ReviveByDeath

ReviveByDeath is a Minecraft 1.21.1 mod (available now for both Fabric and Forge) that replaces the normal, sudden death screen with a dramatic, cinematic rewind sequence. When a player suffers fatal damage and meets the requirements, rewinds, a custom cutscene plays, and the player is safely teleported back to their latest safe checkpoint.

This mod is designed from the ground up for balanced survival gameplay, multiplayer servers, and hardcore modpacks, offering scaling progression costs, and visual timeline effects.

Features

Death Rewind: Interrupts fatal damage with a customized sequence, rendering a client-side cutscene overlays and muting ambient noise.
Automatic Checkpoint Tracker: Continuously checks and saves safe locations for each player.
Manual Bed Checkpoints: Right-clicking a bed at day or night registers an immediate safe checkpoint.
Death Rewind Armor Enchantment: Survival-friendly enchantment that triggers the rewind.
Multiple Activation Modes: Supports enchantment, totem, both, and always modes to fit any playstyle.
Scaling XP Level Costs: Penalizes repeated rewinds by increasing the XP level cost, which resets when sleeping or dying normally.
Player Shadow: Spawns a custom Zombie equipped with the player's armor and weapons at the point of death (0% drop rate to prevent item duplication).
Dimensional Rift: Generates cosmetic cracks on the ground upon returning, which expand with repeated deaths and automatically revert to original blocks without harming player-built structures.
Post-Revive Protection: Grants temporary invulnerability after returning to prevent instant death loops.

Details

1. Checkpoint System

The server automatically tracks and updates each player's latest safe checkpoint in the background.

Checkpoint Saving Criteria:

A location is saved as a checkpoint only if the player is:

Alive and on the ground.
Not in lava, fire, or the void.
Standing on a sturdy, solid, non-liquid block.
Positioned in open space (feet and head blocks must have clear collision).

Saving Triggers:

Automatic: The server performs checks at configurable intervals (default: every 5 minutes/6000 ticks if a checkpoint is active; every 0.5 seconds/10 ticks if looking for the first safe checkpoint).
Manual (Beds): Right-clicking any bed at any time immediately attempts to save a manual checkpoint at the player's safe position, displaying a confirmation message.

2. Activation Modes

The mod's behavior depends on the configured activationMode in config/revivebydeath.json:

enchantment: Requires at least one equipped piece of armor enchanted with Death Rewind.
totem: Requires holding a Totem of Undying in either the main hand or off-hand.
both: Allows either Death Rewind armor or a totem to trigger the rewind. The mod checks armor first: if the player wears enchanted armor but does not have enough XP levels, it automatically falls back to consuming a totem.
always: Rewinds are always active on death, requiring no items or enchantments, but cost xp. Ideal for creative showcases or testing.

3. Death Rewind Enchantment

Type: Level 1 armor enchantment.
Progression: Tagged as non_treasure and tradeable
Usage: Only one equipped armor piece needs to be enchanted for the rewind to activate.

4. XP Cost Scaling

To balance the safety of the rewind, XP-based modes (enchantment and always) charge the player XP levels.

Cost Formula: The level cost grows with each successful rewind. By default, it starts at 6 levels and scales up based on the number of rewinds used: \(\text{XP Level Cost} = (\text{minimumXpLevelCost} + \text{uses} \times \text{xpLevelCostIncrease}) \times \text{xpLevelCostMultiplier}^{\text{uses}}\)
Exemptions: If a player lacks the required XP levels, the rewind fails, and they suffer a normal death.
Resets: The cumulative rewind count resets back to the minimum when:
- The player sleeps in a bed (if resetCostOnSleep is enabled).
- The player dies a normal vanilla death (if resetCostOnDeath is enabled).
- An admin runs the /revivebydeath reset_cost command.

5. Player Shadow

A Zombie is spawned at the coordinates of death when a rewind is triggered:

Equipment: Copies the armor and hand items the player held/wore at the moment of death.
Properties: Given permanent Speed II and Strength I effects, and a 10-second Glowing effec.
Balancing: Equipment drop rates are set to 0.0F (0%) to prevent players from duplicating gear by slaying their own shadow. No player XP is retained by the shadow.

