Signal Lost

An ARG-style horror mod for Minecraft 1.21.1 (NeoForge). Something on your world is still transmitting. It reads your chat and answers. It stages scares around you, pulls you into places that are not on any map, and leaves a trail for you to follow.

• Loader: NeoForge 21.1.x, Minecraft 1.21.1
• Dependencies: none
• Install: put the jar in your mods folder. For multiplayer, install it on the server and on every client.
• Works in: singleplayer, LAN and dedicated servers
• Best without shaders.
• Gameplay too slow? Increase events in settings! Server Config > Director > eventFrequency

⚠️ Content warning: jumpscares, loud sudden sounds, flashing images, screen shake and fake error screens. The first launch offers a one-click "Tone it down", and every intense effect can be switched off in the config.

Shaders: works with Iris and Sodium (tested with Complementary Reimagined). Iris and Sodium must be matching: Sodium 0.8.x needs Iris 1.8.14 or newer, Sodium 0.6.x needs Iris 1.8.12.

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What it adds

Something that talks back

It reads the chat and replies as <Host>, with close to 500 replies that change as the story goes on. Ask it who it is. Ask it what it wants. It doesn't answer everything, never repeats itself in a world, and notices when you keep asking the same thing. Some answers have to be decoded first.

10 creatures

Some of them only watch. The others hunt, and the usual ways of keeping mobs out do not work on all of them.

• Host: a thin black figure with pinpoint eyes
• Hollow: three blocks tall, with a hole where its face should be (hostile)
• Crawler: a body on all fours with every joint bent the wrong way (hostile)
• Mimic: someone you know, standing a little too far away (hostile)
• The Lengthened: very tall, at the edge of the fog
• Grinner: a pale face held on by its own hands, grinning
• Dangler: hangs from cave ceilings (hostile)
• Weeper: kneels crying with its back to you
• Static: a figure made of TV snow (hostile)
• Something in the Trees: a deer that is not a deer (hostile)

Over 40 events

Something decides when it is your turn. It waits until you are alone, in the dark, at night or underground, and the first minutes of a new world are quiet. The same scare never comes twice in a row, and some things happen only once per world.

4 other places

• The Levels: endless yellow halls under buzzing lights
• Stillwater: knee-deep black water and dead trees
• The Remnant: the world as it was before it was saved over
• Underneath: caves of flesh, flooded red

Sleep is one way in. It is not the only one. The way out is always a walk away, and the game helps you find it. Dying in a dream costs you nothing.

An ARG to solve

Logbooks from the server admin who was here before you. Text files that appear in your game folder. A frequency. A radio tower. And one question at the end, whose answer changes how the rest of your world plays. If a message makes no sense yet, w.'s notes will help. The solution isn't posted anywhere.

Sound and visuals

• Original sound: almost every sound was made for this mod, down to the music of each place and the title theme.
• Warped music: the vanilla soundtrack plays slower and lower as the story goes on.
• Screen effects: film grain, colour shifts, camera shake and animated jumpscares.
• Title screen: its own, with its own music. Keep an eye on the background every time you start the game.
• Discord status: shows that you are playing Signal Lost and where you are. No other mod needed.

Multiplayer

The whole server shares one story, and everyone sees the Host's replies. Most scares happen only to the player they target, so nobody can back up what you heard. It knows who you play with, and it is not above using that. And when you sleep at the same time, you dream together.

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Configuration

Mods → Signal Lost → Config in-game. Almost everything can be switched off or tuned: how often events happen, hostile creatures, creatures breaking blocks (creaturesDig), world changes (worldEdits), chat replies, dreams, jumpscares, fake screens, menu tricks, screen effects and the Discord status.

Commands (operators): /signallost event | dream | wake | stage | status | reset

Compatibility

• Essential and FancyMenu: with either installed, Signal Lost restyles the vanilla title screen instead of replacing it, so their menus keep working.
• World changes: structures are only built into natural ground, never on water. Some events take torches, open doors and leave notes in chests. worldEdits = false turns all of it off.
• Modpacks: the Host's replies are a datapack file (data/signallost/signal_responses/), so you can add your own.

Things you should know

• Nothing it shows is a real error. Its fake error screens close by themselves after a few seconds.
• Files: it writes a few plain .txt files to <game folder>/signallost/ as part of the puzzle. Nothing is read from or sent anywhere. This can be switched off.
• Menus: once per world the pause menu does not want to let you go. It always does after a few seconds. menuTricks = false turns this off.
• Vanilla changes: the tutorial hints and recipe toasts are hidden, and the splash texts are its own.

Credits

• Code, models, textures, music and most sounds are original work made for this mod.
• Recorded sounds (cut and edited for this mod): "Female Scream Horror" by NeoPhyTe and "Death" by Roman K (SoundBible, public domain); "Door" by Joseph Sardin (BigSoundBank, CC0).
• Creature sounds made with ElevenLabs Sound Effects.
• The spoken voice lines were made with Microsoft Windows text-to-speech and then heavily processed.
• License: All Rights Reserved for the mod's own work. The recorded sounds above keep their own licenses.

More from me

I also make Pangobot, a Discord bot for moderation, logging, tickets and levels, set up from one web dashboard. Most of it is free.