadmap and through a first playtest; wider testing still to come (see Status below).

Highlights

No bare-hand logs: start with flint and a hatchet.	Timed crafting, 9 workbenches gating each metal tier.	Furnaces have heat levels; better ores need hotter furnaces.	Satiety and nutrition: protein and phytonutrients matter.
29 new mobs with their own models.	Lunar calendar: blood, blue and harvest moons.	The Underworld, reached by a portal built on bedrock.	Few hearts at low level, death penalty, 120 s forced respawn.

Progression & crafting

Flint → copper → silver / gold → iron → ancient metal → mithril → adamantium. Logs cannot be broken by hand; gravel gives flint shards for your first hatchet, knife, axe and shovel. Wooden (except the shovel), stone and diamond tools are removed.

Crafting takes time: hold the result slot until the bar fills. Each metal needs its own workbench, and each workbench needs the previous one, so no tier can be skipped. A workbench can aim for a higher quality (8 levels) at an XP cost.

Timed crafting in the 2x2 grid.	Copper workbench with the target quality button and its XP cost.
An iron recipe on a copper workbench is refused…	…and the action bar names the workbench needed.

Tools per material: pickaxes, shovels, axes, hatchets, hoes, mattocks, scythes, shears, fishing rods.

78 new tools and weapons (hatchets, knives, daggers, clubs, battle axes, war hammers, mattocks, scythes, shears in every metal…) join the reworked vanilla copper, iron and gold tools, plus a fishing rod per material. Durability is ×100 and wear depends on block hardness; tools have reach and can parry.

The nine workbenches that gate each metal tier.	An adamantium-clad armour stand inside the ring of workbenches.
Five heat-level furnaces, from the clay oven to the netherrack furnace.	Ore, raw metal, nugget, ingot, coin, chain and block per metal.

<details> <summary>All item sheets (blocks, materials, food…)</summary>

Silver, mithril and adamantium ores, stone and deepslate variants	Storage blocks of every metal	Metal doors and bars
Metal anvils, repaired with nuggets of their own metal	Strongboxes in seven metals	Mithril and adamantium runestones and the emerald enchanting table
Metal buckets, empty or holding water, lava, milk or stone	The six coins	Shards: flint, obsidian, glass, quartz, emerald, diamond
New foods, bowls and soups	Onions at every stage, and dead wheat, carrots, potatoes and onions	Mob drops, enchanting and disenchanting bottles, manure, silver horse armour
Mantle and Core, the blocks under the Underworld and the Nether

</details>

Survival

You start with 3 hearts; maximum health grows with your level up to 10 hearts. The XP curve is MITE's, levels can go negative, and the food bar is capped by level. Hunger tracks satiety and nutrition, protein and phytonutrients, insulin and humidity; natural regeneration is slow. Sleep never speeds up time on a dedicated server.

HUD at level 3: few hearts, MITE level number, food bar capped by level.	Malnourished: P and V markers (no protein, no phytonutrients) and the one-time hint.
Food tooltip: satiety, nutrition and nutrients.	Death screen with the 120 s forced respawn countdown.

Witches can curse you; the curse icon appears once you have discovered it, and a disenchanting bottle lifts it.

A witch's curse: icon top left, messages in chat

Hovering the icon in an inventory names the curse

One-time contextual hints, and a disenchanting bottle lifting the curse

World mechanics

Punching a log does nothing; a flint hatchet chops it	Gravel mostly drops itself, sometimes flint shards or nuggets	Remove its support and dirt falls
Too many foods on a campfire put it out	Right-click gems to sacrifice them for XP, 3 emeralds a day at most	Blight spreads and withers crops (random ticks sped up)
Zombies dig through dirt to reach the player	A squid hunts the boater and smashes the boat	A wild horse lets a sneaking player close, then shies away

Also: crops grow better in rows, livestock eats its pasture, villager trades do not restock and give no XP, monsters spawn up to block light 7.

Combat & armour

Weapons have their own damage and speed; armour protection drops as it wears. Nine plate armour sets and eight chainmail sets, bows with 10 arrow tips, and silver deals extra damage to undead.

Full mithril armour, mithril battle axe and dagger.

The nine plate armour sets, from leather to adamantium	The eight chainmail sets, from copper to adamantium
Swords, daggers, knives, club and cudgel, battle axes, war hammers, bows and the 10 arrow tips	Tooltips: durability, material, harvest level, quality

Mobs

29 new mobs, each with its own model (Blockbench sources in docs/art/models/). Zombies dig, spiders' eyes glow in the dark, and deeper levels spawn harder monsters. On a blood moon, frenzied undead, Ghouls and Revenants roam the surface.