6. Dimensional Rift

When a player teleports back to their checkpoint, a rift in the timeline appears, cracking the floor blocks around them.

Block Mapping:

To prevent players from obtaining rare resources or XP farms (e.g. from Crying Obsidian or Sculk), the rift uses safe, decorative blocks with very low survival value:

Stone Bricks to Cracked Stone Bricks
Deepslate Bricks to Cracked Deepslate Bricks
Deepslate Tiles to Cracked Deepslate Tiles
Nether Bricks to Cracked Nether Bricks
Polished Blackstone Bricks to Cracked Polished Blackstone Bricks
Logs / Planks (Wood) to Basalt (charred log appearance)
Stone / Cobblestone to Tuff
Grass / Mycelium / Dirt to Coarse Dirt
Sand to Gravel
Others to Tuff

Configuration Reference

The configuration file is located at config/revivebydeath.json on the server/client:

Key	Default Value	Description
`activationMode`	`"enchantment"`	Requirements to trigger rewind: `"enchantment"`, `"totem"`, `"both"`, or `"always"`.
`replaceVanillaTotem`	`true`	If true, replaces vanilla Totem of Undying mechanics with the cinematic rewind.
`consumeTotem`	`true`	Whether the Totem of Undying is consumed upon triggering a rewind.
`enchantmentArmorDamage`	`35`	Durability damage dealt to armor containing the Death Rewind enchantment.
`useXpCost`	`true`	If true, applies scaling XP level costs to non-totem rewinds.
`minimumXpLevelCost`	`6`	The base XP level cost for the first rewind.
`xpLevelCostIncrease`	`2`	Linear increase in level cost per rewind.
`xpLevelCostMultiplier`	`1.18`	Exponential multiplier scaling the level cost per rewind.
`resetCostOnSleep`	`true`	If true, sleeping in a bed resets the rewind counter and cost to the minimum.
`resetCostOnDeath`	`true`	If true, suffering a normal vanilla death resets the rewind counter and cost.
`enableCutscene`	`true`	Toggles the client-side cinematic rewind overlays and visual delay.
`cutsceneIntroFadeTicks`	`4`	Ticks for the screen to fade to red/black at the start of the sequence.
`cutsceneTicks`	`32`	Duration of the core PNG cutscene loop.
`cutsceneFrames`	`50`	Total number of frames in the custom PNG overlay sequence.
`returnEffectTicks`	`14`	Duration of the overlay fadeout after returning to the checkpoint.
`postReviveInvulnerabilityTicks`	`60`	Invulnerability duration (in ticks, 20 ticks = 1 second) upon returning.
`checkpointInitialCheckTicks`	`10`	Frequency of checks (in ticks) when searching for a player's first checkpoint.
`checkpointRecheckTicks`	`6000`	Frequency of checks (in ticks) when updating an active checkpoint.
`spawnPastShadow`	`true`	Toggles spawning the Zombie equipped with player gear at the point of death.
`createDimensionalRift`	`true`	Toggles ground-cracking and reversion around checkpoints.

Commands

Player Commands

/revivebydeath status: Displays the player's current checkpoint coordinates, active dimensions, and the next rewind cost in XP levels.
/revivebydeath log on: Enables debug messages showing reasons why a rewind fails (e.g. unsafe ground, no checkpoint, insufficient XP).
/revivebydeath log off: Disables debug messages.

Operator Commands (Permission Level 2)

/revivebydeath mode <always|totem|enchantment|both>: Dynamically overrides the activation mode.
/revivebydeath cutscene <on|off>: Toggles the cutscene playback globally.
/revivebydeath give_book: Gives the executing player an enchanted book with the Death Rewind enchantment.
/revivebydeath reset_cost [player]: Resets the rewind counter and XP cost for the target player.

Mod Verification & Installation

ReviveByDeath is fully verified and packaged for Minecraft 1.21.1 on both Fabric and Forge loaders. It must be installed on both client and server to ensure proper cutscene sync, overlays, custom sounds, and event handling.

Revive By Death