Stillwatch

It only moves when you aren't looking.

Stillwatch is a horror mod about being watched. There are no health bars and no boss arenas. Every player has a hidden dread meter, and an AI Director watches it and decides, moment by moment, what should happen to you next. It works like the editor of a horror film: long quiet stretches, then less and less time between the bad moments.

You never see your dread as a number. You feel it: the edges of the screen darken, you start to hear your own heartbeat, and the fog creeps closer every night.

The Pale Watcher

A gaunt, three-block-tall figure with arms that drag along the ground and two pinprick eyes that glow in the dark.

It only moves when nobody is looking at it.

• Turn around and it's closer, frozen in a pose it wasn't in a moment ago.
• Looking straight at it fills your screen and your ears with static.
• Stare it down long enough and it gives up and goes somewhere you aren't looking.
• In real darkness it can creep toward you even while you watch.
• If it reaches you: a full-screen jumpscare and a very bad day.

It burns away at sunrise. It is never saved to your world. It will come back.

The Other

Someone is standing on the hill, and it's you.

It wears your skin: every player who looks at it sees their own. It carries your name above its head. It crouches when you crouch. Walk toward it and its neck cracks as its head turns all the way upside down. Then it runs away.

Or it doesn't.

The Red Night

From the third night on, any dusk can bring a Red Night, and after seven quiet nights one is guaranteed. A bell tolls from nowhere, the fog turns blood-red and closes in, nobody can sleep, and the Watcher hunts every player in the Overworld until sunrise.

The Director's other tricks

• Footsteps behind you that stop the moment you turn around
• Your torches going out one by one, the far ones first, walking toward you
• Knocking at the door that only you can hear
• Every animal nearby freezing at once to stare at you
• Someone breathing right behind your head
• The screen going black, and sometimes something is standing in front of you when it comes back
• A shrine with a sign built behind your back while you weren't looking
• Chat messages that shouldn't exist, including your own name joining the game
• Doors that open by themselves, whispers over your shoulder, distant screams

Scares depend on where you are. Doors have to exist to open, torches have to exist to go out, and animals have to be nearby to stare.

Surviving

Dread rises at night, in the dark, underground, and when you're alone. It falls in daylight, in bright light, near other players, and while you sleep.

Every new player receives E. Hollis's Tattered Journal. It's the only tutorial, written by someone who learned the rules the hard way. Read all of it.

Ward Charm. String on top, gold nuggets on either side, an amethyst shard in the middle, a gold nugget below. Hold it in either hand: it halves how fast dread builds, and when the Watcher reaches you, the charm breaks instead of you. It has three uses.

Keep the lights on. And it will never touch soul fire.

Details

• Requires: Fabric Loader 0.19.5+, Fabric API. GeckoLib is bundled inside the jar, so you don't need to install it separately.
• Minecraft: 26.3
• Install on both the client and the server. The server runs the Director; the client draws the fog, static, jumpscares and the creatures.
• Multiplayer: every player has their own dread and their own scares. Private scares (knocking, whispers, footsteps, fake chat) are heard only by their target. The Other shows each viewer their own face.
• Peaceful: the Watcher can't appear. The atmospheric scares still can.
• Every model, texture and sound is original, made from scratch for this mod.

Commands (for operators and cheat worlds)

• /stillwatch dread [0-100]: show or set your dread
• /stillwatch scare <name>: trigger a specific scare on yourself
• /stillwatch summon <watcher, glimpse, apparition, hunt or mimic>: spawn a creature near you
• /stillwatch night start or stop: begin or end a Red Night
• /stillwatch journal: get another copy of the journal

Best played at night, alone, with sound on.