The undead: bone lords, longdeads, shadow, invisible stalker, revenant, wight, ghoul	Demon spider, phase spider, black widow and wood spider in their cave
Clay golem, fire elemental and earth elemental	The gelatinous cubes: jelly, blob, ooze and pudding
Nightwing, giant vampire bat and vampire bat	Hoary silverfish, netherspawn and copperspine

A ghoul shambles toward you	Gelatinous cubes hopping closer	A fire elemental, alive
A Shadow blows out candles and breaks torches	A Jelly digests meat and leather on the ground; iron stays	Lightning heats an Earth Elemental: it burns and walks in lava
Water from a bucket or bowl hurts a Fire Elemental	Spider eyes glowing in the dark

Dire wolves

Dire wolves hunt in packs. Tamed, they wear a collar and dyeable wolf armour that cracks as it wears out.

A dire wolf pack on the hunt

Tamed: collar only, dyed armour, sitting

Wolf armour cracking as it wears out

Bestiary

Undead
Ghoul	Wight	Revenant (rusted iron armour)	Shadow (deep, immaterial)
Invisible stalker (outlined)	Longdead	Longdead guardian	Bone lord
Ancient bone lord
Spiders
Wood spider	Black widow	Phase spider	Demon spider
Elementals and golems
Clay golem	Earth elemental	Fire elemental (Nether)	Infernal creeper
Gelatinous cubes
Jelly	Blob	Ooze	Pudding
Bats and silverfish
Vampire bat	Giant vampire bat	Nightwing (Nether)	Copperspine
Hoary silverfish	Netherspawn
Wolves
Dire wolf	Hellhound (Nether)

World

The Underworld

A cavern dimension under the Overworld bedrock, in grey fog that thickens over a 32-day cycle. A portal built on Overworld bedrock leads there; a portal anywhere else returns to the Overworld spawn. Adamantium is only found deep in the Underworld, above an unbreakable Mantle floor. Underworld dungeons hold Longdead spawners and loot.

A portal built on Overworld bedrock	Stepping out into the Underworld	The exit portal in the Underworld
The fog thickens over a 32-day cycle	Fog at its densest, on the blood moon day	Underworld dungeon: Longdead spawner and loot chest
Bottom, stone removed: bedrock plate (back), Mantle floor (front)	Adamantium ore, deep in the Underworld (rock removed)	Nether floor cut open: the Core layer under the bedrock

Moons and weather

Full moons fall every 8 days. A blood moon comes every 32 days, announced by a harvest moon; a blue moon every 128 days, announced by a moon dog, stops hostile spawns under the open sky. The clock tells you tonight's moon. About one morning in eight brings thick fog.

A blood moon rising at dusk	Blood moon: frenzied undead roam the surface	Blue moon: no hostile spawns under the open sky
A normal full moon	Harvest moon, 8 days before a blood moon	Moon dog: heralds a blue moon 8 days later
Thick morning fog	The clock announces tonight's moon

Villages, runegates, ores

Villages only generate once someone has crafted an iron pickaxe, and they are abandoned, with dead crops. A runegate (a portal with a runestone on each corner) sends an empty-handed player far away. Silver, mithril and adamantium ores follow MITE's depth distribution.

An abandoned village	Village farms hold dead crops	Runegate
Silver ore (rock removed)	Mithril ore, deep in the Overworld (rock removed)

Interfaces

Clay oven: coal is too hot, only sticks or charcoal	Stone furnace smelting raw copper at heat 2/2	Raw mithril needs heat 3: too cold
Copper anvil: repair paid in copper nuggets	Enchanting table: costs paid in MITE XP points	The mod's advancement tab (49 advancements plus the tab root)
Silver strongbox: only its owner can open it	Someone else's strongbox stays shut	World creation starts on Hard
/commands and /villages (village unlock conditions)	/stats and /state: level, bonuses, nutrition, curse, moon	Every text is translated (English and French)

The enchanting table has 17 new enchantments; metal anvils repair with nuggets; a disenchanting bottle strips enchantments.

Configuration

Open Mods → Hardscrabble → Config for the in-game editor, or edit the files.

Mods → Hardscrabble → Config

Client settings and synced world rules

Synced rules section

• Server rules: config/hardscrabble-synced.toml holds the defaults, overridden per world by saves/<world>/syncedconfig/hardscrabble-synced.toml; it is synced to clients. Every key has an English and a French comment.
• Client: config/hardscrabble-client.toml (hints.contextual_hints: one-time help messages, HUD indicators, durability as percent).

Useful keys:

Key	Effect
rules.strict_mode	No Creative or cheats, keepInventory off, no Spectator (default on)
rules.allowed_ops	Players exempt from strict mode
rules.lock_difficulty	Forces Hard difficulty and forbids changing it
rules.profile	CUSTOM (default, keys as written), STRICT_R196, MODERN (locks off, lighter death penalty), SERVER
rules.respawn_timer_seconds	Forced respawn delay (120)
player.death_penalty	Death XP rule: R196_CODE, WIKI_THIRD, MCMOD_LEVEL
metabolism.hunger_global_multiplier	Hunger speed
lunar.blood_moon_period	Days between blood moons (32)
structures.village_lock	Villages wait for the first iron pickaxe
equipment.elytra_firework_boost	Firework rockets boost a gliding elytra (off: cannot fire them while gliding)

[!WARNING] rules.dev_profile lifts strict mode and enables /mitedev for operators. It is a developer escape hatch: never enable it on a real world.

Install

Needs Minecraft Java 26.3, NeoForge 26.3.0.88 and Java 25. Put the jar in your mods folder, on the client and on the server. Create a new world: worlds played without the mod are not supported, and removing it from a world is not supported either.

Full README, source and issue tracker: github.com/nogaruki/hardscrabble (Français).

Feature overview

Area	What exists
Progression	Flint → copper → silver/gold → iron → ancient metal → mithril → adamantium; no bare-hand logs; wood/stone/diamond tools removed
Tools	78 new tools and weapons plus vanilla copper/iron/gold ones and a fishing rod per material; durability ×100, wear by hardness, quality (8 levels, paid in XP), reach, parry
Crafting	Timed crafting (2×2 and benches), 9 workbenches gating metals, restricted 2×2, crafter restriction
Metallurgy	Heat-level furnaces (clay → netherrack), fuel heat, MITE ore distribution with depth-scaled veins
Player	MITE XP curve, negative levels, max health 6 → 20 by level, death penalty, 120 s forced respawn, gem sacrifice
Hunger	Satiety + nutrition, protein/phyto, insulin, humidity, slow regen, starvation, MITE sleep, bowls, HUD
Combat	Weapon damage/speed, 9 plate armour sets + 8 chainmail sets, wear lowers protection, bows, 10 arrow tips, silver vs undead
Enchanting	MITE table (XP points), 17 enchantments, metal anvils (nugget repair), disenchanting bottle, strongboxes
Mobs	29 new mobs (Ghoul, Wight, Revenant, Shadow, Longdead, elementals, Bone Lords, cubes, bats…) with their own models, digging zombies, depth spawns
World	Underworld dimension, bedrock-linked portals, Underworld dungeons, locked villages, runegates, dirt gravity, Nether core
Time	Lunar calendar (blood/blue/harvest moons), moon colours, witch curses, 50 advancements (49 plus the tab root)

Status and known gaps

Every milestone of the roadmap through M6, plus the post-1.0 backlog, is implemented and the automated tests pass. A first playtest by the author (2026-10-19) rated every inferred balance value as right and its bugs are fixed. Not done yet: wider playtests, original audio and a release.

• No original audio. Mob voices are vanilla sounds replayed at another pitch and volume, with English and French subtitles.
• Inferred balance values. Where the specification is silent, values are inferred (checked in the first playtest) and marked [INFÉRÉ] or [NON VÉRIFIÉ] in the code.
• Every texture is original pixel art (docs/art/). Mob models come from Blockbench sources in docs/art/models/*.bbmodel; tools/pixelart/models3d.py generates the Java layers and skins.

Credits

• Code, textures, mob models, sounds and documentation were written by Claude (Anthropic's AI, Claude Opus 5.5 through Claude Code), directed, playtested and reviewed by the project owner, nogaruki.
• MITE (Minecraft Is Too Easy) by Avernite is the inspiration for this mod. Hardscrabble is not affiliated with or endorsed by Avernite; no MITE code or assets are included.
• Minecraft is a trademark of Mojang Studios. Hardscrabble is not an official Minecraft product.
• Built on NeoForge.

Licences

• Code: GNU LGPL v3 only (LGPL-3.0-only): see LICENSE and the GPL v3 text it refers to in COPYING.
• Assets (textures, structure files, art documentation): CC BY 4.0, attribution "Hardscrabble authors"; see LICENSE-ASSETS.
• Provenance and clean-room rules: PROVENANCE.md.